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1999 ACM SIGMOD:
Data Management Issues in
Electronic Commerce
Darko Hrelic
Program Director, EC Architecture
IBM
(C) Copyright IBM
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Agenda
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Three Research Topics
 Electronic Catalogs -> Virtual Salespeople
 Information Barriers to Virtual Salespeople
 Information / Data Management Challenges
New vs. Evolutionary
 "Yes"
Additional Related Research Areas
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Electronic Catalogs -> Virtual Salespeople
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Shopper's Perspective: It's all about "Service"
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Merchant's Perspective: It's all about "Merchandising"
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Find things Easily & Quickly
Relevance to each shopper / buyer
 Appropriate Search / Navigation technique
– "Just Browsing", "Theme Shopping", "Target Buying"
 Product knowledge dependency
Detailed descriptions and specifications
 Complete and Consistent product attributes
 Enough information (but not too much) to make "an informed" buy decision
Get sales help (only) when wanted / needed
Appropriate U/I Presentation Metaphor
Accessories, Cross-Sell, Up-Sell, "Goes With", "Just Like", Substitutions
Specials, Promotions, Packages, Bundles
Enhanced Images, Audio, Video
Targeted Marketing
Research Topic:
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User Interface that Meets both the Shopper's and Merchant's Objectives
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Information Barriers to Virtual Salespeople
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Quality of Information
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Multiple information sources
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Back end (ERP) system, Paper / Brochures, Suppliers
Information doesn't exist
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Incorrect, Incomplete, Cryptic
Described differently by different manufacturers
 Inconsistent units of measure and ontologies
 No standards
Granularity
Or is not available in required format
Research Topic:
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Standard Ontologies for Products & Catalogs
 Physical and Functional Definitions
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Information / Data Management Challenges
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Guaranteeing Consistency, Correctness, Completeness
Quickly Creating Merchandising Relationships
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Quickly Remove Merchandising Relationships
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Special Sale is Over
Holiday / Season is Over
Product is no longer available
Scalability
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Accessories, X-Sells, Up-Sells, Specials, etc.
New Product Introductions
Hundreds of Thousands to Millions of Products
i.e. "Hard Wiring" is not a practical solution
Research Topic:
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Data Management Technology that Makes Above Possible
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Additional Related Research Areas
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Visual Methods for Exploring Large Information Schema
Visual Methods for Managing Large Information Schema
Security / Entitlement
Internationalization & Language Independence
Translation / Mapping