85% of Ecommerce Organisations Have Increased External Data Needs to Attract Customers This Golden Quarter

With major events like Black Friday and Christmas around the corner, ecommerce organisations will be relying on public web data to stay ahead of competition

New research from Oxylabs, in collaboration with Censuswide, reveals that 85% of ecommerce organisations have chosen to make more significant use of data this Golden Quarter. The research, which surveyed over 1,000 UK and U.S.-based senior decision-makers, including CTOs, VPs of Engineering, Chief Data Officers, Heads of Business Intelligence, Heads of Data & Analytics, highlights how businesses are using newer, more advanced forms of technology, such as web scraping, to get ahead of the competition.

While external data, information that originates outside a company and is available to the public, has become an essential part of ecommerce organisations, it will be even more imperative for business leaders during the Golden Quarter. £9.24bn was spent on the Black Friday weekend last year, with an extra £2.18bn on Cyber Monday. By web scraping publicly available data, organisations will be able to forecast consumer demand, monitor what the competition is doing, and lower prices in real time to attract customers.

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Gediminas Rickevicius, Vice President of Global Partnerships at Oxylabs, said: “Golden Quarter is always an intense period for ecommerce, so business leaders need to ensure they are using the correct tools and methods to prevail over competition. Through web scraping, organisations can monitor the stock quantity and see what products consumers like and what they are staying away from. Moreover, by web scraping publicly available information from forums and social media, business leaders will be able to dissect sentiment and predict consumer trends, enabling them to refine strategies before and during Golden Quarter.”

When asked what organisations use external data for, 73% of respondents cited they use external data for market research, while 66% use it for forecasting consumer demand, 56% for monitoring competition and 50% for implementing dynamic pricing.

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Rickevicius continued: “Not only is Golden Quarter the best time of year to make sales, it is also a great time to attract new customers for the year ahead. Imagine finding out about a competitor’s sale and swooping in with better deals at a critical time.

“Picture being able to do this in real-time automatically. This idea is central to dynamic pricing – a strategy that uses flexible prices based on real-time supply, demand and competitor’s pricing. Web scraping typically tracks several factors simultaneously, allowing sellers to set competitive prices at all times.”

“The ecommerce industry is forever growing and will continue to do so with the thriving web scraping technology. Organisations comprehending that data is the new gold are the ones that will benefit, as they can use publicly available information on websites to gain insight into market movements, consumer sentiment and competitor pricing. The savviest companies won’t just survive this Golden Quarter, but thrive,” concluded Rickevicius.

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