The e-Salesman System

Current e-commerce Web sites employ designs that are catalog based. Most Web-stores are seen to be fancy displays of product catalogs. The drawback is that customers are easily confused with the number of links available; they have to go through complex navigation and keyword searches to find their products; and solely rely on their own decision to purchase a product. Additionally, they cannot distinguish one retailer from another based on the Web-front; identity of the Web-business is lost. Hence, there is a lack of trust. The human and personal element seen in traditional shopping is also lost when shopping online. This paper discusses and proposes an intelligent solution to these problems. The e-Salesman System (eSS) aims to simulate the human element of traditional shopping for online sales. It is based on a knowledge driven, intelligent model as opposed to a catalog based, and static model. It is supported by a framework that is easily extensible and customizable to the needs of any Web-store.