Shopee
Scraping Teardown
Find out everything you need to know to reliably scrape Shopee,
including scraping guides, Github Repos, proxy performance and more.
Shopee Web Scraping Overview
Shopee implements multiple layers of protection to prevent automated data extraction. This section provides an overview of its anti-bot systems and common challenges faced when scraping, along with insights into how these protections work and potential strategies to navigate them.
Scraping Summary
Shopee is a leading Southeast Asia and Taiwan's ecommerce platform. From the perspective of web scraping, Shopee is quite popular due to the vast amount of data about products, reviews and pricing information it contains. However, Shopee employs several anti-scraping mechanisms, which include bot detection systems, IP blocking and captchas. For successful scraping, it's required to use proxies and proper user-agents, and to respect the rate limits. From a parsing perspective, Shopee presents a moderate difficulty as some content might be loaded dynamically which requires handling JavaScript rendering.
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Best Shopee Proxies
Proxy statistics and optimal proxy providers for scraping Shopee. Learn which proxy types work best, their success rates, and how to minimize bans with the right provider.
Shopee Anti-Bots
Anti-scraping systems used by Shopee to prevent web scraping. These systems can make it harder and more expensive to scrape the website but can be bypassed with the right tools and strategies.
Shopee Data
Explore the key data types available for scraping and alternative methods such as public APIs, to streamline your web data extraction process.
Data Types
No data types found
Public APIs
API Description
Shopee does not provide a public API for accessing overall data. While there may be internal APIs used for internal data management and website operations, these are not advertised nor made available for public use. This means that any attempts to collect data from Shopee will need to bypass this limitation, likely through web scraping techniques or other indirect processes.
Access Requirements
Since there's no official public API, there are no official requirements for access.
API Data Available
There is no API data available.
Why People Use Web Scraping?
In this situation, web scraping becomes a valuable tool as it allows developers to extract data directly from the website's frontend. However, this method often requires advanced programming skills and a deep understanding of the website's structure. Additionally, there are various legal and ethical considerations involved in web scraping. Particularly as websites like Shopee may not appreciate unsanctioned scraping of their data. Users intending to scrape data must ensure they are in line with such regulations, potentially including obtaining permission from the respective website prior to collecting data.
Shopee Web Scraping Legality
Understand the legal considerations before scraping Shopee. Review the website's robots.txt file, terms & conditions, and any past lawsuits to assess the risks. Ensure compliance with applicable laws and minimize the chances of legal action.
Legality Review
Shopee's robots.txt file and Terms of Service suggest a tightly regulated approach to automated web access, providing limited permissions to public, non-personal data provided terms are strictly respected. While its rules and community policies do permit scraping of certain data, any attempts to bypass the restrictions, extract personally identifiable information, or disregard the Terms of Service constitutes a violation. It's important to note that while the enforceability of these rules may vary, Shopee is clear in its intent to protect data on both its public and logged-in site areas.
The primary areas of legal risk stem from scraping and accessing data behind login protections, extraction of personal or sensitive data, or any attempts to circumvent access controls such as rate limits, logins, and CAPTCHAs. It's critical to realize that the risk gets more substantial when logged in, as users have explicitly agreed to Shopee's terms. Consequently, most developers aim to maintain respectful crawling, avoid accessing protected sections, and take appropriate care in dealing with personal information to maintain legality in their operations.
Shopee Robots.txt
Does Shopee robot.txt permit web scraping?
Summary
The robots.txt file for Shopee notably prohibits automated interaction for general web crawlers on several parts of the site, yet permits particular ones under clear circumstances. The file repeatedly specifies certain rules such as Disallow: /*widget_service=, Disallow: /*get_vouchers=, and Disallow: /*get_shop_location=, which collectively restrict access to various crucial sections of the website. The denial applies to general User-agent: *, indicating that it is applicable to all generic web scrapers rather than specific bots.
However, we also notice some allowances mentioned for definite paths in the robots.txt file, including Allow: /buyer_cancel/refund_progress/, Allow: /api/v0/buyer_pusher/, Allow: /api/v1/logs/ among others. This practically suggests that Shopee allows web scrappers limited access to certain parts of the site while restricted areas remain protected. Be that as it may, the Sitemap: https://shopee.com/sitemap.xml directive still helps web scrapers in achieving a guided discovery. The above analysis reveals that the robots.txt file of Shopee exhibits a restrictive approach generally towards web scraping, albeit with select permissions to specific paths.
Shopee Terms & Conditions
Does Shopee Terms & Conditions permit web scraping?
Summary
The terms of service for Shopee include restrictions and qualifications regarding automated access and data extraction. Shopee's policies and community statements clarify that some scraping of publicly accessible, non-personally identifiable product data is allowed if you "avoid PII: don’t collect personally identifiable information," "respect robots.txt," and "comply with Shopee’s Terms of Service and anti-scraping requirements (including protection laws)"[1]. This framework suggests that scraping is neither universally forbidden nor freely permitted; compliance with specific boundaries (public-only data, no personal information, no circumvention of access controls) is required, and the restrictions are intended to cover both public and logged-in site areas. Enforceability may depend on whether you have explicitly agreed to the terms, but Shopee presents these rules as universally applicable regardless of explicit agreement.
Shopee provides an official API (Shopee Open Platform)[9], and its terms caution against attempting to bypass access controls such as logins, rate limits, and CAPTCHAs. The use of scraping is explicitly policed through both technological (rate limiting, CAPTCHA, anti-bot fingerprinting, forced logins) and policy means, and community guidance repeatedly warns that "bypassing anti-bot protections, creating fake accounts, or ignoring legal boundaries can put you at risk"[3]. Consequences mentioned or implied include IP blocking, account suspension, and possible legal remedies. Therefore, scraping is only allowed under specific conditions: limiting to public, non-personal data while respecting Shopee’s barriers and terms of use.
Shopee Lawsuits
Legal Actions Against Scrapers: A history of lawsuits filed by the website owner against scrapers and related entities, highlighting legal disputes, claims, and outcomes.
Lawsuits Summary
Shopee has not been involved in any known legal disputes related to web scraping.
Found 0 lawsuits
Shopee Github Repos
Find the best open-source scrapers for Shopee on Github. Clone them and start scraping straight away.
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Code Level
Stars
Sorry, there is no github repo available.
Shopee Web Scraping Articles
Find the best web scraping articles for Shopee. Learn how to get started scraping Shopee.
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Shopee Web Scraping Videos
Find the best web scraping videos for Shopee. Learn how to get started scraping Shopee.