A recent study by the BRC-KPMG Retail Sales Monitor found that UK retail sales rose 6,1% in September on a comparable year-over-year basis. Additionally, during the three-month period ending in September, non-food retail sales increased 5,2% on a like-for-like basis and 3,2% on a total basis. In the midst of the Golden Quarter, ecommerce operations need to clearly understand why they need an ethical approach to web scraping to stay ahead in this highly competitive market. As the holiday season approaches and some non-essential stores close due to lockdowns, those that are online or focused on e-commerce need to prepare quickly. The key to this is to have a better understanding of your market. To do this effectively, retailers need the right information, and this, in turn, requires data. The current economic climate has made it more important than ever to have access to reliable data, not only to better understand your customers, but also your competitors. The rise and popularity of the Internet has created a new way to obtain this information efficiently: through ethical web scraping. About the Author Julius Cerniauskas is CEO of Oxylabs Web scraping is the process of extracting large amounts of public data from websites. This data may come from several different web pages and the process itself may also include cleaning and transforming the data into an appropriate format. This process provides organizations with a more streamlined, cost-conscious, and consumer-centric approach to data collection. With that in mind, here are some of the proven benefits of ethical web scraping.
The top five business benefits of ethical web scraping:
Competition AnalysisImagine being able to perform product and price comparisons in minutes across tens of thousands of eCommerce channels, in turn influencing consumer buying decisions through marketing strategies. Data-driven pricing and attracting price-sensitive customers. SEO
The main goal of search engine optimization (SEO) is to increase website traffic and convert potential customers. With ethical web scraping, you can quickly collect critical data on relevant keywords, rank positions across multiple geographic locations, and ads, to name a few. Then, with that data, you can fine-tune your own online campaigns and capture the lion's share of search clicks. Improved lead generation
As a business, in order to reach your potential customers and generate more sales, you need qualified leads. This means obtaining the necessary contact details such as company name, postal address, contact number and email addresses. The way the data is collected is absolutely critical, but so is its veracity. This is where ethical web scraping can support lead generation efforts. It collects public data on competitor websites, portals and forums, so you can know who is following them and how they interact with the competition. From there, the data collected will need to be aggregated and analyzed to provide insights and models. Trademark Protection
Ethical web scraping is a weapon of choice that combines highly sophisticated data techniques with automation to continuously monitor a brand's presence online, identify counterfeit products, copyright infringements, and more. Traditionally, this was a very laborious process: physically surfing the Internet looking for flaws that could damage the brand. However, with the help of web scraping, this information can be retrieved in seconds, helping to remove these sites from the Internet and ensuring that retailers can protect their brand integrity as well as hard-fought market share. . Sensation
Anyone who sells online knows the fundamental importance of brand power and how it is perceived by consumers. The Internet is full of opinions about your business, written and posted daily by consumers. It is publicly available and that is why you need an ethical web scraper to automate this information gathering process. Once absorbed, data can create new opportunities and allow companies to differentiate themselves in highly competitive markets. There is no time like the present
Data centers and residential proxies make internal data extraction possible by acting as intermediaries between the requester and the server. The choice of either type depends on the business use case, with residential proxies being most appropriate for more difficult data targets and/or specific geographic locations. Not all companies have the resources to perform data mining internally. In these cases, outsourcing to a reliable solution is ideal because you can free up resources to focus on data insights instead of being overburdened with the challenges associated with data acquisition. The time has come to practice ethical web scraping. When done ethically and following best practices, you can identify and extract vital public data that will help any e-commerce operation. With many stores closed, e-commerce is the only way for many businesses to continue operating during this time. Knowing their customers and competitors is essential for online retailers if they are to secure their share of customer bases and succeed in the Golden Quarter and beyond.