Coupang Crawling 2026 Complete Guide - Everything About Akamai Bypass

"I used requests.get to fetch the Coupang product page, but only a blank page is showing up."
— Question posted weekly on a developer community

Reading Time: 15 minutes | As of January 2026

Key Summary

Coupang web scraping has become increasingly difficult since 2024. With the introduction of Akamai Bot Manager, automation tools like Selenium, Playwright, and Puppeteer are almost entirely blocked.

Topics covered in this post:
- The exact mechanism Coupang uses to block scraping (5-step detection structure)
- Why attempts to bypass it directly fail (including code)
- 3 effective methods as of 2026
- Costs and limitations of each method (monthly comparison table)

In conclusion: Small-scale testing is possible, but stable large-scale data collection is practically impossible without specialized services.

Table of Contents

1. Who and Why Collect Coupang Data
2. Data Available from Coupang
3. Reasons for Difficulty in Coupang Scraping
4. 5-Step Detection Structure of Akamai Bot Manager
5. Common Attempts and Failure Patterns
6. Method 1: Custom Development (Advanced Users)
7. Method 2: Proxy Service Usage
8. Method 3: Utilizing Web Scraping Services
9. Cost Comparison: Which Method is Reasonable
10. Finding the Right Method for You
11. Frequently Asked Questions

1. Who and Why Collect Coupang Data

Coupang is the leading e-commerce platform in the Korean market. The demand for Coupang data is high.

Competitor Price Monitoring — Real-time tracking of own product prices on Coupang, as well as price changes of competitor products. Mainly utilized by retail brands, manufacturers, and retail companies.

Market Research & Trend Analysis — Analyzing popular products in specific categories, new product releases, and price distribution. Used by consulting firms, research institutions, and startups before entering the market.

Review Analysis — Collecting and analyzing customer reactions to own/competitor products. Used for product improvement, deriving marketing messages, and obtaining Voice of Customer (VOC) insights.

MAP (Minimum Advertised Price) Monitoring — Monitoring if resellers adhere to the minimum selling price set by brands. Used to identify sellers violating pricing policies.

Inventory & Stock Monitoring — Tracking the stock status of competing products to seize opportunities.

Manually checking this data would require visiting hundreds to thousands of product pages daily. Automation is essential for this reason.

2. Data Available from Coupang

What data can you obtain if scraping is successful? Here are the key items extractable from Coupang product pages:

Basic Product Information
- Product name, brand, category
- Selling price, discounted price, coupon applied price
- Product image URLs
- Seller information (including Rocket Delivery status)
- Product options (color, size, etc.)

Review Data
- Overall rating and number of reviews
- Individual review text, author, date
- Review images
- Star rating distribution (1-5 stars)

Sales & Inventory Information
- Sold out/restocked status
- Estimated delivery date
- Purchase count display ("10,000+ items sold")

Category/Search Data
- List and ranking of products by category
- Products displayed for search keywords
- Recommended product lists

The range of collectible data varies depending on the scraping method and scale. Simple price inquiries are relatively easy, but more sophisticated techniques are required for specialized tasks like comprehensive review collection or real-time stock monitoring.

3. Reasons for Difficulty in Coupang Scraping

Past vs. Present

Before 2022: It was possible to fetch product pages using Python requests + BeautifulSoup. Setting the User-Agent header was sufficient.

2023: Basic bot blocking was implemented. It was possible to bypass it with Selenium to some extent.

2024~Present: Akamai Bot Manager has been fully implemented. Using traditional automation tools has become nearly impossible.

Why the sudden reinforcement?

Since listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in 2021, Coupang has made significant investments in data protection and infrastructure security. Akamai is one of the largest companies in the global CDN and security market, and their Bot Manager is a top-tier solution in the bot detection field.

Specific reasons for enhanced blocking:

• Prevention of Competitor Price Collection: Preventing organized price monitoring by competitors on platforms like 11th Street, Gmarket
• Blocking Automated Purchase Bots: Preventing bot purchases of limited edition items (e.g., Rocket Delivery)
• Cost Savings on Servers: Indiscriminate crawling traffic increases actual service costs
• Protection of Data Assets: Hundreds of millions of product reviews and price histories are core assets of Coupang

4. 5-Step Detection Structure of Akamai Bot Manager

Akamai Bot Manager does not simply check IP addresses. It is a multilayer detection system consisting of 5 layers.

Layer 1: HTTP Headers & TLS Fingerprint

The first thing checked is the characteristics of the HTTP request itself.

 탐지되는 패턴:
- User-Agent가 없거나 비정상적인 값
- Accept-Language, Accept-Encoding 등 필수 헤더 누락
- 헤더 순서가 실제 브라우저와 다름
- TLS 지문(JA3/JA4 해시)이 봇 도구의 패턴과 일치

The TLS handshake pattern in Python's requests library is completely different from Chrome's. It is filtered at this stage.

Layer 2: JavaScript Execution Verification

When a Coupang page loads, Akamai's sensor script (about 70KB) is executed. This script:

• Checks if JavaScript runs correctly in the browser
• Collects response values of browser APIs like navigator, window, document
• Generates fingerprints for WebGL, Canvas, AudioContext, etc.
• Encrypts the collected data and sends it to the Akamai server
• Issues the _abck cookie upon verification (no data access without this cookie)

Tools that do not execute JavaScript (requests, curl, Scrapy) cannot receive this cookie and are blocked.

Layer 3: Browser Fingerprinting

The browser fingerprint collected by the sensor script is very detailed:

Selenium typically sets navigator.webdriver = true by default. Just this one setting immediately marks it as a bot.

Layer 4: Behavior Analysis (Most Difficult to Circumvent)

Akamai analyzes user behavior patterns:

• Mouse Trajectory: Humans do not move in straight lines. There are slight tremors and curves. Akamai measures the entropy of these trajectories.
• Keyboard Input: Analyzes typing speed and key spacing (keystroke dynamics). If all characters are entered with the same spacing, it's a bot.
• Scroll Patterns: Automated scrolling maintains a constant speed, but humans stop at points of interest, skip quickly, and backtrack.
• Page Dwell Time: Extracting data and leaving the page 0.5 seconds after loading is a typical automation pattern.
• Click Coordinates: Clicking exactly the same coordinates every time is not a human behavior.

Layer 5: IP Reputation & Rate Limiting

• Multiple requests from the same IP in a short time → immediate block
• Data center IPs (AWS, GCP, Azure, etc.) → significantly increased suspicion score
• VPN service IP ranges → blacklisted
• Previously blocked IPs → permanently blacklisted

To receive normal data, all 5 layers must be passed. Failing in any one layer results in a block.

5. Common Attempts and Failure Patterns

Representative failure cases experienced by developers attempting Coupang scraping.

Attempt 1: requests + BeautifulSoup

import requests
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

url = "https://www.coupang.com/vp/products/12345678"
headers = {
    "User-Agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) "
                  "AppleWebKit/537.36 Chrome/120.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"
}
response = requests.get(url, headers=headers)
print(response.status_code)  # 403 Forbidden
print(len(response.text))     # 빈 HTML 또는 챌린지 페이지

Why it fails: Since JavaScript is not executed, the sensor data cannot be sent to Akamai. The issuance of the _abck cookie is impossible, leading to all requests being blocked. The TLS fingerprint is also detected using Python patterns.

Attempt 2: Selenium + ChromeDriver

from selenium import webdriver

options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
options.add_argument("--headless")  # ← 이것부터 문제
driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=options)
driver.get("https://www.coupang.com/vp/products/12345678")
# → Akamai 챌린지 페이지 또는 무한 로딩

Why it fails: navigator.webdriver is set to true, triggering immediate detection at Layer 3. Even with undetected-chromedriver, after 2024, Akamai sensor v3 detects additional automation traces (such as CDP connections).

Attempt 3: Playwright + Stealth Plugin

from playwright.sync_api import sync_playwright

with sync_playwright() as p:
    browser = p.chromium.launch(headless=False)  # Headed 모드
    context = browser.new_context()
    page = context.new_page()
    page.goto("https://www.coupang.com/vp/products/12345678")
    # 가끔 성공 → 그러나 10회 중 3~4회만 통과

Why it's unreliable: In Headed mode, it can pass through Layers 1-3, but it gets blocked at Layer 4 (Behavior Analysis) and Layer 5 (Rate Limiting) during large-scale scraping. The success rate fluctuates, making it unsuitable for production use.

Attempt 4: Scrapy + Rotating Proxies

# settings.py
ROTATING_PROXY_LIST = [...]
DOWNLOADER_MIDDLEWARES = {
    'rotating_proxies.middlewares.RotatingProxyMiddleware': 610,
}

Why it fails: Scrapy is an HTTP client. Even if proxies are rotated, JavaScript cannot be executed, leading to a complete block at Layer 2. Changing IPs only solves one of the 5 layers.

6. Method 1: Custom Development (Advanced Users)

To bypass all layers directly, a significant level of technical expertise is required.

Required Tech Stack

1. Playwright 또는 Puppeteer + Stealth 플러그인
2. 주거용(Residential) 프록시 풀 — 한국 IP 필수
3. 브라우저 지문 위장 (fingerprint randomization)
4. 행동 시뮬레이션 (마우스 궤적, 키보드, 스크롤)
5. 캡챠 풀이 서비스 연동 (2Captcha, CapSolver 등)
6. 분산 실행 인프라 (Docker + 작업 큐)
7. 모니터링 & 자동 복구 시스템

Minimum Implementation Example

#  교육 목적 예시입니다. 실제 대규모 수집에는 부족합니다.

import asyncio
from playwright.async_api import async_playwright
import random

async def scrape_coupang_product(product_url: str):
    async with async_playwright() as p:
        # Headed 모드로 실행 (Headless는 거의 항상 차단됨)
        browser = await p.chromium.launch(
            headless=False,
            args=[
                '--disable-blink-features=AutomationControlled',
                '--disable-dev-shm-usage',
                '--no-sandbox',
            ]
        )

        # 실제 브라우저와 유사한 컨텍스트 설정
        context = await browser.new_context(
            viewport={'width': 1920, 'height': 1080},
            user_agent=(
                'Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) '
                'AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) '
                'Chrome/121.0.0.0 Safari/537.36'
            ),
            locale='ko-KR',
            timezone_id='Asia/Seoul',
        )

        # navigator.webdriver 제거
        await context.add_init_script("""
            Object.defineProperty(navigator, 'webdriver', {
                get: () => undefined
            });
        """)

        page = await context.new_page()

        # 1단계: 메인 페이지에서 시작 (직접 URL보다 탐지 회피율 높음)
        await page.goto('https://www.coupang.com', wait_until='networkidle')
        await asyncio.sleep(random.uniform(3, 6))  # 사람처럼 대기

        # 2단계: 검색으로 자연스럽게 진입
        search_box = page.locator('input[name="q"]')
        await search_box.click()
        await asyncio.sleep(random.uniform(0.5, 1.5))

        # 사람처럼 한 글자씩 타이핑
        keyword = "노트북"
        for char in keyword:
            await page.keyboard.type(char, delay=random.randint(80, 200))
            await asyncio.sleep(random.uniform(0.05, 0.15))

        await asyncio.sleep(random.uniform(1, 2))
        await page.keyboard.press("Enter")
        await page.wait_for_load_state('networkidle')
        await asyncio.sleep(random.uniform(2, 4))

        # 3단계: 스크롤 시뮬레이션 (사람처럼 불규칙하게)
        for _ in range(random.randint(2, 5)):
            scroll_amount = random.randint(200, 600)
            await page.mouse.wheel(0, scroll_amount)
            await asyncio.sleep(random.uniform(0.5, 2.0))

        # 4단계: 상품 정보 추출
        title = await page.text_content('.prod-buy-header__title')
        price = await page.text_content('.total-price strong')

        print(f"상품명: {title}")
        print(f"가격: {price}")

        await browser.close()

# 실행
asyncio.run(scrape_coupang_product("https://www.coupang.com/vp/products/12345678"))

Realistic Cost of Custom Development

The biggest risk is maintenance. Akamai updates the sensor script every 2-4 weeks. The code that worked yesterday may suddenly be blocked today. Dealing with this requires several hours to days each time.

7. Method 2: Proxy Service Usage

What is Residential Proxy?

A proxy that connects through actual residential ISPs (KT, SKT, LGU+, etc.) instead of data center IPs. It is difficult for Akamai to block based solely on IP since it uses IPs identical to real users.

Comparison of Major Proxy Services

Is Proxy Alone Sufficient?

No. Proxies only solve Layer 5 (IP Reputation & Rate Limiting). The other 4 layers still need to be implemented directly:

• IP Reputation/Rate Limiting → Solved by proxies
• TLS Fingerprint → Requires separate handling
• JavaScript Execution → Requires tools like Playwright
• Browser Fingerprint → Requires Stealth plugin
• Behavior Analysis → Requires simulation code

Ultimately, proxy services solve the IP blocking issue but are not standalone solutions.

8. Method 3: Utilizing Web Scraping Services

If handling all 5 layers is challenging, using services that have already solved it is practical.

Bright Data Web Scraper API

import requests

# Bright Data Scraping Browser API
response = requests.post(
    "https://api.brightdata.com/request",
    headers={"Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_TOKEN"},
    json={
        "zone": "scraping_browser",
        "url": "https://www.coupang.com/vp/products/12345678",
        "format": "raw"
    }
)

• Price: Scraping Browser $499/month+, Web Unlocker $499/month+ (approx. ₩730,000+)
• Success Rate on Coupang: High (possesses proprietary anti-bot bypass technology)
• Advantages: Global coverage, stable infrastructure
• Limitations: No Korean language technical support, self-service model requiring parsing/data processing implementation, no Coupang-specific optimization

Firecrawl

from firecrawl import FirecrawlApp

app = FirecrawlApp(api_key="fc-YOUR-KEY")
result = app.scrape_url(
    "https://www.coupang.com/vp/products/12345678",
    params={"formats": ["markdown"]}
)

• Price: Starting from $19/month (500 credits, Stealth Proxy consumes 5 credits per page)
• Coupang Results: Blocked. Even with Stealth Proxy enabled, it cannot bypass Akamai Bot Manager. As of January 2026 testing.

HashScraper

import requests

# 해시스크래퍼 크롤링 API
response = requests.post(
    "https://mcp.hashscraper.com/v1/scrape",
    headers={"X-API-Key": "YOUR_KEY"},
    json={
        "url": "https://www.coupang.com/vp/products/12345678",
        "options": {
            "antibot": "akamai",
            "region": "kr"
        }
    }
)

data = response.json()
print(data["title"])       # 상품명
print(data["price"])       # 가격
print(data["rating"])      # 평점
print(data["reviewCount"]) # 리뷰 수

• Price: Subscription-based (Basic starting from ₩3,000,000/month, includes custom crawler + maintenance + technical support)
• Success Rate on Coupang: Stable (possesses proprietary anti-bot bypass technology for Akamai, CloudFlare, Naver Captcha, etc.)
• Differentiator: Specializes in Korean sites, includes custom crawler development, Korean language technical support, data formatting/cleansing provided, used by 500+ B2B companies

Bright Data vs. HashScraper: What's the Difference

At first glance, Bright Data ($499) seems cheaper than HashScraper (from ₩3,000,000). However, the scope of services provided differs:

Bright Data offers "raw materials," while HashScraper offers "finished products." If you have internal crawling developers, Bright Data is reasonable; otherwise, HashScraper is more cost-effective in terms of total cost of ownership (TCO).

9. Cost Comparison: Which Method is Reasonable

Monthly Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Comparison — Based on 10,000 pages/month

Which Method Should You Choose

Custom Development — For companies where crawling is a core competency or for learning/research purposes.

Bright Data — When global site crawling is the main goal and there are internal developers. Suitable for collecting data from not only Coupang but also international sites like Amazon, eBay.

HashScraper — When targeting Korean sites like Coupang, Naver, Instagram, and wanting to focus development resources on the core business rather than crawling. When you want to receive data immediately without a development team.

10. Finding the Right Method for You

By answering the questions below, you can find the most suitable method.

Q1. 내부에 크롤링 경험이 있는 개발자가 있나요?
│
├── 아니오 → 해시스크래퍼 (풀서비스)
│
└── 예
    │
    Q2. 쿠팡 외에 해외 사이트도 크롤링하나요?
    │
    ├── 예 → Bright Data API + 내부 개발
    │
    └── 한국 사이트 위주
        │
        Q3. 크롤링이 회사의 핵심 역량인가요?
        │
        ├── 예 → 직접 구축
        │
        └── 아니오 → 해시스크래퍼 (개발자 시간 절약)

The key criterion is "where to allocate the developer's time." If your team can spend several hours weekly on crawler maintenance, custom development is reasonable. However, in most companies, a developer's time should be spent on core products.

11. Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Is Coupang scraping illegal?

Collecting information from publicly available web pages is not explicitly illegal under Korean law. However, consider the following:

• Coupang's terms of service restrict the use of automation tools
• Reselling collected data commercially may violate unfair competition laws
• Excessive crawling that burdens servers may constitute obstruction of business
• It is recommended to check and comply with robots.txt

If you plan large-scale collection for business purposes, seek legal advice or use legitimate channels (official APIs, professional services).

Q: Isn't Coupang Partners API sufficient?

Coupang Partners API (Open API) provides functions for product search and basic information retrieval. However, the following data cannot be obtained via the API:

• Detailed review text and images
• Real-time inventory/sold-out status
• Price change history
• Category-specific ranking changes
• Detailed seller information
• Promotion/coupon information

Moreover, there are rate limits, limiting the monitoring of tens of thousands of products.

Q: Can I scrape Coupang for free?

For small quantities (tens of pages per day), you can try using Playwright + Stealth plugin + Headed mode. However:
- Success rate is unstable (30-60%)
- Code needs modification with each Akamai update
- Large-scale scraping is not feasible

Q: Why are headless browsers more easily detected?

In Headless mode, several traces different from a regular browser are left behind:

• navigator.webdriver property is true
• navigator.plugins array is empty
• WebGL renderer is "SwiftShader" (software rendering) → evidence of no actual GPU
• Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP) connection signals
• Structural differences in window.chrome object

Akamai evaluates these differences comprehensively. It's necessary to disguise all differences simultaneously