Proxies in e-commerce and commodity arbitrage

In the hyper-competitive world of e-commerce, the winner is the one who owns the data and knows how to apply it. Dynamic pricing, lightning-fast reactions to changes in a competitor's assortment, and effective profile management across different platforms — all these are not luxuries, but basic conditions for business development. Proxy servers are the technological foundation that makes all this activity possible.

However, a superficial approach to their use — “I'll buy the simplest ones and launch the algorithm” — often leads to access restrictions, data loss, and wasted time. Major marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, Wildberries, or Ozon are complex ecosystems with strict connection security requirements.

In this article, we will conduct a full review of the e-commerce specialist's arsenal: we will study how platform algorithms work, which types of proxies provide stable access, and how to build a competent infrastructure for analytics and secure business account management.

Part 1. The Field of Tasks: What data are they working for in e-commerce?

Before talking about tools, it is necessary to understand the value of the goal. Automated data collection (web scraping) allows you to obtain information that directly affects profits:

• Competitive Analytics: Real-time monitoring of prices, promotions, discounts, and delivery terms from other sellers.
• Assortment Management: Tracking new arrivals, bestsellers, and, most importantly, Out-of-Stock items to promptly offer an alternative.
• Listing SEO Optimization: Analysis of product cards to select keywords and descriptions and improve content, ensuring high positions in the marketplace search results.
• Feedback Analysis: Collecting and structuring reviews to evaluate customer opinions about a product and identify audience needs.
• Retail Arbitrage: Finding profitable deals on one platform (e.g., Walmart) to implement resale strategies on another (e.g., Amazon).

Part 2. Digital Security: How systems analyze traffic

Collecting large volumes of data puts a load on the infrastructure. Therefore, marketplaces use complex traffic filtering algorithms.

• Filtering by IP and ASN (Autonomous System Number): The basic level of verification. If the number of requests from one address exceeds standard user rates, access may be restricted. Systems also analyze the ASN — the network identifier. If the ASN belongs to a data center (e.g., Hetzner, OVH, AWS), the traffic requires additional verification.
• Rate Limiting and Throttling: Regulation mechanisms. Rate Limiting is a limit on the number of requests per unit of time. Throttling is the regulation of response speed to optimize load, which can slow down data collection.
• CAPTCHA and Access Checks: In case of non-standard behavior, the system may prompt a CAPTCHA — a check for "humanity." There are also hidden links (Honeypots); clicking them signals the operation of an automated script.
• Environment Identification: Modern systems analyze not only the IP but also the digital environment: User-Agent, HTTP headers, TLS parameters, as well as JavaScript, Canvas, and WebGL performance to ensure the requests from the device are legitimate.

Part 3. Types of Proxies: Choosing the right tool for the task

For professional tasks in e-commerce, choosing the right type of connection that provides a high level of trust from the platforms is crucial.

• Data Center (DC) Proxies: High-speed solutions. Application: suitable for working with open catalogs or APIs where a high degree of user imitation is not required. They are used less frequently for strict platforms like Amazon.
• ISP Proxies (Static Residential): This is a hybrid solution. Stable server capacities using IP addresses registered to Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Application: ideal for tasks requiring a constant, reliable IP address, such as business account administration.
• Residential Proxies: An effective tool for analytics. These are IP addresses assigned to home devices. To the system, such a request looks like it's coming from a regular visitor.
• High Rotation: Changing the IP address for every new request or at intervals. Optimal for large-scale collection of public data from many pages.
• Sticky Sessions: The ability to fix an IP for a certain time (5-30 minutes). Necessary for tasks requiring the preservation of session context (search -> view product -> cart).
• Mobile Proxies: High-trust addresses. These are mobile operator IPs. Thanks to CGNAT technology, many subscribers use a single IP, so these addresses have a high level of trust from services. Application: a solution for working with demanding platforms and managing profiles where maximum stability is important.

Part 4. Practical Examples

Example 1: Price monitoring for sales strategy

• Task: Regularly update price information for 50,000 products for market analysis.
• Solution: Using a pool of rotating residential proxies. Specific geo-targeting is used for each region (e.g., US IPs for amazon.com). This allows for maintaining high data collection speeds without interruptions.

Example 2: Secure management of multiple stores

• Task: Administering 20 business profiles on eBay while complying with data isolation rules.
• Solution: Using specialized browsers to work with profiles. Each profile is assigned a unique, permanent (static) proxy. Mobile or ISP proxies are used for stability. This ensures data separation and the security of each account's operations.

Conclusion

Working in modern e-commerce is about operating data at high speeds. Proxy servers here are a fundamental infrastructure component on which the quality of analytics and the stability of resource access depend. A professional approach lies in the competent choice of IP type (residential, mobile, ISP) and the strategy of their application in conjunction with tools for confidential work.

👉 Ready to optimize your e-commerce business? In our catalog, you will find rotating residential proxies for market analytics, Data center proxies and reliable mobile proxies for secure account management on any platform.