Internship Activity:
Prompt
Amazon has a huge advantage over brick and mortar retailers because of the intelligent systems it employs. A customer need only get close to a product category and the intelligent systems will provide links to products other customers shopped for or bought after they viewed that particular item. Often, in a few clicks customers can find a top-rated product they were not aware of a few minutes earlier.
For Harrison Kirby, owner of the golf shop from the Milestone One Internship Activity, this causes a real problem. He has a tough time competing with online golf stores because he is not able to carry a high level of inventory nor does he have the amount of data necessary to create these intelligent systems. Below you will find a letter from Kirby that explains how you can help him in this situation.
Dear Intern,
I have an idea that I need your help developing. I realize that there is a great deal of information available on the web. Every product I carry has plenty of resources to help my customers make a decision. The problem I have found is that those resources are available on my competitors’ websites!
For example, Amazon does a great job of using its data to offer an “intelligent” suggestion to its customers. It often shows what percentage of people buy an item after viewing it, suggests related items, and even suggests combinations of purchases. I will never have as much data as Amazon does, but I wonder if I couldn’t somehow tap into their system and use it to my advantage?
I am interested in developing a system that will allow my customers to use the intelligent systems that are available online but keep my customers in my store for purchases. Part of helping with this will be gathering a list of the major golf websites that offer extensive product information, including customer reviews. I need you to build a table that has the following information in it:
Your table should be professionally presented in an Excel spreadsheet, and should include all relevant information I will need to help me make decisions and speak to website developers. Once you compile this list, I will use it to talk to developers about ways to pull this information together. It will also help you see how many websites make use of intelligent agents to help their shoppers!