Survey Shows Most E-commerce Organizations Believe Real-time Data Collection Will Be Primary Focus in 2023
Without real-time information, e-commerce businesses may fail to reach their full growth potential.
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It is no secret that a key area of web scraping in 2023 will be centered on real-time data.
When asked about their goals for collecting data in the coming year, 62% of e-commerce organizations said real-time data would be at the forefront. This is one of the key findings from the new Oxylabs white paper, Alternative Data Defines Competition in the US & UK Ecommerce Sectors, which demonstrates the importance of real-time data collection for e-commerce businesses.
In conjunction with Censuswide, Oxylabs surveyed 500 U.K.-based and 501 U.S.-based senior data decision makers from e-commerce companies with headquarters in those countries, gathering insights on attitudes towards public web data collection in the sector.
As most web pages today are subject to frequent content changes, real-time web scraping is an essential function for any digital business. In addition, real-time web scraping will be increasingly important to e-commerce businesses in the future, allowing them to track information on their competitors' websites and other online stores.
As companies begin to rely more on efficient and low-cost data collection methods such as external data gathering, used by 41% of respondents, there is a clear shift towards gaining more actionable insights.
Tomas Montvilas, chief commercial officer at Oxylabs, said: “These goals might indicate that businesses have yet to harness the true potential of real-time data. Greater data delivery speeds and instant insights can prove themselves to be the next edge of competition that e-commerce companies are faced with. As competitors adopt real-time data for purposes such as monitoring, others will want to follow suit, causing a feedback loop. I expect to see real-time data keep climbing in importance in the coming years.”
These trends show that e-commerce companies must consider new challenges in their business environment. For applications with low analytical requirements, such as dynamic pricing, real-time data is most valuable. Meanwhile, the most widely specified use case for external data was market research—which necessitates high levels of involvement with the data.
According to the report, U.S.-based companies will focus more on collecting and utilizing external data (44% versus 37%), whereas their non-U.S. counterparts will pay closer attention to managing existing infrastructure—56% versus 44%. On the other hand, U.K.-based companies are planning to focus more on real-time acquisition (66% versus 58%) and data quality assurance (28% versus 19%). This contrast shows that the two regions have unique web scraping environments, as each one faces specific issues in this regard.
Download your copy of the research findings here (short registration required).