Imidef Blog

"Chrome extension was completed in 5 minutes" story. I made an Amazon one-shot search tool

Amazon Search Extension Image

"Can I make my own extensions?"

Have you ever thought like that?
I was one of them. But when I actually tried it, it was completed in 5 minutes. **

This time, I will talk about the Chrome extension I developed
Amazon Region AutoDetect
We will introduce the development process and the other side of it.

What I wanted to do was simple

  • From product pages such as Yodobashi, Rakuten, Yahoo!
  • Automatically extract product names
  • I want an extension that searches on Amazon by region!

I started with that feeling.
"Copy and paste and search every time" is surprisingly time-consuming.

When I made it, it was ready in 5 minutes.

I thought extensions were more difficult.
However, just by asking ChatGPT (Codex) as follows, I got almost the finished code.

✅ Actual Throwing Prompts (Some Excerpts)

Get the product name from the product page of Yodobashi and Rakuten, Make a Chrome extension that searches on Amazon according to the user's browser language. I want it to work both in the right-click menu and in the toolbar buttons.

After that, the implementation was completed with just a little HTML and CSS popup.js manifest.json.
ChatGPT even instructed me how to separate files, so I didn't get lost.

Extension Points

  • No need to select a product name
  • Right-click or one-button to jump to Amazon search
  • Automatic switching to Amazon.co.jp / .com / .uk, etc. depending on browser language
  • Supported sites: Rakuten, Yodobashi, Yahoo Shopping, etc.
  • No Ads, No Tracking, Ultra-Lightweight

Here's how it actually works:

🔗 View in Chrome Web Store (https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/gfmdcafjdadcbfaklplmcdnbdmpgmidc?utm_source=item-share-cb)

Why did you decide to make this?

When you want to search for a product on Amazon,
The flow of "selecting and copying and pasting each one..." was really annoying.
Especially when it's on sale or when you want to compare, "I want to look it up on Amazon right now" accumulates.

This extension was created to solve such "little hassle".
And I felt once again that "small complaints" are the seeds of the product.

Conclusion

Even though it was done in 5 minutes, it is worth "trying" in itself.
If you make even one extension, the world will change.
The moment when you want to do more of this becomes "I can do it myself" is fun.