Wondering if possible to query online databases for price changes

[collaredkeeper]

Hello there,

First post here and have a tough question. Any advice or insight would be amazing, as right now I am dumbfounded.

I am trying to help out my Dad, who is a contractor, update bid prices of items he buys from a wholesale supplier. The way this is currently being done, and has been done for quite a many years, is by hand and manually searching the online website of the supplier (http://shop.ferguson.com/) then updating items priced differently into his bid program. In essence, just making sure that the numbers he uses to bid with are accurate.

The problem is that my grandfather is usually the one in charge of this (he likes to do it and it gives him something to do), but his health and age are making it hard for him to do it much longer. There are also over 3,000 items in his bid program that my dad regularly bids with, so updating these are also becoming rather time consuming and inefficient.

The good thing is that the website has a very good database for prices and product codes, so finding items is not terribly hard and the product codes do not change. I have been giving it some thought and was wondering if there was any way to source the prices from the online database to an excel document or another program. Something that can make it automatically update/track the prices by command and not be such a burden to do by hand.

Hiring someone to make such a program or retrieval method isn't out of the question either (As I feel it is just out of my experience level), but I just wanted to make sure that what we want to do is possible and that I understand how best to explain it.

Again thanks for your help, its much appreciated.
Tony

similar references I have been able to find are http://www.excelforum.com/excel-gene...r-pricing.html
and http://www.cplusplus.com/forum/general/6546/ & http://www.mrexcel.com/tip103.shtml

Edit: perhaps there is just an excel function that can quote a specific item price via the online database/source code.
Example
Item Code------------Old Price----------New Price < Update for New price Command >
CCPASF203------------45.50-----------#Function