Shifts in pricing
The most important information you should obtain in web scraping is the changes in pricing. You need to know whether your competition is increasing or decreasing the price of a certain product because this is likely to affect your business. Your competition may have noted that the demand for a certain product is high and then resorted to increasing its price in order to make more money. In other instances, you may notice a trend where most of your competitors are selling a certain item at a ridiculously low price and hence you are losing out on customers because yours is slightly high. Remember that research has shown that online customers make their buying decisions based on price. So if you don’t set your prices right, you risk going out of business.
If certain price shifts are working for other people in your industry, your business needs to adjust its own pricing model and take into account these shifts in pricing. Some sudden shifts in pricing can be so influential to an extent that your business will be swept out if you don’t act quickly. You might miss out on very important sales if you fail to perform a competitor price analysis using the data you obtain from scraping different websites.
Product range
Data scraping can also allow you to obtain information on your competitor’s product range. If your competition is selling more products than you, you need to consider expanding your product range so as to attract more clients. Scraping can allow you to know the prices of each of these products so that you can quickly come up with a pricing structure as soon as you start supplying these items. Don’t be stuck doing the same thing and offering the same products and services. Look at items that are in high demand and consider adding them into your product list.
Promotions
Last but not least, when performing price monitoring don’t forget to check on the list of items that your competition is offering on promotion. Promotions usually attract customers and make businesses to boost their sales revenues so you need to keep track of these promotions and know how you can get an edge by coming up with better deals. Web scraping can be done to obtain information on goods and products that have been discounted. This is especially important during the holidays when so many companies are offering good deals on their products and services. Take advantage of the information you obtain to come up with smart promotions and discount offers.