AliExpress is a goldmine for dropshippers and product researchers who need to track prices, ratings, and order volumes. Unlike Amazon, AliExpress embeds its product data as a JSON object inside the page (window.runParams) rather than in plain HTML — so the reliable approach is to extract and parse that JSON blob. The samples below fetch the page through the Bright Data Web Unlocker and pull out the title and price.
Prerequisites
export PROXY_URL="http://brd-customer-<id>-zone-<unblocker_zone>:<password>@brd.superproxy.io:22225"
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Products are identified by their numeric item ID from the URL: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/<id>.html.
Each sample uses a small balanced-brace extractor to grab the JSON object assigned to window.runParams — more robust than a regex against deeply nested JSON.
PHP
<?php
// Run: php aliexpress.php 1005006789012345
$proxy = getenv('PROXY_URL');
$itemId = $argv[1] ?? '1005006789012345';
$ch = curl_init("https://www.aliexpress.com/item/$itemId.html");
curl_setopt_array($ch, [
CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION => true,
CURLOPT_PROXY => $proxy,
CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER => false,
CURLOPT_TIMEOUT => 60,
CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => ['Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.9'],
]);
$html = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
/** Extract the first balanced {...} object that follows $marker. */
function extract_json_after(string $html, string $marker): ?array {
$pos = strpos($html, $marker);
if ($pos === false) return null;
$start = strpos($html, '{', $pos);
if ($start === false) return null;
$depth = 0; $inStr = false; $esc = false;
for ($i = $start, $n = strlen($html); $i < $n; $i++) {
$c = $html[$i];
if ($inStr) {
if ($esc) $esc = false;
elseif ($c === '\\') $esc = true;
elseif ($c === '"') $inStr = false;
} elseif ($c === '"') $inStr = true;
elseif ($c === '{') $depth++;
elseif ($c === '}' && --$depth === 0) {
return json_decode(substr($html, $start, $i - $start + 1), true);
}
}
return null;
}
$data = extract_json_after($html, 'window.runParams') ?? [];
$d = $data['data'] ?? $data;
$product = [
'itemId' => $itemId,
'title' => $d['titleModule']['subject'] ?? null,
'price' => $d['priceModule']['formatedActivityPrice']
?? $d['priceModule']['formatedPrice'] ?? null,
];
echo json_encode($product, JSON_PRETTY_PRINT | JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE), PHP_EOL;
Node.js
// aliexpress.mjs — node aliexpress.mjs 1005006789012345
// Install: npm i axios https-proxy-agent
import axios from 'axios';
import { HttpsProxyAgent } from 'https-proxy-agent';
const agent = new HttpsProxyAgent(process.env.PROXY_URL);
const itemId = process.argv[2] ?? '1005006789012345';
const { data: html } = await axios.get(
`https://www.aliexpress.com/item/${itemId}.html`,
{ httpsAgent: agent, proxy: false, timeout: 60_000,
headers: { 'Accept-Language': 'en-US,en;q=0.9' } },
);
function extractJsonAfter(html, marker) {
const m = html.indexOf(marker);
if (m === -1) return null;
const start = html.indexOf('{', m);
if (start === -1) return null;
let depth = 0, inStr = false, esc = false;
for (let i = start; i < html.length; i++) {
const c = html[i];
if (inStr) {
if (esc) esc = false;
else if (c === '\\') esc = true;
else if (c === '"') inStr = false;
} else if (c === '"') inStr = true;
else if (c === '{') depth++;
else if (c === '}' && --depth === 0) {
return JSON.parse(html.slice(start, i + 1));
}
}
return null;
}
const data = extractJsonAfter(html, 'window.runParams') ?? {};
const d = data.data ?? data;
console.log(JSON.stringify({
itemId,
title: d.titleModule?.subject ?? null,
price: d.priceModule?.formatedActivityPrice ?? d.priceModule?.formatedPrice ?? null,
}, null, 2));
Rust
// Cargo.toml:
// reqwest = { version = "0.12", features = ["blocking"] }
// serde_json = "1"
use serde_json::Value;
fn extract_json_after(html: &str, marker: &str) -> Option<Value> {
let m = html.find(marker)?;
let start = html[m..].find('{')? + m;
let bytes = html.as_bytes();
let (mut depth, mut in_str, mut esc) = (0i32, false, false);
for i in start..bytes.len() {
let c = bytes[i] as char;
if in_str {
if esc { esc = false; }
else if c == '\\' { esc = true; }
else if c == '"' { in_str = false; }
} else {
match c {
'"' => in_str = true,
'{' => depth += 1,
'}' => {
depth -= 1;
if depth == 0 {
return serde_json::from_str(&html[start..=i]).ok();
}
}
_ => {}
}
}
}
None
}
fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
let item_id = std::env::args().nth(1).unwrap_or_else(|| "1005006789012345".into());
let client = reqwest::blocking::Client::builder()
.proxy(reqwest::Proxy::all(std::env::var("PROXY_URL")?)?)
.danger_accept_invalid_certs(true)
.build()?;
let html = client
.get(format!("https://www.aliexpress.com/item/{item_id}.html"))
.header("Accept-Language", "en-US,en;q=0.9")
.send()?
.text()?;
let data = extract_json_after(&html, "window.runParams").unwrap_or(Value::Null);
let d = if data.get("data").is_some() { &data["data"] } else { &data };
let price = d["priceModule"]["formatedActivityPrice"]
.as_str()
.or_else(|| d["priceModule"]["formatedPrice"].as_str());
let product = serde_json::json!({
"itemId": item_id,
"title": d["titleModule"]["subject"].as_str(),
"price": price,
});
println!("{}", serde_json::to_string_pretty(&product)?);
Ok(())
}
Notes
- AliExpress changes its
runParamsschema periodically. IftitleModule/priceModulecome back empty, dump the extracted JSON and locate the current paths (they're usually still nested underdata). - The same JSON object also contains
skuModule(variant pricing),storeModule(seller info), and review counts — useful extras for product tracking. - To build a tracker, store
{itemId, price, timestamp}on each run, schedule via cron, and alert on price changes (see the Amazon tracker for the pattern).
See our E-commerce Web Scraping Solutions overview and How to Avoid Getting Blocked.