1. 1999 ACM SIGMOD: Data Management Issues in Electronic Commerce
Darko Hrelic
Program Director, EC Architecture
IBM
(C) Copyright IBM

2. Agenda Three Research Topics2
Agenda
Three Research Topics
Electronic Catalogs -> Virtual Salespeople
Information Barriers to Virtual Salespeople
Information / Data Management Challenges
New vs. Evolutionary
"Yes"
Additional Related Research Areas

3. Electronic Catalogs -> Virtual Salespeople3
Electronic Catalogs -> Virtual Salespeople
Shopper's Perspective: It's all about "Service"
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
Merchant's Perspective: It's all about "Merchandising"
Accessories, Cross-Sell, Up-Sell, "Goes With", "Just Like", Substitutions
Specials, Promotions, Packages, Bundles
Enhanced Images, Audio, Video
Targeted Marketing
Research Topic:
User Interface that Meets both the Shopper's and Merchant's Objectives

4. Information Barriers to Virtual Salespeople4
Information Barriers to Virtual Salespeople
Quality of Information
Incorrect, Incomplete, Cryptic
Described differently by different manufacturers
Inconsistent units of measure and ontologies
No standards
Granularity
Multiple information sources
Back end (ERP) system, Paper / Brochures, Suppliers
Information doesn't exist
Or is not available in required format
Research Topic:
Standard Ontologies for Products & Catalogs
Physical and Functional Definitions

5. Information / Data Management Challenges5
Information / Data Management Challenges
Guaranteeing Consistency, Correctness, Completeness
Quickly Creating Merchandising Relationships
Accessories, X-Sells, Up-Sells, Specials, etc.
New Product Introductions
Quickly Remove Merchandising Relationships
Special Sale is Over
Holiday / Season is Over
Product is no longer available
Scalability
Hundreds of Thousands to Millions of Products
i.e. "Hard Wiring" is not a practical solution
Research Topic:
Data Management Technology that Makes Above Possible

6. Additional Related Research Areas6
Additional Related Research Areas
Visual Methods for Exploring Large Information Schema
Visual Methods for Managing Large Information Schema
Security / Entitlement
Internationalization & Language Independence
Translation / Mapping