If you're just looking to hide your business website's IP address for privacy reasons, you can use any type of proxy. There are times, however, when you need a proxy for a specific country. This allows you to access sites as though you were browsing from that country.
Among other things, you will be able to enjoy specific benefits that are accessible to residents of the country you are pretending to be browsing from. All this in addition to the regular privacy you get from proxies.
How proxies generally work
A proxy is an intermediary server that helps you browse without revealing your IP address. The server receives your traffic and redirects it to the website you want to visit. The website, therefore, handles your traffic as though it was coming from the server's IP address and not yours. The proxy server then receives the traffic from the website and 'delivers' it to your device.
Different locations have different IP addresses. A website can, therefore, identify the geographical region you are browsing from based on your IP address.
When using a proxy, the website records the proxy server's location instead of yours since your IP is masked.
Some proxy service providers have pools of IP addresses from different countries. If you use these proxies, you will be accessing websites as though you are from a different country. For instance, if you use Romanian proxies, websites will identify you as a browser from Romania.
So why would you want to change your digital location?
For market research
When running a business, you need to conduct market research regularly. The aim of market research is to identify new trends, learn your competitor's practices, and customer behavior. To identify all this, you first need to collect data.
Due to the immense digitization of businesses, you can get all this data through online data mining and web crawling. That's basically sending automated programs into websites and collecting the data from those sites.
Some foreign sites, however, may restrict you from accessing their site if they identify your IP to be from a different region. To gain access to such sites, you can use proxies whose IP addresses are from that particular country. The sites will then allow your programs access just like you were a local internet user.
Purchase products abroad
The prices of some products vary depending on geographical regions. If you are in a country where a certain item is expensive, you might want to purchase the products in a different country where it is cheaper.
But companies that practice regional pricing know this could happen. So, they restrict IP addresses from the expensive regions from accessing their ecommerce platforms. You can overcome this barrier by getting a proxy whose IP is from the country with lower prices.
You can even purchase the items in bulk and sell in your region for profit. This is what many sneakers sellers in countries such as the US do since the industry is notorious for regional pricing. Due to how rampant the practice is, there is a whole section of proxies known as sneaker proxies. They are specially designed to avoid being detected by the original sneakers' websites.
This is also common in buying video games and computer programs that are also priced differently per region. You can save a significant amount of money this way if you are buying programs for your business.
Cheaper prices and promotions
The transport and hospitality industry players often charge different prices for customers from different regions of the world. Airlines, hotels, and cab services do this all the time.
Often, the home country customers get the lowest prices. Those from countries with lower-earning and purchasing power may also get preferential prices. Since it would be tedious to do this manually, such companies design their website systems to identify the browsers' locations and display the appropriate price. Customers from certain regions may even get some services or products that are not available to others.
First, you need to research to determine if there are such disparities in prices charged and to identify which countries are favored. Next, get a proxy from the favored country and order the product or service.
This can be especially helpful if you are booking the services for a group of employees or clients.
Conclusion
Although we claim that the world is one big village thanks to the internet, there are still some digital boundaries. Proxies from different countries help you overcome such restrictions and interact with global websites as though you were from the same country.
Even as you use these proxies, you need to beware of the cyber laws in different countries. In some countries, for instance, data scraping is illegal. It would, therefore, be illegal to use a proxy to access websites in such a country for data mining. You also shouldn't use proxies to purchase items that have been banned from resale in a specific country.
