A host of world-changing inventions marked the first Industrial Revolution and the following century. The internal combustion engine is not the least important of them. It led to the growing availability of automobiles, which broadened the horizons of everyday life, enabling greater productivity, further and faster travel, and improved communication.
Today, the automotive industry is more than just buying and selling automobiles. Its vibrant online markets deal in everything from cars and spare parts to maintenance services and insurance. The players here range from leading manufacturers to people from all walks of life. Another discovery that led to greater productivity plays a significant role in these online markets. That discovery is the power of automated public data collection.
Go deeper with GlobalData
An industry that rides in many directions
Mass production was the first driver of sales in the automotive industry. When Henry Ford figured out the optimal way to construct automobiles using the conveyors-belt assembly lines, it allowed offering prices affordable to a significantly larger audience. The automobile industry, as we know it, has started truly rolling.
This innovation has touched two of the automotive industry’s three main pillars: manufacturers and dealerships. As the industry matured, along with the DUY maintenance of automobiles, the third pillar emerged: spare parts and components manufacturing.
Today, the scope of the automotive industry depends on the definition. Add all the services that support automobile maintenance, such as mechanic repair shops, car insurance, and shuttle services, and you are looking at an incredibly vast and diverse picture. The separate branches of this industry seem to be held together only by their connection to motor vehicles.
However, there is another noteworthy common denominator. All these branches create and profitably use volumes of web data.
How well do you really know your competitors?
Access the most comprehensive Company Profiles on the market, powered by GlobalData. Save hours of research. Gain competitive edge.
Thank you!
Your download email will arrive shortly
Not ready to buy yet? Download a free sample
We are confident about the unique quality of our Company Profiles. However, we want you to make the most beneficial decision for your business, so we offer a free sample that you can download by submitting the below form
By GlobalDataCruising down the digital landscape
Like motor vehicles a century earlier, the Internet emerged as the invention that brought the world even closer together. Its distance-defying power allows businesses and drivers to deal with and share information with a much broader audience. Those looking for a secondhand part of a specific vehicle model that manufacturers no longer make quickly appreciated the opportunities the web brings to automobile enthusiasts.
However, all parts of the industry continue to find value in the Internet’s reach. The global automotive e-commerce market is set to reach $176.24 billion by 2031, increasing 4.5 times in the decade leading up to it. Aside from online sales, the marketing capabilities and valuable data will certainly keep its players, big and small, drawn to the vast and fertile digital landscape.
Finding value in public online data sources
The idea that public web data has enormous potential for the automotive industry is nothing new. Automated extraction of such data enables aggregated car listings and helps companies perform various business-critical tasks, from market analysis to monitoring demand and supply.
This extraction is achieved by specialized software tools known as web scrapers. Private IT-savvy car enthusiasts can utilize small-scale web scraping on their own to, for example, identify certain types of used car offerings for their car-flipping projects. Large-scale data scraping for business purposes requires a more sophisticated and professionally maintained infrastructure to ensure successful and continuous return of relevant data.
More use cases emerge as the online automotive industry grows and becomes accustomed to public data scraping. With current industry experience, we can already name a few data sources that stand out as profit drivers in the automotive industry.
Automobile marketplaces
Online marketplaces dedicated to selling motor vehicles are a natural target of data collection for all automotive industry players. Competitive intelligence for similar marketplaces and market research to provide ready-made data products to such market players are the classical use cases for collecting data from these sources.
Scraping these websites, however, also enables such innovative services as used vehicle valuation. Providers of this service will collect prices, technical descriptions, such as engine power and mileage, and other information across various marketplaces to help car resellers of all scopes determine the market value of their stock.
Official dealerships
Online dealerships of the best-known manufacturers are the first sources of news and plans shaping industry trends. Information on these websites is crucial for various services, such as auto recall information providers. Each year, manufacturers recall millions of cars to fix technical issues ranging from minor to serious safety threats. As cars are becoming more tech-heavy, the number of recalls can increase.
The recall system gave birth to the segment of the automotive industry that provides recall information on various makes and models to resellers, insurance companies, and private citizens. Scraping official dealerships helps to keep this information extensive and up-to-date.
Automobile part marketplaces
Vehicle part dealers and repair shops are examples of auto recall service users. These businesses need to make sure that the parts they use or resell have not been recalled in order to promote client safety and satisfaction.
However, automobile part marketplaces also serve as valuable public information sources for mechanics and used car dealerships. Scraping these sources enables such businesses to restock in bulk and get the best deals. Additionally, software and data providers for these services collect information about prices, availability, and trends from spare part marketplaces to create useful solutions and data products.
General marketplaces
The car buying aftermarket accounts for 77.7% of all online car sales globally. While dedicated digital platforms see most of these deals, such a percentage is only possible with the contribution of general marketplaces for various classified ads.
Detailed listings and reviews, which build trust in these platforms, become excellent sources of data. Different segments of the industry, from used parts resellers and large-scale auto repair franchises to car valuation and research service providers, utilize information from these marketplaces.
Governmental websites
The aforementioned auto-recall information aggregators utilize governmental websites to ensure comprehensive monitoring. Furthermore, shuttle service providers can use these sources for road works and other infrastructure conditions data, as well as public transportation information to optimize service availability and pricing. Finally, industry players, from car insurers to market intelligence providers, will monitor governmental websites for reliable statistics and up-to-date regulation, especially concerning the automotive aftermarket.
Final words: a vehicle that never parks
Since its inception in the early days of the last century, the automotive industry has kept going as if powered by a perpetual motion engine. While the physical mechanisms can vary from internal combustion to electricity-driven and, perhaps, fuel yet to be discovered, what truly keeps this industry going is the freedom associated with motor vehicles. Not only the freedom of the road that one can travel with more ease and control but also the opportunity to buy, sell, fix, improve, construct, and deconstruct as you please. Millions of these daily actions and transactions create fresh and useful data points that refill the tanks of the automotive industry on the go.
Julius Černiauskas is CEO at Oxylabs
