An agent-based framework for impulse-induced mobile shopping

The popularity of Internet and the emergence of wireless technology have changed people´s lifestyle. In the past, as people walked around their surrounding environment, many impulse-induced transactions were deferred, mostly due to the lack of adequate technology or decision-making ability to conduct them. Although mobile shopping related research topics have been widely studied in the past few years, seldom have they been done in the issues of how to design a framework to provide timely shopping, location, and decision-making information to mobile shoppers to help them conduct transactions promptly and efficiently. This study presents an agent-based framework to fulfill the requirement of impulse-induced mobile shopping. The proposed framework utilizes agent technology, location-based information, and user preferences to provide an environment that is capable of responding to users´ shopping needs at the point of impulse generation. A prototyping system of the proposed framework is built and its feasibility is discussed.