Building an Automated Taobao Flash‑Sale Bot with Python and Selenium

The author describes a personal motivation to help his girlfriend miss fewer Double‑11 deals by writing an automated script that performs the entire purchase flow on Taobao.

Step 1 – Overall Idea : Use a program to launch a browser, go to www.taobao.com , log in, open the shopping cart, wait for the sale time, and then trigger purchase and payment automatically.

Step 2 – Import Modules :

import datetime  # module
now = datetime.datetime.now().strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f')
import time
# full‑automation Python code
from selenium import webdriver

Step 3 – Open Browser and Log In :

times = "2021-11-04 21:00:00.00000000"
browser = webdriver.Chrome()
browser.get("https://www.taobao.com")
time.sleep(3)  # wait for page load
browser.find_element_by_link_text("亲，请登录").click()
# Prompt user to scan QR code for login
print(f"请尽快扫码登录")
time.sleep(10)
browser.get("https://cart.taobao.com/cart.htm")
time.sleep(3)

Because storing credentials in code is insecure, the script relies on manual QR‑code login.

Step 4 – Select All Items and Purchase at the Right Moment :

# Select all items in the cart
while True:
    try:
        if browser.find_element_by_id("J_SelectAll1"):
            browser.find_element_by_id("J_SelectAll1").click()
            break
    except:
        print("找不到购买按钮")

while True:
    now = datetime.datetime.now().strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f')
    print(now)
    if now > times:
        # Click checkout button
        while True:
            try:
                if browser.find_element_by_link_text("结 算"):
                    print("here")
                    browser.find_element_by_link_text("结 算").click()
                    print(f"主人,程序锁定商品,结算成功")
                    break
            except:
                pass
        # Click submit order button
        while True:
            try:
                if browser.find_element_by_link_text('提交订单'):
                    browser.find_element_by_link_text('提交订单').click()
                    print(f"抢购成功，请尽快付款")
            except:
                print(f"主人,我已帮你抢到商品啦,您来支付吧")
                break
        time.sleep(0.01)

The script assumes the desired products are already placed in the cart; when the preset time arrives, it selects all, proceeds to checkout, and submits the order, printing status messages throughout.