The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the retail landscape for businesses for good. With online shopping seeing a jump of 44% through the year 2020, eCommerce websites have never been busier. What's more? Experts say this is not a passing trend. Even with society slowly returning to normalcy, the eCommerce economy is projected to expand by a whopping $1 Trillion over the next 5 years. Hence, it is excellent for a business to invest in improving its online presence.
However, with the eCommerce marketplace teeming with retailers, it is not easy to beat the competition. So how does one bypass competitors with minimal effort? Analyzing eCommerce data can be your unfair advantage in gaining the upper hand in the online shopping game.
Analyzing various aspects of customer behavior on e-commerce websites can reveal many helpful insights that can boost your eCommerce traffic to the next level. However, there's a catch. The sheer volume of user data on the web can be overwhelming for any human to process. Here is where data scraping comes to the rescue. A suitable data scraping service can quickly help you gather the necessary data to gain all the business insights you need.
Now, possessing the right tools is not enough. To truly make the best of your web scraping projects, you must scrape for data at the right sources. We understand that this can be pretty puzzling, especially when you're new to data scraping. To help you with this, we have compiled a list of 7 essential eCommerce data sources that are extremely useful for online retailers. Read on to know about each of these sources in detail:
7 eCommerce Data Sources Online Store Owners Must Scrape
1. Keywords and ranking
Ranking at the top of the search results is a sure-shot way to boost your product's sales. But how can you ensure that your product is ranked at the top?
Every eCommerce platform has a ranking algorithm that influences the order in which products are listed in the search results. Most ranking algorithms are heavily dependent on keywords for relevant products. Scraping keywords and the top-ranked products reveal data patterns that can be used to make the best of the platform's search function.
2. Product IDs
A Product ID is the identification code that is assigned to every product listed on an eCommerce website. Although product IDs are somewhat underrated, they can be valuable data sources if utilized effectively. A data analyst can draw a complete picture of the trends across various products, categories, and industry changes by scraping product IDs and their corresponding keywords. Hence, scraping product IDs is an easy way to monitor the changes happening in the eCommerce marketplace.
Related Reading: How Small Retailers Can Start Post-Pandemic
3. Pricing
Dynamic pricing is one of the hottest trends in the eCommerce industry. Essentially, dynamic pricing models allow businesses to provide flexible prices for products that are based on a range of fluctuating parameters such as supply, demand, and conversion rates.
Adopting dynamic pricing can do wonders for your eCommerce business since keeping your prices flexible is a fantastic way to drive sales. The best thing about dynamic pricing is that you can automate it. Scraping product prices over time can reveal market fluctuations that affect product supply and demand. You can use these insights to develop machine learning algorithms that make pricing decisions for you.
4. Reviews
Reviews and ratings are two of the most accurate indicators of your product's performance. Great reviews help your items rank higher in search results and make a positive impression on future buyers. Scraping your product reviews is an easy yet effective way to keep tabs on your customers' satisfaction. In addition to assessing your user base's general sentiments, review scraping allows you to dive deep into your customers' feedback.
Using a specialized review scraper can help you identify specific aspects of your products that your customers are talking about. The advantages of review scraping are not limited to your product reviews. Scraping your competitor's reviews can provide you with an incredible variety of insights that can come in handy while assessing the marketplace and ultimately improve your product line.
Related Reading: Why Every Amazon Seller Must Scrape Their Competitor’s Reviews
5. Categories and best-sellers
As discussed earlier, eCommerce search algorithms work in mysterious ways. One of the best ways to make sense of them is by analyzing the products featured at the top of the search results. Scraping these top-performing products can help you understand what makes a product a best-seller in its category. You can then practice these learnings and tweak your product's ranking.
6. Suppliers and manufacturers
Partnering with a reliable network of suppliers and manufacturers can be a game-changer for your online business. However, it is challenging to collect supplier data by scraping eCommerce product listings alone since most eCommerce sellers only mention the supplier's name in their listings. Luckily, there are sophisticated web scrapers out there that are perfect for collecting data across various platforms, precisely what you need to extract the elusive data you need.
7. Future best-sellers
The promising thing about data science is that it prepares you for future opportunities. Several e-commerce platforms forecast which new products could emerge as best-sellers in their respective categories. Scraping these sources can provide you with an arsenal of fantastic insights into future industry trends and evolving consumer habits. This gives you ample time to plan your future strategies and boost your sales.
To Summarize
eCommerce data has incredible potential to help you grow your business. However, not all data sources are equally important. It is crucial to identify suitable data sources to optimize the efficiency of your web extraction project. In addition, using the right data extraction tools is critical to effectively harness eCommerce data. Partnering with a web scraping company such as Datahut is the easiest way to streamline the entire data scraping and analysis pipeline.
Give Datahut a shot! We are a team of seasoned data science experts who have revolutionized the way you see data. We possess the right combination of acumen and industry insight needed to provide the perfect solutions for all your data scraping needs.
Drop in for a chat and explore how you can give your business a face-lift with the power of data science.