The Pros And Cons Of Web Scraping

Data scraping is a process of extracting relevant information from websites in an efficient and timely manner. Web scraping involves a plethora of techniques to extract business data from the internet. Most of the techniques involve HTTP (or Hypertext Transfer Protocol) or embedding the particular browser which users use more frequently to surf the internet.

Let us first discuss the key benefits of web scraping.

Advantages Of Web Scraping

The most prominent advantages of web scraping services have been elaborated in the points below:

• 1. Low Costs
• 2. Easy Implementation
• 3. Accelerated Processes With Low Maintenance
• 4. Accurate Results

1. Low costs

Web scraping services offered by an offshore company are relatively inexpensive as compared to an in-house team. Outsourcing can prove to be beneficial to businesses seeking cost savings. With web scraping services, you can actually collect data from websites and use it for analysis. All this can be done in a well-organized, efficient manner without hurting your budget.

2. Easy implementation

Outsourcing web scraping can help you deploy a systemized process to scrape relevant and accurate data from the entire domain. This is actually a one-time investment to extract piles of data stored in the databases of organizations.

3. Accelerated processes with low maintenance

Another important aspect that these outsourced services offer is speed and low maintenance. With a dedicated project manager handling all your data and taking care of your distinct needs, you will get spared from the maintenance costs of installing new technologies as web scraping processes require very little maintenance, and sometimes, no costs are incurred in the long run.

In addition, the data experts go all out to deliver the project within the stipulated time frame, and sometimes even ahead of that. Speed is another aspect that makes outsourcing a viable option. The job might take several days or weeks, whereas data specialists can accomplish the task in just a few hours.

4. Accurate results

Accuracy is an important concern for websites that deal in selling real estate, sales data, pricing data, and so on. When you opt for data extraction services, you get accurate results accompanied by faster delivery. What else does one need? The business data is carefully extracted to ensure accuracy and reliability so that it does not impact important business decisions later on.

Let us now discuss the various demerits of web scraping.

Disadvantages Of Web Scraping

The major disadvantages of web scraping services have been elaborated in the following points:

• 1. Difficult To Analyze Scraping Processes
• 2. The Analysis Is Important Before Extracting Data
• 3. The Time Factor
• 4. Data Protection And Speed Issues

1. Difficult to analyze scraping processes

At times, it becomes difficult to understand the complex scraping processes, especially for someone who isn’t an expert. However, this isn’t that big a problem. Some minor errors can be easily fixed with some understanding.

2. The analysis is important before extracting data

Before actually extracting the data from websites, it is important that the data is treated to have an understanding of it. This might consume a lot of your time and energy. Without understanding, you cannot just extract everything that doesn’t make sense.

3. The time factor

A software or you can say, the new data extraction applications usually have a learning curve and it takes significant time in the initial stage to understand every aspect closely. An offshore web scraping expert might not be familiar with the core application and would need time to adjust. This can take several days or weeks before the web scraping processes are up and running at a faster pace.

4. Data protection and speed issues

There are certain challenges businesses might face when they outsource data extraction services to an offshore company, one of which being data protection policies or speed.

Some websites may not allow screen scraping which makes outsourcing a waste of time and money. In fact, if the developer working on the website plans to insert a code or makes some changes in the code, scraping services won’t be of any help to you. Additionally, most of the web scraping services work slower than API calls. That is also one of the reasons why businesses resist outsourcing the job to an offshore service provider.

How Web Scraping Services Can Help The eCommerce Industry

1. To Track Competitors’ Prices In Real-Time

It is extremely important that a strong pricing strategy is formulated for an eCommerce business. This can be done by tracking and analyzing the real-time changes in prices of competitors and decide on an ideal price for your products. An effective pricing strategy requires regular monitoring of competitors’ prices and making adjustments in your prices based on that. So, for the same, you need to scrape the pricing data of competitors and compare it with your own pricing.

2. To Gain Product Performance Intelligence

Do you know how well your products are performing against your competing counterparts? Web scraping can also help eCommerce store owners in knowing whether your products are lagging behind or are performing quite well against your competition. Outsourcing also helps in determining which promotional activity is working in your favor and which customer retention strategy is driving more business.

3. To Extract Product Data from Supplier Websites

The eCommerce businesses greatly rely on different suppliers for their products. Some of them have APIs enabling you to view the products and its features. But, not every supplier has an API.

Web scraping is needed to obtain relevant product data from supplier websites, including list of products, features, and other product-related information.

4. To Carry Out Sentiment Analysis

eCommerce businesses devote a great amount of time in studying the behavior and responses of customers, along with the reviews and feedback received from them. Web scraping allows you to conduct sentiment analysis and know about the likes, dislikes, preferences, and more. This will further help businesses in improving their product or service.

5. To Predict Market Trends

Web scraping also helps in forecasting the market trends by extracting the latest user data and tracking the buyers’ buying behavior. It enables businesses to develop and effective marketing strategy for the future.

Wrapping Up

Data-Entry-India.com offers comprehensive data support to businesses across diverse verticals. Our data entry experts are dedicated to providing high-quality, accurate, and relevant data with specialized data extraction services. Get in touch with us at info@data-entry-india.com to learn more about our services.