search-aliexpress

Search AliExpress (Israel)

Search AliExpress with the site already pinned to the Israel channel, Hebrew locale, and ILS pricing, then optionally apply listing-page filters before returning the visible product cards.

When to use

User wants to find a product on AliExpress and cares about:

• ILS prices (not USD)
• Shipping availability to Israel
• Filtering on Choice / free shipping / 4★+ / ship-from country
• A first-pass shortlist they can hand off to evaluate-listing (downstream skill, not yet built)

Inputs

• query (required) — free-text product query. Hebrew or English both fine.
• filters (optional, any combo):
  • choice: true — Choice/Brand+ products only
  • freeshipping: true — free shipping only
  • rating4plus: true — 4★ & up only
  • premium: true — Premium Quality badge only
  • ship_from: "IL" | "CN" | "TR" | "all" — ship-from country (default: leave alone, i.e. "all")
• max_results (optional, default 20) — how many product cards to return.

Locale & currency setup

The site must render in ILS + Hebrew before scraping. Two cookies on .aliexpress.com control this (validated — see research/cookies/language-and-currency.md):

• aep_usuc_f — set subkeys c_tp=ILS and b_locale=iw_IL
• xman_us_f — set subkeys x_locale=iw_IL and intl_locale=iw_IL

Both are Secure, SameSite=None, not HttpOnly, writable from JS. region=IL and site=isr are already set on Daniel's account and should not be touched.

If the cookies are not present (fresh browser context), navigate to https://he.aliexpress.com/ once and let the site write them, then verify c_tp=ILS before continuing. If currency still shows US $ on the results page, fall back to the on-page currency picker.

Entry point

Search results URL pattern:

https://he.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-<url-encoded-query>.html

Use the he. subdomain (Hebrew). The site honours the cookies regardless, but the he. host is the canonical Israel-Hebrew entry.

Filter application

All selectors below are validated against live DOM (research/ui-selectors/listing-page-filters.md). Class names like il_v, ip_iq, ie_a6 rotate per build — never anchor on those. Always use aria-label.

Filter-row checkboxes

Click the wrapper <span>, not the inner <input>. State is reflected on the wrapper via aria-checked.

Filter	Selector
Free shipping	[aria-label="filterCode:freeshipping"]
Choice	[aria-label="filterCode:choice_atm"]
4★ & up	[aria-label="filterCode:4StarRating"]
Premium Quality	[aria-label="filterCode:PremiumQuality"]

To toggle on:

const el = document.querySelector('[aria-label="filterCode:freeshipping"]');
if (el.getAttribute('aria-checked') !== 'true') el.click();

Ship-from country (radio group)

Single-select. Options on Daniel's IL account: -1 (All) / IL / TR / CN.

document.querySelector('[aria-label="IL"]').click();   // ship from Israel

Read current selection:

document.querySelector('.il_v [aria-checked="true"]').getAttribute('aria-label');

(.il_v is hashed-prefix-stable enough to scope the read; if it rotates, fall back to scoping under the "Shipping from" header by text.)

After toggling any filter, wait for results to re-render (network idle or a short fixed delay) before reading product cards.

Reading product cards

Product cards on the results page do not have a single un-hashed anchor — class names rotate. Use a defensive query:

[...document.querySelectorAll('a[href*="/item/"]')]
  .map(a => ({
    url: a.href,
    title: a.querySelector('[class*="title"], h3, [title]')?.getAttribute('title')
        || a.querySelector('[class*="title"], h3')?.textContent?.trim(),
    priceText: a.querySelector('[class*="price"]')?.textContent?.trim(),
  }))
  .filter(c => c.url && c.title);

Extract:

• url — absolute product URL (de-dup by item id; the same item can appear via multiple ad slots)
• title — product title in Hebrew (since locale is iw_IL)
• priceText — raw price string, expected to start with ₪ since currency is ILS
• badges — read Max Combo / Choice badges from the card if present (Max Combo is a per-card badge, not a server-side filter — see research/ui-selectors/listing-page-filters.md §3)

Parse the price separately; do not assume a fixed format. Common patterns: ₪12.34, ₪1,234.56, range ₪10.00 - ₪25.00.

Output format

Return a structured block:

Query: <query>
Filters: choice=… freeshipping=… rating4plus=… premium=… ship_from=…
Locale verified: c_tp=ILS, b_locale=iw_IL
Results URL: <full URL>
Result count: <N>

1. <title>
   ₪<price>   ship from: <country if visible on card>   badges: [Choice, Max Combo, …]
   <url>

2. …

If currency verification fails (cookies didn't take), report that explicitly and stop — don't return USD prices silently.

Playwright notes

• Use a visible browser. AliExpress is aggressive about anti-bot heuristics and headless contexts get challenged more often.
• Reuse a persistent browser profile if available — the cookies above stick to that profile and you avoid the locale handshake on every run.
• Do not trigger any alert / confirm / prompt dialogs. If a cookie / consent / region modal appears on first visit, dismiss it via its own close button.
• Wait for network idle after each filter toggle; AliExpress re-fetches the result set.
• Hebrew RTL: prefer role/name and aria-label-anchored selectors over positional ones.

Out of scope (for this skill)

• Does not evaluate landed cost (item + shipping + VAT/customs) — that's evaluate-listing.
• Does not compare against local Israeli retailers — that's compare-to-local (deferred until plugin integration).
• Does not track orders.
• Does not log in — assumes the persistent profile is already authenticated if needed; public search works without login.

Validation checklist (before declaring success)

1. Results URL contains he.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-.
2. aep_usuc_f cookie has c_tp=ILS and b_locale=iw_IL.
3. At least one product price string starts with ₪ (or contains ILS).
4. Each requested filter's wrapper has aria-checked="true".
5. Ship-from selection (if requested) matches the requested ISO-2 code.