Choosing the right dataset source for your ecommerce strategy
In today’s digital-first economy, data is one of the most powerful assets a business can leverage. With access to the right datasets, companies can gain insights into pricing trends, monitor competitor activity, predict market behavior, and optimize resource planning — all of which directly impact strategic decision-making and profitability.
Why manually track data when datasets exist?
Sure, you could hire a full-time analyst to monitor online stores, scrape data from various websites, and compile reports. But in a world where structured data is widely available — why spend the time and money doing it manually?
This is where datasets come in. These ready-to-use, structured data collections can save businesses hundreds of hours and provide scalable, repeatable, and accurate insights — often in real time or close to it.
Example scenario: Monitoring competitors in the sports goods market
Let’s imagine you run an online sports goods store and want to monitor your competitors. You’re particularly interested in extracting data from a specific retailer’s website (let’s call it XYZ.com) that includes:
Product name
Category
Brand
Price
Country of origin
Material
Available sizes
Available colors
So, the question arises — where can you find this kind of structured product data?
Public datasets of branded products (free, but limited)
There are many publicly accessible ecommerce datasets available online, often published for academic research, benchmarking, or open data initiatives. These datasets may include products from popular brands and can serve as a great starting point for exploratory analysis.
Example:
UC Irvine Machine Learning Repository – Offers datasets like Online Retail or customer behavior logs that can be applied to ecommerce-related tasks.
Benefits:
Free to use
Easy to access
Ideal for testing and proof-of-concept work
Drawbacks:
Often outdated or based on historical data
May not include current pricing, stock status, or specific store-level detail
Typically anonymized or generalized — not tailored to a particular retailer like XYZ.com
Use public datasets to validate hypotheses, train models, or explore initial ideas — but not for real-time business decisions.
Marketplaces of data (curated, scalable, but costly)
Data marketplaces offer centralized access to licensed, curated, and enterprise-grade datasets, perfect for companies working in cloud environments or building data-powered applications.
Notable marketplaces:
AWS Data Exchange – Retail pricing, demand analytics, supply chain data
Datarade– Connects buyers with global data vendors
Cost: High-quality data is often subscription-based
Customization limits: You get pre-defined fields
Cloud expertise needed: Technical setup may be required
Vendor lock-in: Tied to specific platforms or ecosystems
Use marketplaces when you need trusted external data to augment internal analytics or support enterprise applications.
APIs (structured, indirect access)
While brands like Adidas may not offer public APIs for their own stores, you can indirectly access product data via large marketplaces that list their goods.
Examples:
eBay Developer API
Amazon Product Advertising API
Zalando API
These APIs allow you to retrieve structured data, including pricing, product images, descriptions, and availability — often refreshed regularly.
Ideal for:
Product feed ingestion
App development
Branded product monitoring at scale
Third-party data providers (comprehensive, paid access)
For businesses requiring large-scale, regularly updated, and store-specific data, third-party providers are a reliable option. These services are especially valuable for organizations that need highly customizable, country-specific, or category-specific datasets to power critical business decisions.
Here are several examples of such providers:
SSA Datasets
SSA Group offers professional data extraction and aggregation services tailored to the ecommerce space. SSA Datasets specializes in ecommerce datasets organized by countries and product categories. You can select from several levels of granularity — purchase all countries, categories or brands, one country with all product categories or brands, or one specific category or brand within a selected country.
Within a country, you can choose from different retailers and specify which ecommerce platforms you want data from. This can be narrowed even further to include all platforms, a subset, or just a single one — giving you full flexibility and control.
Custom data points: Brand, price, material, sizes, colors, and more
You can also opt for a subscription plan to receive continuous updates — helping you track market trends in real time. Additionally, historical data (known as back-subscription) is available to support long-term trend analysis.
A leading web data platform offering enterprise-grade access to real-time web data from virtually any source. Their services include large-scale data collection infrastructure, pre-collected datasets, and customizable scraping solutions.
Their robust platform makes it easy to pull structured data at scale — especially useful for companies in retail, travel, finance, and market research.
ScrapeHero Data Store
A marketplace offering pre-built datasets on millions of products, locations, and services across various industries. ScrapeHero’s Data Store includes one-time downloadable datasets and subscription options for ongoing updates.
Available datasets include:
Store locations and contact information
Store openings, store closures, parking availability, in-store pickup options, services
Store subsidiaries
Nearest competitor stores
ScrapeHero also provides custom dataset development for niche use cases, including competitor tracking and industry-specific monitoring.
These providers offer unparalleled data depth and flexibility, making them ideal for businesses that need store-level granularity, customizable structure, and regular updates.
Whether you’re a retailer monitoring the competition, a consultant creating market reports, or an investor scanning price trends — third-party providers deliver the precision and reliability that off-the-shelf sources can’t match.
Can AI generate datasets for you?
With the rise of generative AI, it’s natural to wonder: Can I just ask an AI model to fetch this data for me?
Technically, yes — AI can assist in generating and structuring data, but there are limitations:
AI can’t access real-time web data without integration with scrapers or APIs
Volume is restricted by performance and cost constraints
Web scraping involves technical hurdles like: CAPTCHA/reCAPTCHA challenges, IP rotation, Proxy setup, Anti-bot systems
In many cases, using AI alone for data collection isn’t feasible without combining it with robust data infrastructure.
AI can be part of your pipeline, but it won’t replace reliable, structured data sources.
So… How complete does your data need to be?
This is the critical question to ask before choosing a data strategy.
If you’re:
Testing ideas or building an MVP → Use public datasets
Monitoring pricing on branded goods → Use APIs or data marketplaces
Running a high-stakes, data-powered business → Go for third-party providers or custom pipelines
The more specific and timely your data needs, the more robust your data infrastructure must be.
Final thoughts: Let the data work for you
Whether you’re launching a new product line, optimizing your pricing, or benchmarking competitors — data isn’t just support; it’s a strategic weapon. But choosing the right source can make all the difference between a smart decision and a shot in the dark.
So, how do you pick the right option?
Just exploring or prototyping? → Public datasets are a good place to start
Looking for structured access to branded goods? → APIs and data marketplaces can help
Need complete control or niche customization? → Manual scraping or AI might do the trick — with effort
But if you’re serious about using data to drive growth, outsmart competitors, and make high-impact decisions, then there’s one choice that stands out:
SSA Datasets: Your smartest data strategy
SSA Datasets, offered by SSA Group, provides the most complete, accurate, and business-ready data solutions for ecommerce professionals.
Whether you need pricing intelligence, competitor monitoring, market benchmarking, or all of the above — SSA Datasets gives you the precision, scale, and reliability your business deserves.
Don’t just settle for what’s available. Get exactly what you need — at the quality your decisions demand.
Ready to turn data into your competitive advantage?
Start with SSA Datasets and experience what it’s like to work with data you can trust, scale you can count on, and insights that actually drive results.
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