Price tracking methodology
How Firearm Data Lab tracks prices
Firearm Data Lab is built to answer a simple shopping question: is this actually a good current price, or is it just a retailer sale label?
Local scraper first, public site second
Retailer pages and feeds are collected into a local scraper database. Only cleaned product, price, stock, and history data are synced to the public site, which keeps the shopping pages fast while preserving a source-of-truth scrape record.
Price changes, not fake check counts
Price history records meaningful price changes rather than writing a new duplicate snapshot every time a product is checked at the same price. Product pages still show the last checked or source verification date when that signal is available.
Deals require history
Today Deals are not based only on retailer MSRP or sale badges. Current price drops must clear minimum movement checks and, for price deals, beat the product's prior tracked low enough to avoid spike-and-return false deals.