If you run an eCommerce site, you have to compete with everyone that sells the same product as you throughout the entire world. Keeping track of pricing and finding ways to stand out on your own can be downright challenging. Web scraping is powerful because it crawls websites to gather useful data such as; price comparison, product review scraping, and much more.
Web scraping generates the data you need to gain an advantage. You can mine pricing information, social media comments to monitor reputation and keep track of the product inventory of your competitors, all without much effort.
The trouble is, numerous pitfalls exist when it comes to data mining. There are many ways websites detect web scrapers, but primarily they examine their IP address. Using a rotating IP service can avoid sending all of your requests through the same IP address and prevents being blocked or blacklisted.
Let’s examine some of the ways web scraping benefits eCommerce sites.
5 Data Mining Benefits
Price Monitoring
You must keep your pricing competitive to stay ahead. By crawling rival websites, you learn what other companies are charging and you can optimize your price points to compete.
Product Selection
You can also quickly see what the other organizations are selling. See what new products are being offered and look for gaps in their lineup so you know where to market.
Customer Insight
By getting a better picture of who your target audience is, you will know how to meet the needs they have. Gather the demographics and build a customer profile that enables you to build a stronger marketing campaign.
Supplier Data
You can also collect information from the supplier websites. Use the tool to gather product descriptions, specifications, pricing and images that you need to sell more.
Create a Strategy
With all of the information you can gather, it becomes simple to create a marketing strategy that works. Look at the data and map out a plan for your company’s future.
Get It Done Fast
The best part about data mining is that it all happens quickly. You no longer have to manually gather the information and you won’t have to do focus groups or surveys anymore. The facts are all out there, waiting for you to collect them. With automated data collection, you can get back to running your business, but this time with more insight to back you up.
Laila Azzahra is a professional writer and blogger that loves to write about technology, business, entertainment, science, and health.