How it works

Follow these 6 simple steps to start receiving Slack alerts whenever your competitors drop their prices below yours

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Schedule
App connector: Schedule • Time to complete: 0 minutes (Auto-configured)
Why this matters: This trigger runs the price comparison check automatically every hour, so you never miss a competitor price drop without having to manually monitor their websites.

The Schedule trigger is set to run every hour at the top of the hour (like 9:00am, 10:00am, 11:00am). This automated timing ensures you get timely alerts about price changes while avoiding excessive checks that might overwhelm your Slack channel. The system handles all the scheduling automatically once you activate the workflow.

Scrape Webpage
App connector: Scraper • Time to complete: 1 minute
Why this matters: This step visits your competitor's product page and captures all the current pricing information, which becomes the foundation for the price comparison.

Enter the complete URL of your competitor's product page in the "Enter the product page URL" field. Copy and paste the exact URL from your browser, including the "https://" part. The scraper will visit this page and extract all visible content, including current prices, sale banners, and promotional text. This raw data gets passed to the AI step for intelligent price analysis.

Prompt
App connector: AI • Time to complete: 0 minutes (Auto-configured)
Why this matters: The AI analyzes the scraped webpage content to identify the actual current price, accounting for sales, promotions, and discount codes that might affect the real purchase price.

The AI prompt is pre-configured to find the current product price from the webpage content, factoring in any active sales or promotions. You can customize the prompt if needed, but the default version works well for most ecommerce sites. The AI will return just the numerical price value (without currency symbols) for accurate comparison in the next step.

Retrieve Product
App connector: Shopify • Time to complete: 1 minute
Why this matters: This step gets your current product price from Shopify so the workflow can compare it against your competitor's price.

Select your product from the dropdown menu or enter your product ID in the "Which of your products would you like to compare prices with?" field. You can find your product ID in your Shopify admin by going to Products, clicking on the specific product, and looking at the URL or product details. The system retrieves your current price and product information for the comparison.

Filter
App connector: Filter • Time to complete: 0 minutes (Auto-configured)
Why this matters: This condition determines whether to send a Slack alert by comparing your competitor's price against your price, only triggering notifications when their price drops below yours.

The Filter step automatically compares the competitor's price (from the AI analysis) with your Shopify product price. If the competitor's price is lower than yours, the workflow continues to send the Slack notification. If their price is higher or equal, the workflow stops here and no alert is sent. This prevents unnecessary notifications and focuses only on actionable competitive intelligence.

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Send Message
App connector: Slack • Time to complete: 2 minutes
Why this matters: This final step delivers the competitive pricing alert directly to your chosen Slack channel with all the relevant details you need to make pricing decisions.

Select your Slack channel from the dropdown menu in the "Which Slack channel should the message be sent to?" field. You'll need to invite the MESA Slack app to your workspace first by typing @MESA in any channel and clicking the Invite button. The message will include your product name, the competitor's current price, and a link to their product page for quick reference.

Make it your own

Customize this workflow even further:

Monitor multiple competitors for the same product
Create separate copies of this workflow for each competitor you want to track, all monitoring the same Shopify product but scraping different competitor URLs.
Track price changes across your entire product catalog
Set up multiple workflows to monitor different competitor products against your corresponding Shopify products, giving you comprehensive competitive intelligence.
Store price history in spreadsheets
Add a Google Sheets step after the Filter to log all price comparisons (both above and below your price) to build a historical database of competitive pricing trends.
Send different alerts based on price gaps
Use additional Filter steps to send urgent alerts to management when competitors drop prices significantly below yours, while sending regular updates for smaller price differences.

Frequently asked questions

What happens if the competitor's website blocks the scraper?
Some websites have anti-bot protection that might prevent the scraper from accessing their pages. If this happens consistently, try using the workflow during off-peak hours or contact us for alternative scraping strategies for that specific site.
Can I track multiple variants of the same product?
Currently, this workflow compares against the first variant of your Shopify product. To track multiple variants, you'll need to create separate workflows for each variant and specify the exact variant URLs on your competitor's site.
Will I get notified if my competitor raises their price back above mine?
No, this workflow only sends alerts when competitor prices drop below yours. If you want notifications when they raise prices back up, you'll need to create a second workflow with the Filter condition set to "greater than" instead of "less than."
What is a template?
Templates are pre-made workflows by our team of experts. Instead of building a workflow from scratch, these have all the steps needed to complete the task.
Can I personalize a template?
Yes! Every step can be customized to meet your exact requirements. Additionally, you can even add more steps and make it more sophisticated.
Are templates free?
Yes! Our entire library containing hundreds of templates are free to use and customize to your exact needs.

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