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Animates is New Zealand's leading pet retailer. They run a price-match guarantee program: if a customer finds a lower price at a competitor, Animates matches it.
To make that promise work, they need reliable competitor pricing data they can trust — on schedule.
They were tracking four competitors — Animates' own site (for accuracy checks), PetDirect, PetStock, and Pet.co.nz. But their scraping tool couldn't access the one competitor that mattered most.
Animates was using Import.io, a DIY scraping platform where you build and manage your own scrapers.
It worked on three of their four competitor sites. But Pet.co.nz — a key competitor — blocked their attempts completely. The anti-bot protection was too strong. Import.io couldn't get through.
Here's what that meant: every time a customer came in with a Pet.co.nz price to match, Animates had no data to verify it. They were flying blind on a major competitor.
And even on the sites that worked, there was another problem: pet retail pricing is complex. A single product page might show four different prices:
Their Import.io setup captured headline prices but missed subscription and loyalty tiers. They were getting partial data even from sites that "worked."
Animates found us through a search for scraping tools. They reached out with two requirements: crack Pet.co.nz and capture tiered pricing.
That POC changed everything. This wasn't a tool they'd have to configure and maintain. This was a managed service that delivered what they actually needed: decision-ready data from every competitor, including the one they'd given up on.
Every week, Animates receives structured pricing data across all four in-scope competitor sites. Here's what that includes:
| Field | Example |
|---|---|
| Page URL | pet.co.nz/product/dog/adult-oral-care-dry-dog-food/6017 |
| Product Name | Hill's Science Diet Adult Oral Care Dry Dog Food |
| One-Time Price Range | $44.99 - $159.99 |
| Repeat Delivery Price Range | $38.24 - $135.99 |
| First Delivery Price | $38.24 |
| Future Delivery Price | $42.74 |
For PetStock, we also track price-per-kg — so Animates can compare across different pack sizes, not just sticker prices.
These fields feed directly into their dynamic pricing algorithm via REST API. When competitor prices change, Animates sees the update in the next scheduled feed and can respond automatically.
Pet retail pricing looks simple until you try to capture it reliably.
Animates has been a customer for five years — our longest relationship.
They started with 150 SKUs across four sites. They now track 500 SKUs with up to four pricing tiers each — thousands of tiered price fields per run, without Animates maintaining scrapers.
The expansion happened because the data worked. Every week, on schedule, complete for the agreed scope. No maintenance on their end. No wondering whether Pet.co.nz data will come through this time.
Their workflow now: pricing data flows via REST API directly into their dynamic pricing system. Pricing decisions are based on fresher, more complete competitor inputs — especially for subscription and loyalty tiers. The price-match guarantee runs on reliable information.
Animates' story resonates with retailers facing similar challenges: