Andrew Fogg Import.io

How real time web data helps retail.

heard the phrase “big data” before?

make you feel like this?

you don’t need me to tell you about the importance of data in the retail industry

you are using data throughout your business already

sales data

for stock level management

customer data

for loyalty programmes

product data

for special product promotions

i am not here to tell you what you already know

i am here to talk about a new kind of data that is only just becoming available to retailers

web data

import.io allows anyone to turn a website into data without writing any code

you can treat the web like a database

recruiters are using web data

to know as soon as jobs get posted online

maps providers are using web data

to keep up to date with store locations and opening times

and retailers…?

i am going to show you 5 different ways that retailers are using web data

all 5 examples are using web data from import.io

1. pricing strategy

sell hard disk drives

and they need to know how to price them

so they pull web data on all the hard disk drives

from all the brands

in all of the markets that they operate

price data

and product properties

500GB SSD

analysis of this data

allows them to determine overall trends and make decisions about…

price per gigabyte

$/GB

premiums for certain features

$/GB

when to discount

$/GB

it gives them an overall picture of the pricing and competitive landscape

2. campaign monitoring

all of these sports brands

make significant investment in video campaigns

that they distribute via youtube

youtube provides some statistics on views etc

but nothing on comments

one of these sports brands

uses import.io

to extract comments from youtube videos

that they then run through sentiment analysis

they perform the same analysis on their competitors

they use this as a feedback metric to help develop future campaigns

3. demand analysis

not the dominant classifieds site in all markets

in order to compete, they monitor advert posting rates in specific categories on competitor sites

the data allows them to prioritise the categories and regions that they focus on

simple

4. channel partner management

sell laptops

via channel partners

the channel partners are meant to observe MRP (Minimum Retail Price)

which means no further discounting allowed

but sometimes channel partners are a bit naughty and discount below MRP

this is a problem for hp and the other channel partners

so they started pulling web data from partner websites

hp can now include live price data in their existing reporting process

5. grey market policing

sell cosmetics through their website and via resellers

resellers are not permitted to sell through amazon or ebay

searching ebay and amazon listings for infringing resellers is time consuming and ineffective

web data allows the arbonne legal department to identify infringing resellers automatically

it is even possible for them to issue enforcement notices automatically

helps them relax

So how do we feel now?

a little less like that…

a little more like this

Questions?

learn more about web data www.import.io