How a Dealzcan scan works
What happens after you pick store or online, enter a ZIP, and start a scan.
Guide · updated 2026-09-22
What you choose first
A scan starts on the retailer step. You choose Store, Online, or both. Store looks for markdowns tied to a specific location. Online looks at that retailer's website savings. Both is the default because many shoppers want the nearby clearance aisle and the website sale in one pass.
Next you pick a category if you want one — electronics, grocery, home, and so on — or leave All. A minimum discount filter can hide shallow markdowns. Lowest keeps every official sale Dealzcan can read.
Why a ZIP or city appears
Store scans need a place. Type a five-digit ZIP or a city name, or use current location. Dealzcan uses that only to list nearby stores. You then pick one store. An “Online” row is not a store: it cannot return aisle-level clearance for Walmart or similar banners.
If you turn Store off and leave Online on, Dealzcan skips the store picker and scans website savings for the retailers you selected.
What the scan actually does
For each selected retailer, Dealzcan calls the sources that retailer allows: an official product API when we have credentials, or the retailer's own savings and clearance pages when that is the approved path. Results are merged, filtered by your category and discount, then ranked. Rank uses relevance, verified discount, availability, freshness, distance, and source quality. Commission is not an input. See ranking methodology.
A scan can take up to a minute. Retailer sites and APIs are the slow part. If two people ask for the same store and filters, Dealzcan may reuse a recent successful result for a short window so the second person is not hitting the retailer again.
What you see at the end
The deals page lists cards with title, price, was-price when we have one, percent off, and the store or online label. Opening a deal goes to the retailer. If that outbound link is an affiliate link, the card says Dealzcan may earn a commission if you buy through it.
Empty results are not a fake “no deals” wallpaper. The page should say whether a source was not configured, a store did not match the ZIP, or a retailer feed failed. Amazon listings, for example, need Amazon's Creators API. A tracking tag alone cannot invent products.
More guides
- Store clearance versus online savings — Why a store markdown and a website deal are different, and when to scan each.
- Find Walmart store-level clearance — How to pick a real store number so Dealzcan can read that store’s clearance aisle.
- How we verify a markdown — What counts as a sale price, what we drop, and why commission never changes rank.