How to use residential proxies to scrape eBay data

In this article, we will discuss:

• Why residential proxies are more suitable for scraping data

• Steps for scraping eBay data with Python

• Common problems and solutions

Why choose residential proxies to scrape data

Looks more natural: Residential proxies come from home users and look more like real personal networks. In contrast, data center IPs usually come from servers that are used by a large number of devices in a centralized manner, and this pattern is easily detected by websites.

More difficult to block: In order to prevent automated scraping of data, websites usually block some frequently accessed IP addresses. Since residential proxies are distributed in different households, they are less likely to be blocked at once. It is difficult for websites to block all residential proxies.

Support multi-regional scraping: Residential proxies come from different regions and countries, which allows you to simulate users from different places visiting the website. This is very helpful for tasks that require obtaining data from a specific region.

Less restricted: Data center proxies are prone to restrictions due to frequent use, while residential proxies are used less frequently and are less likely to attract the attention of websites, thus reducing the risk of being restricted.

Python crawling eBay data steps

Next, we will use crawling eBay product prices as an example to explain the steps for data crawling

Install Python

If you don't have Python installed, you can visit the [Python official website]and choose the appropriate Python version to install according to your operating system.

Install necessary Python libraries

We need to install some Python libraries to help us crawl data. Open the command line and enter the following commands to install these libraries: pip install requests beautifulsoup4

The functions of these libraries are:

- requests: Help us send network requests to eBay.

- beautifulsoup4: Help us parse web page content.

Get residential proxy IP

In order to crawl eBay data, we need to use residential proxy IP to avoid being banned by eBay.

LunaProxy is a cost-effective residential proxy provider. Among them, dynamic residential proxies are very suitable for scraping data. You can go to [Dynamic Residential Proxy]  to buy proxies. For extracting proxies, you can refer to the tutorial: [Dynamic Residential Proxy Extraction Tutorial] 

Write Python code

1. Create a Python file

- Open Python editor: Open a new file with your favorite editor (such as Notepad++, VS Code, Sublime Text).

- Save the file: Save the file as `ebay_scraper.py`. Make sure the file extension is `.py` so that Python can recognize it as a script file.

2. Write code

Configure the proxy IP: Replace 'your.proxy.ip' and '8080' with the IP and port you get from lunaproxy

Set the target URL and request: The URL setting is the link to the page you need to crawl

4. Run the Python script

(1) Open the command line:

- Switch to the directory where you saved the `ebay_scraper.py` file. You can use the `cd` command to change directories. For example, if your file is in the "Documents" folder:

cd Documents

(2) Run the script:

- Enter the following command to run the Python script:

python ebay_scraper.py

- If everything goes well, you will see the title and price information of the eBay item output in the command line.

Common problems and solutions

Unable to connect to the proxy server

- Solution: Check whether the proxy IP and port are entered correctly. Make sure your network settings allow access to the Internet through the proxy. You can try to use the test tool provided by the proxy service provider to verify whether the proxy is working properly.

No data was captured

- Solution: eBay's web page structure may have changed. Check if the HTML structure of the web page has changed, and adjust the tag class names in the parsing code according to the new structure. For example, `'s-item__info'`, `'s-item__title'`, and `'s-item__price'` may need to be updated.

Python script running error

- Solution: Make sure you have installed all the necessary libraries according to the steps and there are no spelling errors in the Python code. You can refer to the error message for troubleshooting, which usually indicates where the problem is.

Through the above steps, you have learned how to use Python and residential proxy IP to crawl eBay product price information. I hope this detailed tutorial is helpful to you. When crawling data, please abide by the website's terms of use, use proxies reasonably, and avoid excessive crawling.