So I was looking at tools like CamelCamelCamel for our office refurb project next month since we need to track about 50 different standing desks and chairs across two locations. My logic was a browser extension could just log the price drops automatically. But most trackers I found online only seem to work on consumer sites like Amazon, whereas we are buying bulk from commercial suppliers. Do extensions even work on B2B catalog sites...
Unfortunately, standard consumer extensions rarely work reliably on B2B catalogs. I had issues with tracking breaking on login-walled sites. You might need custom scraping tools instead.
TL;DR: Standard extensions will choke on B2B sites because of dynamic pricing and auth walls. In my experience doing a big office reno last year, trying to use regular price trackers on commercial supplier portals was a total nightmare. Most of those sites require a logged-in account just to see pricing, which completely breaks basic web scrapers and extensions. Watch out for sites that hide bulk tiers behind quote requests too. You'll save yourself a massive headache by writing a quick Python script using BeautifulSoup or Selenium instead.
Unfortunately, standard browser extensions fall short on B2B supplier portals because of authentication walls and dynamic pricing structures. You essentially have three alternatives here. First, web scraping scripts offer high flexibility but require ongoing maintenance when site layouts change. Second, dedicated procurement software handles vendor catalogs seamlessly yet comes with steep enterprise pricing. Third, scheduled visual change detection tools provide basic alerts without complex setup. For fifty items, building a custom Python scraper using BeautifulSoup usually hits the sweet spot for cost and reliability.