How Has Web Scraping Helped Tracking Supermarket Prices During Cost-Of-Living Crisis?

This statistical agency has formerly experimented using a technology where automated systems crawl the web and scrape data from websites. During 2014-2017, as a part of a broader exploration of Big Data resources, the ONS trialed the usage of web scraping for collecting information about grocery pricing.

This work mainly predated the making in spring 2017 of the agency’s Data Science Campus, the responsibility of exploring the usage of possible new and advanced information resources. In work to date, the campus has utilized data on trimestral VAT returns and the movement of shipping in or out of UK ports to offer indicators of a country’s economic presentation.

As that moved into the second-half decade, that has ambitions of using data science to support the government’s most enormous policy objectives and responses to society’s key challenges.

It will partially involve increasing the data range collected in the shipping industry, where GPS data is used worldwide for tracking ship movements. During the COVID-19 pandemic, web scraping helped in identifying supply-chain problems.

The aim now is to get information from the bill of lading – the documents provided by shipping companies to importers and contain data on the cargo getting carried.

It can help better understand the supply of goods levels and help spot patterns and potential shortages.

You can identify the position of the ships and what they carry. For example, the vessel is taking 30% trousers and 70% iPhones and the total number of units.

The campus also means exploring the capacity of web scraping to assist you in collecting information about consumer prices.

ONS has successfully used web scraping to extract supermarket prices during the cost-of-living crisis.

If you want to scrape supermarket data, contact Actowiz Solutions now! You can also call us to discuss your mobile app scraping and web scraping services requirements.