Web scraping is the process of extracting information from a source or website which contains valuable information and scraping all of that and saving it in your system in the format you would like to view it in such as CSV file and much more.

Previously, if a company needed to extract information from a website, they would opt for the method of copy-pasting. But the drawback here was when it comes to large data the copy-pasting would consume a lot of time to conduct the action and when you copy-paste big data the website slows down alerting the owner of suspicious activity.

But with web scraping, this isn’t the case. In just a few minutes you can easily extract information without slowing down the website which is why it has grown to be popular. To conduct web scraping activities is convenient, all you need to is:

1. Select the website/source you want to scrape
2. Choose the data which you needs scraping
3. Run the web scraping code
4. Save it all in your system

So why is web scraping important and why does it matter in the near future?

1. SCRAPES RELEVANT DATA FROM THE CROWD

There are tens and thousands of data available online but not all that data is relevant to help your business grow. As a brand you know what is required for your brand’s enrichment and hence with web scraping, extracting only that portion of essential data that can help brands succeed faster in their lead capture activities.

For instance, if you want to scrape data from your competitor's websites, web scraping makes that happen without the competitor's website slowing down or having any risk of any brand conducting this action to be detected. 

Interesting Read : 10 reasons why web scraping is the perfect solution to retrieval of online data

2. QUICKER IMPROVISATION OF BRAND’S SOLUTIONS

A brand can enhance its solution when it has the right data which exhibits the requirements needed to improvise the solution. Web scraping provides accurate data because all the data being driven is from sources that have been following it or from platforms where prospects have mentioned their opinion on their expectations about a particular product.

All of this contributes a valuable data collection to brands which can help them to improvise their solution better. Since brands have an analysis of what their prospects are expecting, it becomes easier to adapt to the modifications and also plan out the next possible changes before the new trend hits. 

3. RETAINS BRAND SUCCESS

A brand success can only be retained when a band continues to serve the needs of all its prospects even with each changing trend. But how can that happen when the trends have no time of their arrival? 

With the data collected, brand’s can have an idea, it might not be the exact prediction but a simple analysis of how their solution will be looked upon a few years from now. 

Not only that aspect, but brands can also have an analysis of how their prospects will look at a product. 

Let’s understand this with an example:

Maybe the current product offered by a brand is great,it has all the features and the prices are great, with web scraping you can get data which will help you analyze what more prospects are looking for. For instance maybe they want a few features to be automated or they want a specific feature and so on. 

Web scraping ensures that you get the data that can help you still cater to the prospect's needs no matter the changes and still retain the success crown for longer.

With web scraping, the automobile industry can benefit in many ways such as:

1. KEEPING UP WITH MARKET CHANGES

If the current automobile industry fails to incorporate what their present target audience is seeking chances are the industry can never boom at a faster rate. The market conditions keep fluctuating a trend now would never be of importance 5 years from now. 

Let’s understand this with an example:

The vehicle Pajero was a big hit in the 2000s but now newer jeep options are attracting many target audiences. Thus it is important to have the market information that will help in cultivating impactful solutions that will help in serving your target audience when the new change occurs. This is possible with web scraping.

Web scraping will extract all the information related to the market so that you can easily monitor what is happening. With regular web scraping activities, you can easily create solutions that will most likely be accepted with the current customers due to the preferences taste. You will also be able to improvise your current solution as the market conditions also state what each model of the vehicle is expected to in the eyes of the customers. 

2. CREATING A SOLUTION JUST LIKE YOUR CUSTOMER'S VISION

Your customers have multiple needs and when you can assist those needs you grow bigger and better in the eyes of your customers. In automobile, the choices are numerous and with a larger target audience, if you can cater to each customer's needs, chances are you have won loyal customers that will engage with you constantly. 

But with so many target audiences how can you possibly find their needs? 

Interesting Read : 5 Web Scraping Lessons Every E-Commerce Data Scientist Must Know

Here is when web scraping can help you. Web scraping will extract all the information of your target audience needs, such as which model they prefer to buy, what they expect from the model, what colour they want, what features they are looking at, the price range and much more. When you have all such information you tend to create a solution which many of your target audience is seeking to purchase. 

3. IMPROVISING SOLUTIONS VIA USER FEEDBACK

Being a customer-centric industry, automobiles vendors from across the globe are well aware of how single feedback can either break or help them grow. Feedbacks are really important as it helps brands to improvise on their solutions and create an error-free solution that would appeal to their target audience. 

But living in 2019, this action has taken the wrong turn. Today in order to beat the competition, many reviews or feedbacks are written with wrong or fake intent and this needs to be resolved sooner. Hence with web scraping both the concerns can be managed.

Let’s understand this with an example:

Web scraping can scrape through all the feedback of your target audience on relevant models and similar models like how you create. When this happens you can closely monitor what exactly your target audience expects from a particular model being offered in the market. 

Secondly, Web scraping can help to scrape all the bad reviews and let you eliminate all of that before your target audience can even view it. Conducting this regularly can help retain better brand identity in the open as well as fulfill the exact needs of the multiple target audience in your list.

4. KEEPS A CHECK ON PRICING 

Another factor that affects the automobile industry is pricing. Pricing plays a huge role in the automobile industry as it allows the competitive feel and can sell the target audience the right value for the right solutions being offered. 

When you choose to sell a vehicle it is important that you cannot slate any price, the price should match the market standards and can accommodate all the relevant costs from the buyer side as well as the manufacturing. Hence the prices being set must be genuine and add value.   

Web scraping ensures that this action takes place. By extracting all the information you can easily monitor the pricing strategies and then accordingly plan how you wish your pricing strategies should look. 

Web scraping also gives you the liberty to scrape through your competitor's pricing strategies which can help to tackle them better. You can easily monitor how their pricing strategies are formed and likely improvise on your current pricing factors. When you can offer the right pricing, there is no cause of any doubts when purchasing any automobiles being offered.

5. A CREATIVE APPROACH TO DESIGNS

The 2019 market would not follow the same taste as it was 5 years ago, the preferences and choices would have completely transformed your target audience in order to meet the new demands of 2019.

 In automobile, a vehicle could illustrate a lot of factors that compel your target audience to invest its focus and then money, the factors could be the design, colour, features and so on. A design which would have been popular years ago wouldn’t necessarily be still in demand in the present current market.

Interesting Read : How to Achieve Cost-effective and Scalable Web Scraping for Product Listings?

Hence it is vital that with the help of web scraping, the data related to customers' preferences in terms of design, creative approaches towards a vehicle structure, features, and many other factors are collected so that ideal solutions can be manufactured.

As you have witnessed above, web scraping is a continuous process and for such an activity to be conducted on a regular basis, chances are at times you can be blocked. In order to avoid such a mishap from happening, using a proxy server can secure such activities.

Proxy servers stand between a user and the website it wants to access. When a user sends a request to view a restricted website the proxy server will receive the request first and then send it to the website. The reason why a proxy server receives it first is that it changes the IP address.

Many times you get blocked when viewing restricted sources of information because your IP address speaks about the location you are in. What a proxy server does is it helps to eliminate that issue by hiding your actual identity and giving another one.

When it comes to web scraping for your business activities, proxy servers are beneficial. While you continue to scrape the multiple websites, proxy servers ensure that your identity is hidden and that the scraping activity conducts quicker.