Peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms, where individuals can sell products and services to each other, like Etsy, Shopify, Vinted, and Airbnb, have changed people’s approaches to commerce. It’s never been easier to sell items, such as pre-owned clothes, or even rent out apartments in digital marketplaces like these.
For retail and e-commerce businesses, P2P platforms are a great source of market intelligence. Publicly available web data in these digital marketplaces can help companies gain insights into consumer preferences, fashion trends, competitor pricing strategies, and stock optimization. From information about product design and pricing to understanding which product titles work best, these data sources might be the new goldmine for competitive insights.
P2P data for improving product design
User-generated product data on P2P platforms allows businesses to refine and improve their product design and offerings. Analyzing products listed by individual sellers can give companies competitive intelligence into what’s popular right now or what consumers are currently missing.
Businesses should look first and foremost at product descriptions as they contain detailed information about materials, dimensions, features, and unique selling points. Small sellers are often well-connected to their target audiences and will provide details in the description that matter the most to consumers.
The visual aspect of products is just as important for product design teams. The way items are photographed and presented can give businesses ideas about aesthetic preferences and design elements that capture customer attention. Most importantly, all this web data is publicly available and can be effectively collected and analyzed to improve product appearance, packaging decisions, and marketing presentation.
For example, if, after analyzing product descriptions and public customer reviews in marketplaces like Etsy, a company notices recurring features or specifications (it might be eco-friendly design or specific materials) that customers engage with, it might signal a rising customer preference, especially if sales are going well.
Competitive pricing and positioning
Businesses can also improve their pricing strategy and positioning by collecting real-time data from P2P shops. Such competitive intelligence could be invaluable, as P2P platforms often react more quickly to market changes than traditional retail channels. When individual sellers change their prices based on specific supply and demand fluctuations or seasonal factors, it gives businesses information on how they can adjust their own prices.
Granular data-driven insights about pricing give companies a perception of the value of certain features — businesses can analyze how prices vary on specific attributes, materials, or design elements. Also, it gives an understanding of what features customers perceive as a commodity for which they would pay a premium price. Combined with out-of-stock data, such information can go a long way when creating a competitive pricing strategy.
When it comes to competitive positioning, businesses can analyze data from P2P platforms to find out which price points drive the most engagement. Whether they should compete on lower prices, focus on premium positioning, or target specific market segments, price intelligence allows e-commerce businesses to understand their optimal position in the market.
A practical example of this approach could be the home decor market. By analyzing pricing patterns across P2P platforms, businesses can observe how elements like sustainable materials, handcrafted pieces, or unique designs influence different price points and sales performance.
Information in product reviews
Beyond product descriptions and pricing, public customer reviews can be just as important data points. These unfiltered conversations between sellers and buyers are rich in competitive insights and subtle feedback on customers’ desires that businesses can use to improve their products.
When customers mention similar wishes or complaints about multiple sellers’ products, it could be an opportunity for a business. For example, phrases like “I wish it had…” or “It would be perfect if…” appearing in public reviews can point to important data signals, such as overpricing, uncomfortable shipping policy, etc., that other companies can use to find unique and timely product development priorities. Besides, customers often describe how they used the product and in what real-life scenarios products excelled or fell short. That helps businesses understand what and why customers want certain features.
Modern data collection tools
Although analyzing publicly available web data from P2P platforms offers obvious competitive advantages, many companies still miss the opportunity due to a lack of experience in data acquisition. Luckily, modern data collection tools have made market intelligence more accessible than ever before.
While it used to be a heavy technical task that would require intense development resources, now web scraping is a way simpler process that businesses of any size can implement. AI-powered web scraping APIs can automatically gather and structure real-time data from product descriptions, prices, or customer reviews.
Effective implementation of AI features made web scraping tools increasingly accessible for small teams with limited technical expertise. For example, the newly released Oxypilot makes it easy to collect publicly available data and parse it even for low-coders. AI innovations are already successfully used in different parts of the web scraping process: proxy management, generating dynamic fingerprints, and adapting to changing website layouts.
What should excite companies even more is how easy it is to scale their data collection projects. They can start small by monitoring a handful of competitors and expand their efforts to track thousands of products across multiple platforms as the company grows. Modern APIs can meet business demands without significant changes to the base infrastructure.
Ethical and responsible data collection practices
Businesses gain great power with P2P platform intelligence; however, this comes with great responsibility. The ability to gather publicly available web data brings fantastic opportunities for market insights, but companies must be aware of ethical and responsible data collection practices.
Businesses must operate within defined legal boundaries and without breaking the platform’s terms of service or going beyond the site’s technical limitations. P2P platforms can offer data-driven insights, but they also contain sensitive information, such as private data, that requires proper handling.
Responsible companies should focus on general trends rather than individual behaviors. It means avoiding collecting personally identifiable information or, if this is impossible, making sure to anonymize it. Ethical data collection practices help create a more sustainable and trustworthy digital commerce environment for all participants.
