Web Scraping: The Game Changer in Retail Business

The retail industry is very dynamic because all retail brands have hundreds and thousands of competitors across the web. That’s why for retail businesses to remain relevant, they need to gain a competitive advantage. Web scraping (particularly price scraping, and product data scraping)  have been in high demand by online retailers lately. 

As a retail business owner, you have done web scraping at some point, even though you may not be aware of it. Web scraping is the process of retrieving or extracting data from a website and storing it or for other uses. It may sound easy, but without the correct tools for web scraping, it can be an uphill task to many. 

Source: TopTrade

Many websites have resorted to measures of protecting data from extraction. These measures include blocking or blacklisting IP addresses that are suspected to be scraping data. To have a successful web scraping project, you will need to use proxies to mask your real identity and also enable you to beat rate limits that are put in place to detect IP addresses that put in too many requests. 

There are many proxies on offer in the market that can work well with several web scraping programs. However, it is crucial to identify the best rotating proxies for web scraping that will work well according to your project specifications.

Proxies can be dedicated, public, or shared, but you will also need to understand the types of Proxy IPs that can be used for your project. Understanding the proxy IPs is vital because different proxy IPs yield different results. For instance, if your target is data accessed by mobile users, you may be required to acquire mobile IP's. However, most web scraping projects use the datacenter IPs, which are readily available and work with most web scraping software. Ensure you do some research and select the best data center and static proxies for web scraping that will work for your project.

How does web scraping help retailers?

The goal for any retail business is to make a profit and remain relevant in the market. Web scraping can help your business achieve this goal by ensuring you get ahead of your completion by assisting you in making sound decisions. Making the best decisions for your business is achievable through scraping data for competitor analysis, target market analysis, product analysis for purposes of gaining pricing intelligence.

Below are some of the ways web scraping can help retailers.

Pricing strategy

Pricing is one of the most crucial aspects of the retail business. Getting prices wrong can ruin your business; however, web scraping can save you from this nightmare by ensuring you keep tabs on market trends, customer behavior, and all price data of products in the market. This information can be vital as it helps you to price your items appropriately and plan for promotions or offers in line with the market dynamics to guarantee profitable sales.

Get customer feedback

Client feedback is essential for any business. Every business should be able to get feedback from their clients after service delivery. The feedback obtained helps evaluate and choose the best way forward about the product, such as rebranding or repackaging, as per the customers' sentiments. Web scraping can be used to collect feedback from social media about the products or review section to give the actual picture of how the product is fairing in the market.

Demand analysis and projection

Data collected from scraping websites that are related to your retail business can help you gauge how a particular product is fairing on the market. Getting the data of a specific product can give you a clear picture of how the product is doing on the market. This information can be used when deciding if to venture in the same line of business.

Obtain real-time information 

Web scraping can help your retail store have firsthand information on the popularity or effectiveness of your stores, including client perception and conversions. The data can help improve areas of low output and maintain focus on the areas that matter. Getting this information on a real-time basis can be the changing point of your business.

Manage distribution channels easily

Web scraping can give you a big boost when checking if your resellers are selling your item using third party sites such as Amazon and eBay. Going through eBay or Amazon looking for your product can be time-consuming; however, web scraping can quickly get you this data and take appropriate action.

All said and done, maintaining an online business is not an easy job with the advancing technology. Every company is looking for ways to stay ahead of the game by employing data-driven strategies. If you want to remain relevant, then you will need to understand the market dynamics, which ultimately narrows down to a web scraping solution to help you enjoy the benefits mentioned above.