Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Using Web Scraping Services to Stay Ahead of the Game

Companies that manage to stay popular and make more money online are the ones taking advantage of any new technologies being introduced. One such innovation that has been developed to help businesses get better opportunities and expand their brand is web scraping.


A while back, analyzing and collecting data and information about your industry was a time consuming and tedious process. Traditional data collection methods were also erroneous so you couldn’t rely on the results to make sound decisions about your business.

But this is no longer the case. Web scraping services allow businesses to obtain information from multiple websites and easily study the market trends around the world. These web scraping tools can extract different types of information. From pricing data to product ranges, data mining tools can give you a lot of information you can use to develop a stronger marketing strategy.

A common misconception is that data mining is illegal. This is far from the truth because the tools used to scrape web data obtain information that is already available for the public to see on the web. For instance, most online businesses provide their pricing information and it’s being viewed by millions of users across the world. Using a software to get this information that is readily available from multiple sites doesn't make it illegal. It is just a faster and more efficient way of obtaining such data.

There are many ways in which your business can benefit from the collected information. For a start, you can perform an analysis and try to predict how the market will fair in the coming months. You can also know the kind of goods or services that are in demand and add them to your stock or provide a cheaper alternative. By analyzing the market share, you can develop a suitable pricing strategy in order to ensure your products sell.

The way you use the information collected from web scraping will determine how much your business benefits. For instance, if the data shows that most of your competitors are using low prices to attract customers, the solution may not be to lower your prices even more in order to attract customers. Doing this could affect your profit margins. You have to think beyond the price and come up with a strategy that will keep customers coming even when there are price fluctuations. Develop a unique selling point by comparing what other businesses offer and go a step further to provide an even better service.

Web scraping is usually done by experts who not only collect the data in a fast and effective manner, but also record and present it in a way that allows you to analyze the information quicker. If you are in the verge of losing profits then hiring data mining experts can be your best bet. There could be certain trends in the market that you are probably not aware of. Through web scraping, you are made aware of any market changes that could affect your profits.