How Simple Web Scraping Can Hurt Retail Competitive Pricing & Assortment Management

With today's burgeoning technologies, big data mining, savvy connected consumers and overwhelming use of social media, a firm grasp of competitive pricing and assortment analytics and technology is critical to retailers to maintaining a competitive edge. Retailers, more than ever, must use a retail intelligence suite to optimize pricing opportunities that depend on accurate, timely, frequently updated information, not on using more simple procedures like web scraping that can do retailers much more harm than good.

Simple web scraping uses an automated tool, usually a bot, to crawl websites and comparison search engines to pull out certain strings of text. But, like scraping your fingers through the sand and giving the client what sticks under your fingernails, it's a very low-end solution.

The biggest problem of simple scraping is accuracy in matching. The raw data, by its nature, is incomplete, noisy, and unreliable, so you need to use tools specially developed to meet these specific challenges. If you don't, you end up with data that is faulty from the get-go. Because scraping lacks matching sophistication, retailers will not only have faulty data, but miss many products that could be matched if the tool had the capability to do so.

An advanced Pricing Intelligence Solution on the other hand, understands and works with the structure of each competitor's website (which vary dramatically from one to another), is designed to collect specifically needed data from the myriad data available; and that data is accurate, easy to match, and on which retailers can confidently base important pricing and assortment decisions.

How The Ideal Pricing Intelligence Solution Works:

1. Collects data directly from your competitors' websites.

2. Collects thousands and thousands of pieces of information that you need to make perfect matches with your products.

3. Collects pricing and availability information from the shopping cart and other website locations as needed.

4. Keeps product information refreshed, updated and timely.

5. Handles product variations with dexterity. A product may have several variants, such as size, color or prices, and the sophisticated intelligence solution will discern and match these characteristics.

How The Ideal Pricing Intelligence Solution Is Built:

1. Custom Built Crawlers. Built to be very efficient, go directly to competitor websites and get the product pages; scan millions and millions of products every day.

2. Sophisticated Data Extractors. Cope with any website, no matter how complex; create a custom-made map of the client's data; and go after the specific product information.

3. Powerful Matching Engine:

* Is built to overcome complications such as not having identical product match, but able to make the match nevertheless.

* Uses a combination of advanced algorithms and semantic analysis, plus data mining techniques, to reach very high levels of accuracy and coverage.

* Continually refreshes the data before applying the analytics.

4. Advanced Analytics Engine: Applies the analytics and then gets out the results to the clients.
Bottom Line For Your Bottom Line:

As retailers look for ways to compete more effectively, they must look beyond simple, inexpensive solutions, because these kinds of tools can do more harm than good.

Advanced price intelligence solutions provide accuracy, analytics & action missing in simple web scraping. Upstream Commerce's advanced Pricing Intelligence Solutions utilize complex algorithms that were two decades in development, by engineers who know what's needed, and how to get the most actionable data at the highest levels of accuracy so that retailers can perform at the highest level of effectiveness in today's dynamic marketplace.

Source:http://upstreamcommerce.com/blog/2013/05/21/simple-web-scraping-hurt-retail-competitive-pricing-assortment-management

The Benefits of Investing in a Web Copywriting Service

Web copywriting is just one of the tasks Internet marketers must do. Writing effective web content can take a large chunk of your time. Online entrepreneurs have numerous tasks to attend to daily.

Hiring professionals to write copy will free you for other projects. Spend more time on product development, promotion, or other tasks. Delegating some tasks will keep you free for project management.

Professional copywriters are skilled in search engine optimization. They understand how search engines work and deliver copy that ranks. Don't trust this task to amateur or unskilled content writers.

Skilled web content writers tailor their services to your needs. Professional copywriters will assess your unique needs and meet them. Their objective is to write copy that makes your website stand out.

Semantically Related Words and Structural Keyword Proximity

Semantically related words are words similar to your keywords. They describe your products or services without useless repetition. These words drive higher search engine rankings based on relevance.

Web copywriting experts understand this search engine algorithm. They also understand how the right words affect readability. They write engaging content that attracts visitors and search engines.

Structural keyword proximity illustrates keyword relationship. The distance between keywords affects search engine placement. Professional SEO copywriters understand and implement this metric.

Good writers may be proficient at spelling, grammar, and structure. However, without training, keyword proximity may be foreign to them. Don't let these crucial techniques be ignored in your web copy.

Professionals Implement Key SEO Metric Strategies

Writing for the web is a unique science that requires certain skills. Incorporating phrase-based keywords is not enough to rank well. Each search engine optimization metric must be considered in order to attract visitors.

Writers skilled in web copy execute each element of the process. They can turn idle traffic into targeted traffic and conversions. While you refine your business model, your web copy is working too.

Skilled web copywriters understand typical web surfing habits. They know how to draw visitors in and keep them on your site. Leaving this task to the inexperienced may cost you business.

Even if you write your own web copy, you may miss essential elements. Unless you are skilled in web metrics and SEO, your copy may suffer. For optimum site performance, engage professional web copywriters.

Professional Copywriters Avoid Scraped Content

Some unscrupulous freelance writers sell marketers duplicate content. They may use web-scraping software, or they may plagiarize content. Most search engines will eliminate such content from results.

Document near-duplicate detection will ferret out scraped content. This means visitors won't find your website if it contains plagiarism. While not all writers do this, it is important to use professionals.

Professional web copywriters write original and useful copy. Not only is it written to rank high, but it is written to be helpful. Unless site visitors find answers to their problems, they leave.

Source:http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Benefits-of-Investing-in-a-Web-Copywriting-Service&id=5646478

Is Web Scraping Relevant in Today's Business World?

Different techniques and processes have been created and developed over time to collect and analyze data. Web scraping is one of the processes that have hit the business market recently. It is a great process that offers businesses with vast amounts of data from different sources such as websites and databases.

It is good to clear the air and let people know that data scraping is legal process. The main reason is in this case is because the information or data is already available in the internet. It is important to know that it is not a process of stealing information but rather a process of collecting reliable information. Most people have regarded the technique as unsavory behavior. Their main basis of argument is that with time the process will be over flooded and therefore lead to parity in plagiarism.

We can therefore simply define web scraping as a process of collecting data from a wide variety of different websites and databases. The process can be achieved either manually or by the use of software. The rise of data mining companies has led to more use of the web extraction and web crawling process. Other main functions such companies are to process and analyze the data harvested. One of the important aspects about these companies is that they employ experts. The experts are aware of the viable keywords and also the kind of information which can create usable statistic and also the pages that are worth the effort. Therefore the role of data mining companies is not limited to mining of data but also help their clients be able to identify the various relationships and also build the models.

Some of the common methods of web scraping used include web crawling, text gripping, DOM parsing, and expression matching. The latter process can only be achieved through parsers, HTML pages or even semantic annotation. Therefore there are many different ways of scraping the data but most importantly they work towards the same goal. The main objective of using web scraping service is to retrieve and also compile data contained in databases and websites. This is a must process for a business to remain relevant in the business world.

The main questions asked about web scraping touch on relevance. Is the process relevant in the business world? The answer to this question is yes. The fact that it is employed by large companies in the world and has derived many rewards says it all. It is important to note that many people regarded this technology as a plagiarism tool and others consider it as a useful tool that harvests the data required for the business success.

Using of web scraping process to extract data from the internet for competition analysis is highly recommended. If this is the case, then you must be sure to spot any pattern or trend that can work in a given market.

Source:http://ezinearticles.com/?Is-Web-Scraping-Relevant-in-Todays-Business-World?&id=7091414