Perspectives in Electronic Shopping : On Beyond Automated Order Entry

Large-scale electronic shopping systems need to accommodate both (a)a large number of products, many of which are close substitutes, and (b) aheterogeneous body of customers who have complex, multidimensional andperhaps rapidly changing-preferences regarding the products for salein the system. Further, these systems will have to be designed in a mannerso as to both (c) reduce the complexity of the shopping problem fromthe customer's point of view, and (d) effectively and insightfully matchproducts to customers' needs. The aim of this paper is to address theserequirements for electronic shopping systems. We show how an abstraction(or isa) hierarchy with an imposed distance metric can be used as arepresentational basis for modeling the salesperson's role (as embodied inthe surplus and shortage problems) in an electronic shopping system. Further,we indicate how the distance metric, in the context of the abstractionhierarchy, can be interpreted as a unidimensional utility function. Finally,we extend the single dimensional (single perspective) treatment to multipledimensions, or perspectives, and show how the resulting representationcan be interpreted as a multiattribute utility function. We argue that theresulting function is plausible and, most importantly, testable