Search & Browse Gear on Sweetwater

Purpose

Search Sweetwater (the music-gear retailer) for products, browse categories, and read back fully structured data for each item — model number, brand, name, current price, list/retail price, sale and rebate flags, ratings, and new vs. used/demo/open-box condition with per-condition pricing. This skill is read-only: it never adds to cart or checks out. The recommended path uses a browserless_agent goto over a residential proxy — reading the server-rendered HTML rather than driving the UI — which returns the full page. Interactive browser navigation is blocked by PerimeterX and should not be attempted.

When to Use

• "What does the Shure SM7B cost on Sweetwater?" / look up a specific model number or product name.
• "Find all electric guitars under $500" / browse a product category and read prices.
• "Is this item on sale?" — compare finalPrice vs retailPrice and read price-drop/rebate flags.
• "Does Sweetwater have a used/demo/open-box version of X?" — read the alternate-condition pricing.
• Pull a comparison table of model numbers, brands, prices, and conditions across search results.

Workflow

Sweetwater is a Next.js storefront whose keyword search is powered by Algolia and whose category grids are server-rendered HTML. The site sits behind PerimeterX (HUMAN) bot protection that denies driven browser sessions, but a browserless_agent goto over a residential proxy that reads the first-load HTML passes cleanly.

Method A — Keyword / model-number search (Algolia __NEXT_DATA__)

1. Load the search URL over a residential proxy (browserless_agent with proxy: { proxy: "residential" }), reading the server-rendered HTML rather than driving the UI:

   { "method": "goto", "params": { "url": "https://www.sweetwater.com/store/search?s=<query>", "waitUntil": "load", "timeout": 45000 } }
   { "method": "evaluate", "params": { "content": "(()=>JSON.parse(document.getElementById('__NEXT_DATA__').textContent))()" } }

   A rendered results page (not the 'Access to this page has been denied' wall) is the success signal.
2. The evaluate returns the parsed __NEXT_DATA__ state blob directly (under .value) — no need to regex it out of raw HTML.
3. Read results from:
   • props.pageProps.hitsTotal — total match count.
   • props.pageProps.hitsPerPage — page size (42).
   • props.pageProps.resultsState.results[0].hits — the array of products.
4. For each hit, the useful fields are:
   • objectID — the model number / item id (e.g. SM7B).
   • brand, productName, genericName, longDescription.
   • price → { finalPrice, basePrice, catalogPrice, retailPrice, hasPriceDrop, isSpecialPrice, instantRebateAmount, mailInRebateAmount }. On sale ⇔ retailPrice > finalPrice OR hasPriceDrop OR isSpecialPrice OR a non-zero rebate.
   • attributes.condition — usually "New" (or "Demo" for demo-only listings).
   • attributes.alternateConditions — array of { condition, itemid, price } for used / demo / B-stock variants of the same product (e.g. { "condition":"Demo","itemid":"SM7Bd3","price":395.1 }).
   • attributes.inStock, attributes.isInStock, attributes.available, attributes.priceRange.
   • categories.lvl0 / lvl1 / lvl2 — hierarchical category path.
   • rating → { average, count, reviewUrl }; url — relative product-detail path; specialOffer, financing.

Method B — Category browse (server-rendered product cards)

1. Category URLs come in two shapes, both fetchable the same way:
   • Human-readable: /shop/<group>/<subcategory>/ (e.g. /shop/guitars/electric-guitars/).
   • ID-based: /c<ID>--<Name> (e.g. /c590--Solidbody_Guitars). Find them in the homepage / search-page navigation, or the category landing /shop/by-category/.

   // browserless_agent with proxy: { proxy: "residential" }
   {
     "method": "goto",
     "params": {
       "url": "https://www.sweetwater.com/c590--Solidbody_Guitars",
       "waitUntil": "load",
       "timeout": 45000,
     },
   }

2. Category pages do not carry __NEXT_DATA__. Parse the server-rendered grid in an evaluate (return a compact projection, not the raw HTML): each product is a <div class="product-card …" data-itemid="<MODEL#>" …> containing:
   • data-itemid — the model number.
   • product-card__name — full product name.
   • the price text (e.g. $359.99) and product-card__offers (e.g. "$300.00 Off While Supplies Last").
   • used/open-box availability as "Certified Open Box available for $X" inside the card.
   • an <a href="/store/detail/…"> link to the product detail page. There is also a small ItemList JSON-LD block, but it lists only the top ~5 featured items — use the data-itemid cards for the full grid.

Method C — Used / demo / open-box gear

• Used and demo variants surface inline in both methods (Algolia attributes.alternateConditions; category cards' "Certified Open Box available for $X").
• A dedicated used-gear hub exists at https://www.sweetwater.com/used (also reachable with the same residential-proxy goto).

Browser fallback

There is effectively no interactive fallback. Driving any sweetwater.com URL (clicks/scroll) returns "Access to this page has been denied" (PerimeterX), and a residential-proxy session left to auto-solve the "Press & Hold" challenge for 25s+ still does not pass. Do not spend budget driving the page — read the server-rendered HTML on first load via goto + evaluate (above).

Site-Specific Gotchas

• Anti-bot wall (interactive path is dead): sweetwater.com is behind PerimeterX/HUMAN. Both the homepage and /store/search return a 403 / "Access to this page has been denied" page when the browser is driven, even over a residential proxy with a long CAPTCHA-solve wait. The only reliable path is a browserless_agent goto over a residential proxy that reads the server-rendered HTML on first load (returns the full page).
• The residential proxy is mandatory. A no-proxy goto was not relied upon; always pass proxy: { proxy: "residential" }.
• Parse in-page, don't ship raw HTML back. The category grid can be large; run the product-card parsing (and the __NEXT_DATA__ read) inside an evaluate and return only the projected fields — the agent/function text return is capped (~200k chars).
• Two different search systems. Keyword search (/store/search) is Algolia (indexName: production_products) and exposes clean JSON in __NEXT_DATA__. Category pages (/shop/…, /c<ID>--…) are server-rendered HTML with no __NEXT_DATA__ — parse product-card markup instead.
• Generic queries redirect to a category page. A query that exactly matches a category name — e.g. s=microphone, s=guitar — 307-redirects to a /shop/<cat>/… category page, which has no Algolia JSON. With goto the redirect is followed automatically: you'll land on a category page whose HTML has no __NEXT_DATA__ — detect the missing __NEXT_DATA__ (or the final /shop/ URL) and switch to Method B (product-card parsing). Model numbers and specific terms (e.g. sm7b) stay on the Algolia search page and keep __NEXT_DATA__.
• Don't abandon the read path on a single transient block. One "Access denied" can be a cold-proxy fluke — retry the goto once with a fresh residential proxy before concluding the wall is up. Never fall back to driving the UI; that path is dead.
• Pagination: results are paged at hitsPerPage = 42. props.pageProps carries the current page's hits; for more results, request additional pages (the search page is paginated — small result sets like sm7b (13 hits) fit on one page).
• Sale detection is multi-signal. Don't rely on a single field: an item is discounted if retailPrice > finalPrice, or hasPriceDrop === true, or isSpecialPrice === true, or instantRebateAmount/mailInRebateAmount > 0. specialOffer (when non-null) describes promos.
• Model number = objectID in Algolia and data-itemid on category cards — these are the canonical Sweetwater item IDs you can feed into /store/detail/<itemid>--<slug>.

Expected Output

Keyword search (Method A)

{
  "method": "fetch",
  "query": "sm7b",
  "hits_total": 13,
  "hits_per_page": 42,
  "products": [
    {
      "model_number": "SM7B",
      "brand": "Shure",
      "name": "SM7B Dynamic Cardioid Vocal Microphone",
      "final_price": 439,
      "retail_price": 549,
      "on_sale": false,
      "price_drop": false,
      "instant_rebate": 0,
      "condition": "New",
      "alternate_conditions": [
        { "condition": "Demo", "itemid": "SM7Bd3", "price": 395.1 }
      ],
      "in_stock": true,
      "categories": [
        "Studio & Recording",
        "Microphones & Wireless",
        "Dynamic Microphones"
      ],
      "rating": { "average": 5, "count": 258 },
      "url": "/store/detail/SM7B--shure-sm7b-cardioid-dynamic-vocal-microphone"
    }
  ]
}

Generic query redirected to a category (307 → Method B)

{
  "method": "fetch",
  "query": "microphone",
  "redirected": true,
  "redirect_status": 307,
  "category_url": "/shop/studio-recording/microphones/",
  "note": "Generic category-name query redirected; re-fetch the category URL and parse product-card markup (Method B)."
}

Category browse (Method B)

{
  "method": "fetch",
  "category": "/c590--Solidbody_Guitars",
  "products": [
    {
      "model_number": "PAC112VVSB",
      "brand": "Yamaha",
      "name": "Yamaha PAC112V Pacifica Electric Guitar - Old Violin Sunburst",
      "price": 359.99,
      "offer": null,
      "open_box": null,
      "url": "/store/detail/PAC112VVSB--yamaha-pac112v-pacifica-old-violin-sunburst"
    }
  ]
}

Blocked (browser path attempted)

{
  "method": "browser",
  "success": false,
  "error_reasoning": "PerimeterX denied the driven session ('Access to this page has been denied'). Read the server-rendered HTML via a browserless_agent `goto` over a residential proxy instead — don't drive the UI."
}