An RFID-based Shopping Service System for retailers

Abstract

Modern markets have put intensive effort on commodity arrangement in order to satisfy the consumer demands on commodity purchase. However, most markets do not provide satisfactory shopping services to customers. For instance, without a customized shopping recommendation for each individual customer, consumers have to spend a lot of time for commodity selection. Furthermore, most large-spaced markets merely utilize signs in front the aisles of specific commodity areas to direct consumers, which cannot provide an accurate guidance for commodity search. Therefore, regarding the shopping services of a modern market, this research develops a customized commodity recommendation algorithm and a shopping route determination and guiding algorithm. Based on the proposed algorithms, a Shopping Service System (3S-System) is established by integrating the RFID technology. Considering the consumer demands, consumer shopping preferences and market promotion plans, this research proposes an integrated, heuristic methodology to provide a customized purchase list, route recommendation and real-time direction guiding for consumer shopping. Moreover, based on the proposed methodology, a Shopping Service System (3S-System) is established, and a simulated market is created in order to verify the feasibility of the proposed model. The verification results show that the system can offer customers appropriate shopping route recommendation in a short time and could achieve real-time guiding. As a whole, this research provides a methodology and system to provide effective shopping services for consumers and as a result the shopping service quality of modern markets can be enhanced and the sales volume of commodities can be increased. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.