IntelliShopper: Intelligent agents for e-commerce
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In this project we consider a customer's shopping experience on e-commerce sites. In this environment, shoppers must sift through the information at the e-commerce site on their own. This is a difficult task because the type and amount information provided on e-commerce sites and how the information is presented differs from company to company. In addition whenever the product information is updated -- more products are available, or prices have been reduced -- the customer goes unaware unless he/she revisits the site at a later time.
The goal of the project is to create a software agent to aid a customer who is shopping for a product on an e-commerce site. E-commerce sites allow customers to identify a product by browsing an online catalog of products or by performing a search for the product. The shopping agent would take both of these activities into consideration while at the same time giving the customer some control.
The agent will:
- gather enough information from the customer's activities at the e-commerce site to determine the wants and needs of that customer;
- gather information regarding the decision of the customer not to buy a product;
- determine the criteria to be used in determining when to alert the customer;
- automatically and periodically request information from the e-commerce site regarding the products of interest to the customer;
- alert the customer of information changes on the product(s) of interest.
The information gathered autonomously by the agent is analyzed and compared with the information with which a customer was presented during his/her original visit of the e-commerce site. If the analysis results in a higher probability of the customer making the purchase then the shopping agent will alert the customer. Otherwise, the agent continues to monitor the information at the e-commerce site until the product becomes a more appealing purchase for the customer.