The Journey Begins: Collecting LoveBuy Reviews
In today's global e-commerce landscape, purchasing agents (daigou) play a crucial role in bridging international markets. Our project began with collecting reviews from platforms like LoveBuy—a popular website for Asian cosmetics and skincare products sold overseas.
We utilized web scraping tools to extract:
- Product ratings (1-5 stars)
- Verbatim customer comments
- Purchase dates and locations
- Verified purchase markers
Tip: Always comply with review platforms' Terms of Service when scraping data. We used LoveBuy's API where available and respected robots.txt restrictions.
Building the Spreadsheet Infrastructure
The core of our analysis system lives in a structured Google Sheet with five key components:
Tab Name | Purpose |
---|---|
Raw Data | Unprocessed review imports with metadata |
Sentiment Analysis | Automated scoring of review tone |
Product Summary | Aggregated scores by SKU |
Brand Dashboard | Comparison metrics across product lines |
Trend Tracker | Temporal analysis of review patterns |
We connected this to Google Apps Script for automatic data refreshing from our LoveBuy API endpoints.
From Raw Data to Product Insights
The magic happens when translating spreadsheet data into actionable intelligence:
Example: Sheet Masks Market Trend Analysis
By tracking "alcohol-free" mentions in reviews over time, coupled with rating data, we identified:
Practical Implementation Suggestions
- Review Metadata Matters
- Normalize Ratings
- Leverage AI Categorization
- Visualization is Key