ACCESS Newswire
23 Nov 2021, 18:35 GMT+10
Web scraping trends by Oxylabs reveal the most popular categories for Black Friday this year
VILNIUS, LITHUANIA / ACCESSWIRE / November 23, 2021 / Black Friday means online retailers are increasingly putting more effort into monitoring the pricing of their competitors before deciding on a discount themselves. New data from Oxylabs, a leading web data gathering solutions provider, reveals the product categories that could drive the most competition this year.
Web scraping is a technology which allows large-scale collecting of public web data, which has become mainstream among ecommerce companies in the last few years. Retailers collect data on the pricing of their competitors, product availability, shipping information, and promotions, to name a few. This information allows retailers to make informed decisions on discount strategies, pertinent to competitive sales periods including Black Friday.
Oxylabs analysed and compared two periods - the lead up to Black Friday 2021 (1-5 November 2021), and the actual days of sales last year (26-30 November 2020). Based on this data, the most scraped product categories in the world's largest marketplaces at the beginning of November 2021 were:
The Oxylabs web scraping infrastructure traffic rates show that online retailers were already three times more active during the beginning of November 2021 - compared to the five days of Black Friday in 2020.
Going deeper into the product list, the most researched products by the retailers at the beginning of November were posters and prints (1.4% of all web scraping jobs in said period), rugs (1.2%), women's jeans (1%), men's jeans (0.9%), and health-themed books (0.67%). Over 25,000 different product subcategories were scraped.
According to Gediminas Rickevičius, Director of Strategic Partnerships at Oxylabs: 'This data reveals to consumers which categories will be the most competitive, allowing sellers to then offer the best price rates. Consumers can expect the most discounts in these product categories, as this is where sellers are putting the most effort into following their competition. Sellers analyse the whole competitive landscape for a particular product and formulate their offer accordingly. With global supply chain issues and forecasted shipping delays threatening the largest sales festival of the year, retailers are looking for smarter ways to get a competitive edge and leveraging publicly available data for it.'
Clothing dominated the full list of web scraping jobs and the whole apparel category was getting more traffic than last year, potentially influenced by the pandemic shopping habits. With lockdowns still in place in many parts of the world during last year's Black Friday, many people abstained from updating their closets and focused on other items in their shopping list. This year, however, retailers are strongly betting on the clothing category to drive the most interest from consumers and are preparing for it.
Posters and prints were the most popular items in Black Friday 2020 with 3% of all unique web scraping jobs, followed by history books (1.5%), men's t-shirts (1%), humanities books (1%), and health-themed books (0.9%).
During the 2020 Black Friday sales, the top five most scraped product categories were:
Grocery and gourmet food is a new rising product category this year, revealing a trend that food retailers are increasingly putting more emphasis on online sales.
Web scraping is becoming a crucial technology for ecommerce businesses. Oxylabs research in the UK shows that 57% of the UK's online stores use the technology to get essential insights into the competitive landscape.
About Oxylabs
Oxylabs is a leading global provider of premium proxies and data scraping solutions for large-scale web data extraction. The company's mission is clear: To give every business - whether big or small - the access to big data. With unmatched hands-on experience in web data harvesting, Oxylabs is in trusted partnerships with dozens of Fortune 500 companies and global businesses, helping them unearth hidden gems of business intelligence data through state-of-the-art products and technological expertise. For more information, please visit: https://oxylabs.io/
Media Contact:
Vytautas Kirjazovas
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.oxylabs.io
SOURCE: Oxylabs
Get a daily dose of California Telegraph news through our daily email, its complimentary and keeps you fully up to date with world and business news as well.
Publish news of your business, community or sports group, personnel appointments, major event and more by submitting a news release to California Telegraph.
More InformationEVERGLADES, Florida: Over the weekend, a diverse coalition of environmental activists, Native American leaders, and residents gathered...
BEIJING, China: China's national soccer team may struggle to stir excitement, but its humanoid robots are drawing cheers — and not...
]LONDON, U.K.: A World Health Organization (WHO) expert group investigating the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic released its final...
DOVER, Delaware: California Governor Gavin Newsom has taken legal aim at Fox News, accusing the network of deliberately distorting...
FRANKFURT, Germany: Germany has become the latest country to challenge Chinese AI firm DeepSeek over its data practices, as pressure...
TORONTO, Canada: Harvard University and the University of Toronto have created a backup plan to ensure Harvard graduate students continue...
NEW YORK, New York - Global stock indices closed with divergent performances on Tuesday, as investors weighed corporate earnings, central...
TORONTO, Canada: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced late on June 29 that trade negotiations with the U.S. have recommenced...
Vancouver, Canada: A high-stakes legal showdown is brewing in the world of athleisure. Lululemon, the Canadian brand known for its...
LONDON, U.K.: British oil giant Shell has denied reports that it is in talks to acquire rival oil company BP. The Wall Street Journal...
NEW YORK, New York - U.S. stock markets closed firmly in positive territory to start the week Monday, with the S&P 500 and Dow Jones...
WASHINGTON, D.C.: On Friday, President Donald Trump announced that he was halting trade discussions with Canada due to its decision...