Overview
For the final project in this course, you are being asked to apply the concepts learned throughout the course to assist a small business owner in improving his business through the use of technology. Milestone Two will be the second step in creating your report and recommendations to the business owner.
The objective of this milestone is to further explore course concepts and incorporate additional perspectives and source material to analyze real world scenarios by creating a technology guide for the business owner. Leverage both the textbook and external sources to complete this assignment.
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:
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Company Name
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Product Information
(Does the website offer extensive product information-even from the manufacturer?)
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Customer Reviews
(Does the website offer customer reviews?)
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Related Product Information (Does the website
offer related products to view?)
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Purchase Information
(Does the website offer information on how many people purchase this item? What about other products they purchase after looking at this one?)
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Combination Purchase
(Does the website offer suggestions on combinations of items that customers typically purchase?)
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e.g. Company x siteexample
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The company's web site offers specific description of the product and links back to the manufacturer's web site for additional details.
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Yes - The website links reviews of the product to Amazon reviews.
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The site does not offer related products
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The site does show related products that people purchase after looking at a specific items or what people purchase instead of the current item.
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Yes- the site shows items 'often purchased together'.
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Your table should be professionally presented within a Microsoft Word document (exactly how the table above has been added to this document), 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! Along with your Microsoft Word table, please also include a brief narrative that summarizes your findings and provide some guidance for my business based on what other companies are offering in the different dimensions.
Thank you, Harrison Kirby
Requirements of Submission
Milestone Two: Technology Guide should follow these formatting guidelines: use of three sources, embedded Microsoft Word table, APA formatted narrative to support the technology guide, and bibliography in APA format.