What it costs delivered, not what it costs on the page
Base price plus shipping plus import fees, recorded together on every check, for Bolivia, Peru and the United States. The import figure is the one Amazon itself displays for that destination, not an estimate of ours.
Four numbers, recorded together
Every check stores four amounts side by side: base price, shipping fee, import fees, and the total they add up to. They come from a single read of one product page, at one moment, for one delivery destination. They are not stitched together from separate sources taken at separate times.
That matters because the components move independently of each other. A carrier surcharge, a change in how a seller ships, a different declared value: any of those can move the total while the item price sits still. If you only watch the item price, you find out at checkout.
The total is the figure the alerts, the charts and the per-country statistics are built on. The components stay visible underneath it, so you can always see which part moved.
Where the import figure comes from
We do not model duties. We do not estimate them, apply a rate table, or guess at a tariff category. The import fees we store are the amount Amazon itself displays for the selected delivery destination at the moment of the check.
That is a deliberate limit, and it is the reason the number is worth anything. A modelled estimate is an opinion about your shipment. A recorded figure is what Amazon was quoting. When Amazon shows nothing, we store nothing rather than filling in the gap.
It also marks the edge of what we can see. Anything your own customs or tax authority adds after the parcel lands does not appear on the product page, so it does not appear here either.
Put the alert on the fee, not on the price
A price alert can point at the total, at the base price, at the shipping fee or at the import fees. For an importer the last two are usually the interesting ones, because they are what makes the same item cost different amounts in different destinations.
For those two, use a target amount rather than a percentage. "Tell me when import fees reach this figure or go above it" works. A percentage condition is evaluated against the total and the base price only.
Conditions combine. A single alert can require the total to be at or under your landed ceiling and the item to have just become purchasable again, which is the pair that actually authorises a purchase.
Three destinations, and that is the list
We check three marketplaces: Bolivia, Peru and the United States. Not a sample of three. Not three to start with. Three.
All three are read from the same Amazon storefront, priced for delivery to that destination. The destination is applied the way you would apply it yourself, through the site's own delivery address. That is why the spread between them lands in shipping and import fees, which is exactly the spread an importer is trying to measure.
Other countries exist as rows in the system and are switched off. A row is not coverage. If you ask for one you get a refusal, and you get it before a credit is spent.
The cost of watching a lane
One credit tracks one product in one marketplace for thirty days. A second destination for the same product is a second credit. There are no refunds if you stop early, and stopping early gains you nothing, because the thirty days run either way.
Renewing extends by thirty days from the existing expiry rather than from the moment you click, so renewing early costs you no time. When a track lapses the checks stop, and the history stays exactly where it was; another credit picks it up again.
Two clocks are worth knowing before you buy in bulk. Credits granted when you create the account are good for a year. Credits you purchase are good for thirty days from the purchase, the same span as one tracking period. Buy for the lanes you are watching this month, not for the year.