ET if your son is savvy with http://www.firebirdsql.org/en/server-packages/ then you can bypass all or most of the Excell prototypes as I did and get straight into it.
It's basically a server/relational database/ script editor package.

All you learn from there is writing the scripts, or bots as they are known using the script editor to do what you do manually.

Heres a hint on how to scan the info for your son to consider...that is...do you scan the info/prices after it's in the database, or before ?
In other words when prices are in, does the system/ bot read the prices raw as they come in, or after they are placed into the database ?

Good luck.