How to Parse Customer Reviews on Various Sites

Which Data Sets Are Most Practical to Track  

Consumer reviews help shed light on target audience sentiment and include the following data sets:

• Star ratings of sellers, products, and services
• Written reviews on listings, such as those on e-commerce marketplaces
• Google (and other search engine) reviews of entities like restaurants and local businesses. 
• Social media posts that mention, tag, or react to specific brands 
• Forum threads, such as on Reddit, where different companies are compared for value. 

Benefits of Collecting Customer Review Data 

Businesses use customer opinions to navigate their areas of operation:

Analyzing Customer Reviews in E-commerce 

Digital commerce entities collect data on the highest and lowest rated products in their field to determine which items to include in their catalog. They gather and analyze customer reviews to understand where their competitors are performing well or poorly, and then incorporate that data into their operations. This could mean improving the fabric quality of a product, providing more secure packaging, or simply ensuring that customer service representatives are ready to assist with assembly after the product arrives.

Analyzing Consumer Reviews for Marketing Teams

Often, consumers respond to marketing campaigns on social media and forums with texts, videos, and memes. This helps companies better understand consumer sentiment in real time:

• Is the marketing message resonating with the audience?
• Which unexpected audience segments seem particularly amused?

This data can be quickly used to respond and create additional content that capitalizes on current interest. The same is done in reverse, i.e., identifying current discussion topics and trends in consumer reviews, which are then used as starting points for marketing campaigns.

5 Best Ways to Collect Customer Reviews 

Beautiful Soup 
Collecting reviews with Beautiful Soup is done by using a server to load the content of the target site, then scanning the HTML for h3 tags, and then copying the text inside the tags to create the required code.  

Java Parsing
Using Java for parsing involves accessing the site's developer console to access HTML, parsing the desired information, parsing the code, and then exporting the needed elements to a CSV file using XPath.  

PHP-Based Data Collection 
PHP can also be used to access and collect the code of the target site. You can use the 'parsecode' and 'echo' functions to access the code and then remove any unwanted text. Finally, you can use the '$GLOBALS' function or 'global variable' and wrap the target information in <p> tags so that it can be properly highlighted and extracted. 

Note: For companies that use coding languages but are looking to supplement their capabilities, the best solution may be to use an advanced web unblocker. This can help:

• Bypass website blocking
• Perform automatic IP rotation
• Solve CAPTCHA issues
• Manage user agents (UA) and browser cookies.

Web Scraping Tools and Specialized Parsers
Alternatively, there are web scrapers that serve as fully automated tools for collecting review data. They come with convenient features such as ready-to-use crawlers for target sites, as well as parsers specifically designed to handle the ever-changing architecture of those sites. Below are some web scrapers used to collect customer review data:

• Amazon parser
• AliExpress parser
• eBay parser

These no-code templates help automatically extract and analyze reviews, seller star ratings, sell-through rates (STRs), and other social proof/sentiment metrics. 

Alternatively, you can use a proxy server, such as a proxy for Amazon, which can be integrated with your internal programs. This may be more labor-intensive but allows for unlimited concurrent requests while using real device-like instances within the company's infrastructure. 

Ready-to-Use Review Data 
For example, Amazon datasets serve as an alternative to all the previously considered data scraping methods that use coding languages. Those methods require time, skills, and software and hardware. Datasets offer a completely different approach to the data input cycle. It's about maximizing access while minimizing the time and effort that would be required to achieve similar results. A customer review dataset can be obtained from any public website.

Conclusion 

Scraping and monitoring reviews can be a beneficial and profitable practice for companies that want to keep a finger on the pulse of their target audience and competitive environment. Collecting such reviews from public sources can be done either with resource-intensive and complex technologies, or with a specialized parser, or simply by purchasing the necessary dataset.