Knowledge Management for Intelligent Sales Support in Electronic Commerce

This thesis applies Knowledge-Based techniques to provide Intelligent Sales Support in Electronic Commerce. Knowledge about products and possible customer situations and customer demands is used during product selection in electronic shops. The different steps during product selection cycle are supported by the formulated knowledge. Central is here the well established technique of Case-Based Reasoning which allows a reuse of knowledge and made experience. Cases represent the successful usage of products in different customer situations in the past. They are reused and if necessary modified to help customers during product selection in actual situations. Moreover, general knowledge about product lines is used to help customers to express their demands and to support the navigation in the product space. The core part of the thesis deals with configurable products which are combined of different components. Customers are supported during the configuration of the products which satisfy their demands. The usability of the different approaches is applied in different real applications in existing electronic shops. This evaluates the applicability of the developed methods in a real world Electronic Commerce solutions.