Nintendo Switch availability monitor

Nintendo Switch is a very popular game console and people often find it out of stock in online stores. In this tutorial, we'll use iHook to monitor Nintendo Switch availability on Target.com, and receive an email notification when it is in stock.

1. Setup HTTP request

After logging into iHook dashboard, click the CREATE TASK button at the top left corner, then you will see the task creation form:

Under the Request Settings and Request Schedule sections, provide the following values:

Field	Value	Notes
Task Name	Nintendo Switch monitor - Target	The name of the task
URL	https://redsky.target.com/v3/pdp/tcin/77464002?excludes=taxonomy&key=eb2551e4accc14f38cc42d32fbc2b2ea	Target.com API that returns Nintendo Switch availability
Request Method	GET
Request Headers	None	No headers are needed
Request Schedule	Every 1 day	The task will run once every day

This tells the task to issue a GET request to the Target.com API endpoint once every day for Nintendo Switch availability information.

2. Create email notification

The Target API returns the following data in JSON format, which you can check by visiting the Target Nintendo Switch website and inspecting your browser's network traffic in the developer console:

Let us set up a notification condition around the API response's online availability property, so we can get notified when Switch is in stock. Under the Notification section, click the ADD button next to the Email label:

Then a notification setup dialog will show up:

Then provide the following values in the dialog:

Field	Value	Notes
Source	Response Body (JSON)	Parse the API response as JSON payload
Property	product.available_to_promise_network.online_available_to_promise_quantity	The property path for online availability information in JSON response
Comparison	greater than (number)
Target Value	0	This tells iHook that whenever the property is greater than 0, an email notification will be sent
Email	Your email address
Subject	Switch is available!	The email subject
Message	Nintendo Switch is available! Go to https://www.target.com/p/nintendo-switch-with-gray-joy-con/-/A-77464002 and order one!	The email body

This tells iHook to send an email notification whenever the Target API response body's online_available_to_promise_quantity property value is greater than 0.

Click SAVE, you will see the new email notification appear under the Notification section:

3. Save task

Click the CREATE button at the bottom of the task creation page:

Now you'll see the created task in ACTIVE state:

4. Test task

To make sure your task settings such as URL and notification rules are properly configured, it's recommended to test your task at least once by clicking the TEST button at the top of your task page. The TEST button will trigger the HTTP request right away, and evaluate all configured notification conditions.

Let us pick a stock quantity that is lower than the current value for testing purposes, say -1. Under your newly created task, modify the email notification by clicking the edit button:

Change the Target Value field from 0 to -1, then click SAVE. Now, our task should be able to send out an email notification when Switch quantity is greater than -1. Let us see that in action. Now click TEST at page top, the task page will switch to the History tab, where we can check the task status. Within a couple of seconds, you should see the execution status turn into COMPLETED:

At this point, you should receive an email triggered by the task.

If things didn't work as expected, this could happen due to a misconfigured notification condition such as an invalid JSON property path, or due to a temporary network connectivity issue. You may want to check the errors section under your execution detail for a hint:

Once verified everything is working as expected, you can revert the email notification condition by changing the Target Value back to 0, and then click SAVE.

5. Sit and wait

Congratulations! You can now sit back and wait for the iHook email notification whenever Nintendo Switch is in stock on Target.com!