Internet technology

Computers can communicate with each other when they speak a common language or use a
common communication protocol. Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)
is the communication network protocol used on the Internet. TCP/IP has two parts. TCP
handles the transport of data, and IP performs routing and addressing.

Data transport

The two main methods for transporting data across a network are circuit and packet
switching. Circuit switching is commonly used for voice and package switching for data.
Parts of the telephone system still operate as a circuit-switched network. Each link of a
predetermined bandwidth is dedicated to a predetermined number of users for a period of
time.

The Internet is a packet switching network. The TCP part of TCP/IP is responsible for
splitting a message from the sending computer into packets, uniquely numbering each packet,
transmitting the packets, and putting them together in the correct sequence at the receiving
computer. The major advantage of packet switching is that it permits sharing of resources
(e.g., a communication link) and makes better use of available bandwidth.

Routing

Routing is the process of determining the path a message will take from the sending to the
receiving computer. It is the responsibility of the IP part of TCP/IP for dynamically
determining the best route through the network. Because routing is dynamic, packets of the
same message may take different paths and not necessarily arrive in the sequence in which
they were sent.

Addressability

Messages can be sent from one computer to another only when every server on the Internet is
uniquely addressable. The Internet Network Information Center (InterNIC) manages the
assignment of unique IP addresses so that TCP/IP networks anywhere in the world can
communicate with each other. An IP address is a unique 32-bit number consisting of four
groups of decimal numbers in the range 0 to 255 (e.g., 128.192.73.60). IP numbers are
difficult to recall. Humans can more easily remember addresses like aussie.mgmt.uga.edu. A
Domain Name Server (DNS) converts aussie.mgmt.uga.edu to the IP address 128.192.73.60.
The exponential growth of the Internet will eventually result in a shortage of IP addresses,
and the development of next-generation IP (IPng) is underway.

HTML
HTML is a markup language , which means it marks a portion of text as referring to a
particular type of information. HTML does not specify how this is to be interpreted; this is
the function of the browser. Often the person using the browser can specify how the
information will be presented. For instance, using the preference features of your browser,
you can indicate the font and size for presenting information. As a result, you can
significantly alter the look of the page, which could have been carefully crafted by a graphic
artist to convey a particular look and feel. Thus, the you may see an image somewhat
different from what the designer intended.

Electronic publishing

Two common approaches to electronic publishing are Adobe’s portable document format
(PDF) and HTML. The differences between HTML and PDF are summarized in Exhibit 7.

Exhibit 7. HTML versus PDF

HTML PDF

A markup language A page description language

HTML files can be created by a wide variety PDF files are created using special software sold by
of software. Most word processors can Adobe that is more expensive than many HTML
generate HTML creator alternatives

Browser is free Viewer is free

Captures structure Captures structure and layout

Can have links to PDF Can have links to HTML

Reader can change presentation Creator determines presentation

Cryptography
Cryptography, the science of encoding and decoding information, has been used
for centuries to secure communications. In the digital age, it has become an
essential tool for safeguarding the integrity and confidentiality of electronic
transactions. By employing complex mathematical algorithms, cryptography
ensures that only authorized parties can access and decipher the encrypted
data, keeping it safe from prying eyes.

One of the most common cryptographic techniques used in e-commerce and

online banking is the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol. SSL establishes an
encrypted link between a web server and a browser, ensuring that all data
passed between them remains private and secure. When you see a padlock icon
or “https” in your browser’s address bar, it indicates that your connection to the
website is encrypted using SSL. This encryption protects sensitive information
such as credit card numbers, passwords, and personal details from being
intercepted by hackers.

Another crucial aspect of cryptography in e-commerce and online banking is the

use of digital signatures. A digital signature is a unique code generated by a
user’s private key, which is then attached to an electronic document or
transaction. This signature serves as proof of the sender’s identity and confirms
that the data has not been tampered with during transmission. Digital
signatures are widely used in online banking to authenticate users and validate
transactions, ensuring that only authorized individuals can access and
manipulate financial information.

Moreover, cryptographic techniques are employed to secure payment gateways,

the intermediaries between merchants and financial institutions that process
online transactions. Payment gateways use encryption to protect sensitive data
such as credit card information and bank account details, ensuring that it is
securely transmitted between the customer, the merchant, and the financial
institution. This secure transmission of data is vital in maintaining consumer
trust and preventing fraud in e-commerce.

Cryptography also plays a significant role in protecting cryptocurrencies, digital

or virtual currencies that use cryptography for security. The most well-known
example is Bitcoin, which relies on a decentralized network of computers to
validate and record transactions in a public ledger called the blockchain.
Cryptographic techniques are used to secure the blockchain, ensuring that
transactions are irreversible and that users’ digital wallets are protected from
unauthorized access.

However, despite the robust security provided by cryptography, it is essential to

remember that no system is entirely foolproof. Cybercriminals are continually
developing new methods to exploit vulnerabilities in cryptographic algorithms
and protocols. As a result, businesses and financial institutions must remain
vigilant and invest in regular security updates and improvements to stay ahead
of potential threats.

In conclusion, cryptography plays a vital role in securing e-commerce and online

banking transactions, providing the necessary protection for sensitive
information and ensuring the integrity of electronic communications. By
employing cryptographic techniques such as SSL encryption, digital signatures,
and secure payment gateways, businesses and financial institutions can
safeguard their customers’ data and maintain trust in the digital marketplace. As
technology continues to evolve and cyber threats become more sophisticated,
the importance of cryptography in e-commerce and online banking will only
continue to grow.

OLAP (online analytical processing) is a computing method that enables

users to easily and selectively extract and query data in order to analyze it from
different points of view. OLAP business intelligence queries often aid in trends
analysis, financial reporting, sales forecasting, budgeting and other planning
purposes.

For example, a user can request that data be analyzed to display a spreadsheet
showing all of a company's beach ball products sold in Florida in the month of
July, compare revenue figures with those for the same products in September and
then see a comparison of other product sales in Florida in the same time period.

How OLAP systems work

To facilitate this kind of analysis, data is collected from multiple data
sources and stored in data warehouses then cleansed and organized into
data cubes. Each OLAP cube contains data categorized by dimensions
(such as customers, geographic sales region and time period) derived
by dimensional tables in the data warehouses. Dimensions are then
populated by members (such as customer names, countries and months)
that are organized hierarchically. OLAP cubes are often pre-summarized
across dimensions to drastically improve query time over relational
databases.

Analysts can then perform five types of OLAP analytical operations against
these multidimensional databases:

 Roll-up. Also known as consolidation, or drill-up, this operation

summarizes the data along the dimension.

 Drill-down. This allows analysts to navigate deeper among the

dimensions of data, for example drilling down from "time period" to
"years" and "months" to chart sales growth for a product.

 Slice. This enables an analyst to take one level of information for

display, such as "sales in 2017."

 Dice. This allows an analyst to select data from multiple

dimensions to analyze, such as "sales of blue beach balls in Iowa
in 2017."

 Pivot. Analysts can gain a new view of data by rotating the data
axes of the cube.

OLAP software then locates the intersection of dimensions, such as all

products sold in the Eastern region above a certain price during a certain
time period, and displays them. The result is the "measure"; each OLAP
cube has at least one to perhaps hundreds of measures, which are derived
from information stored in fact tables in the data warehouse.

Types of OLAP systems

OLAP (online analytical processing) systems typically fall into one of three
types:

Multidimensional OLAP (MOLAP) is OLAP that indexes directly into

a multidimensional database.
Relational OLAP (ROLAP) is OLAP that performs dynamic
multidimensional analysis of data stored in a relational database.

Hybrid OLAP (HOLAP) is a combination of ROLAP and MOLAP. HOLAP

was developed to combine the greater data capacity of ROLAP with the
superior processing capability of MOLAP.

Uses of OLAP
OLAP can be used for data mining or the discovery of previously
undiscerned relationships between data items. An OLAP database does
not need to be as large as a data warehouse, since not all transactional
data is needed for trend analysis. Using Open Database Connectivity
(ODBC), data can be imported from existing relational databases to create
a multidimensional database for OLAP.

OLAP products include IBM Cognos, Oracle OLAP and Oracle Essbase.
OLAP features are also included in tools such as Microsoft Excel and
Microsoft SQL Server's Analysis Services). OLAP products are typically
designed for multiple-user environments, with the cost of
the software based on the number of users.

Data mining in e-commerce is all about integrating statistics, databases and

artificial intelligence together with some subjects to form a new idea or a new
integrated technology for the purpose of better decision making. Data mining as a
whole is believed to be a good promoter of e-commerce. Presently, applying data
mining to e-com- merce has become a hot cake among businesses [1] . Data mining
in cloud computing is the process of extracting structured information from
unstructured or semi unstructured web data sources. From business point of view,
the core concept of cloud computing is to render computing resources in form of
service to the users who need to buy whenever they are in demand [2] . The end
product of data mining creates an avenue for decision makers to be able to track
their customers’ purchasing patterns, demand trends and locations, making their
strategic decision more effective for the betterment of their business. This can bring
down the cost of inventory together with other expenses and maximizing the overall
profit of the company.

Data mining is the process of discovering meaningful pattern and correlation by

sifting through large amounts of data stored in repositories. There are several tools
for this data generation, which include abstractions, aggregations, summarization
and characteristics of data [6] . In the past decade, data mining has change the e-
commerce business. Data mining is not specific to one type of data. Data mining can
be germane to any type of information source, however, algorithms and tactics may
differ when applied to different kind of data. The challenges presented by different
type of data varies. Data mining is being used in many form of databases like flat
file, data warehouses, object oriented databases and etc.

International Journal of Communications, Network and System Sciences

Vol.08 No.12(2015), Article ID:62254,9 pages
10.4236/ijcns.2015.812045
Data Mining in Electronic Commerce: Benefits and
Challenges
Mustapha Ismail, Mohammed Mansur Ibrahim, Zayyan Mahmoud Sanusi, Muesser
Nat
●Abstract
●Full-Text PDF
●Full-Text HTML
•Full-Text XML

●Full-Text ePUB
●Linked References
●How to Cite this Article
Management Information Systems Department, Cyprus International University,
Haspolat, Lefkoşa via Mersin, Turkey

Copyright © 2015 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License
(CC BY).
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Received 31 October 2015; accepted 25 December 2015; published 28 December

2015

ABSTRACT
Huge volume of structured and unstructured data which is called big data,
nowadays, provides opportunities for companies especially those that use
electronic commerce (e-commerce). The data is collected from customer’s
internal processes, vendors, markets and business environment. This paper
presents a data mining (DM) process for e-commerce including the three
common algorithms: association, clustering and prediction. It also
highlights some of the benefits of DM to e-commerce companies in terms of
merchandise planning, sale forecasting, basket analysis, customer
relationship management and market segmentation which can be achieved
with the three data mining algorithms. The main aim of this paper is to
review the application of data mining in e-commerce by focusing on
structured and unstructured data collected thorough various resources and
cloud computing services in order to justify the importance of data mining.
Moreover, this study evaluates certain challenges of data mining like spider
identification, data transformations and making data model comprehensible
to business users. Other challenges which are supporting the slow changing
dimensions of data, making the data transformation and model building
accessible to business users are also evaluated. A clear guide to e-
commerce companies sitting on huge volume of data to easily manipulate
the data for business improvement which in return will place them highly
competitive among their competitors is also provided in this paper.
Keywords:
Data Mining, Big Data, E-Commerce, Cloud Computing

1. Introduction
Data mining in e-commerce is all about integrating statistics, databases and artificial
intelligence together with some subjects to form a new idea or a new integrated
technology for the purpose of better decision making. Data mining as a whole is
believed to be a good promoter of e-commerce. Presently, applying data mining to
e-com- merce has become a hot cake among businesses [1] . Data mining in cloud
computing is the process of extracting structured information from unstructured or
semi unstructured web data sources. From business point of view, the core concept
of cloud computing is to render computing resources in form of service to the users
who need to buy whenever they are in demand [2] . The end product of data mining
creates an avenue for decision makers to be able to track their customers’
purchasing patterns, demand trends and locations, making their strategic decision
more effective for the betterment of their business. This can bring down the cost of
inventory together with other expenses and maximizing the overall profit of the
company.
With the wide availability of the Internet, 21st century companies highly utilize
online tools and technologies for various reasons. Therefore, today many companies
buy and sell through e-commerce and the need for developing e-commerce
applications by an expert who takes responsibility for running and maintaining the
services is increasing. When businesses grow, the required resources for e-
commerce maintenance may increase more than the level the enterprise can handle.
Based on that regard, data mining can be used to handle e-commerce enterprise
services and explore patterns for online customers so companies can boost sales and
the general pro- ductivity of the business [3] . However, the cost of running such
services is a challenge to almost all e-commerce companies. Therefore cloud
computing becomes a game changer in the way and manner companies transact
their businesses by offering a comprehensive scalable and flexible services over the
Internet. Cloud computing provides a new breakthrough for enterprises, offering a
service model that includes network storage, new information resource sharing, on-
demand access to information and processing mechanism. It is possible to provide
data mining software via cloud computing which gives e-commerce companies
opportunity to centralize their software management and data storage with absolute
assurance of reliability, efficiency and protected services to their users which in turn
cut their cost and increase their profit [4] .
Cloud computing is a technology that has to do with accessing products and services
in the cloud without shouldering the burden of hosting or delivering these services.
It can be also viewed as a “model that enhances a flexible on-demand network
access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources like networks, servers,
storage applications and services that can speedily provisioned and released with
minimal management effort or service provider interaction”. In the aspect of cloud
computing everything is considered as a service. There are three service delivery
models of cloud computing namely: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) which is
responsible for fundamental computing resources like, storage, processing, networks
and also some standardized services over the networks. The second is the Platform
as a Service (PaaS) which gives abstractions together with the services for
developing, testing, hosting and of course maintaining the applications in the
complex and developed environment. The third one is the Software as the Service
(SaaS). The entire application or service is delivered over the web through a
browser or via application programming interface (API). With service model the
consumers only need to focus on administering users to the system.
One of the most important applications of cloud computing is the storage capability.
Cloud storage has the capability to cluster different types of storage equipment by
employing cluster system, grid technology or distributed system in the network to
provide external data storage and access services by the use of software application.
Cloud computing in e-commerce is the idea of paying bandwidth and storage space
on the scale that depends on the usage. It is much more on the utility on-demand
basis whereby a user pays for less with pay per use models. Most e-commerce
companies welcome the idea as it eliminates the high cost of storage for large
volume of business data by keeping it in the cloud data centers. The platform also
gives opportunity to use e-commerce business applications e.g. B2B and B2C with
smaller investment. Some other advantages of cloud computing for e-commerce
include the following: cost effective, speed of operations, scalability and security of
the entire service [3] [4] .
The association between cloud computing and data mining is that cloud is used to
store the data on the servers and data mining is use to provide client server
relationship as a service and information being collected based on ethical issues like
privacy and individuality are violated [5] .
Considering the importance of data mining for today’s companies, this paper
discusses benefits and challenges of data mining for e-commerce companies.
Furthermore, it reviews the process of data mining in e-com- merce together with
the common types of database and cloud computing in the field of e-commerce.

2. Data Mining
Data mining is the process of discovering meaningful pattern and correlation by
sifting through large amounts of data stored in repositories. There are several tools
for this data generation, which include abstractions, aggregations, summarization
and characteristics of data [6] . In the past decade, data mining has change the e-
commerce business. Data mining is not specific to one type of data. Data mining can
be germane to any type of information source, however, algorithms and tactics may
differ when applied to different kind of data. The challenges presented by different
type of data varies. Data mining is being used in many form of databases like flat
file, data warehouses, object oriented databases and etc.
This paper concentrates on relational databases. Relational database consists of a
set of tables containing either values of entity attributes or values of attributes from
entity relationship. Tables have columns and rows, where columns represent
attributes and rows represent tuples. A tuple in relational table corresponds to either
an object or a relationship between objects and is identified by a set of attribute
values representing a unique key [6] . The most commonly used query language for
relational database is SQL, which allows to manipulate and retrieve data stored in
the tables. Data mining algorithms using relational database can be more versatile
than data mining algorithms specifically written for flat files. Data mining can benefit
from SQL for data selection, transformation and consolidation [7] .
There are several core techniques in data mining that are used to build data mining.
Most common techniques are as follows [8] [9] :
1) Association Rules
Association rule mining is among the most important methods of data mining. The
essence of this method is extracting interesting correlation and association among
sets of items in the transactional databases or other data pools. Association rules
are used extensively in various areas. A typical association rule has an implication of
the form A→B where A is an item set and B is an item set that contains only a single
atomic condition [10] .
2) Clustering
This is the organisation of data in classes or it refers to a collection of objects by
grouping similar objects to form more than one class of methods. Moreover,
clustering class labels are unidentified and it is up to the clustering algorithm to
discover acceptable classes. Clustering is sometimes called unsupervised
classification. The reason was classification is not dictated by given class labels.
Clustering is the process of grouping a set of physical or abstract object into classes
of similar object [10] .
3) Prediction
Prediction has attracted substantial attention given the possible consequences of
successful forecasting in a business context. There are two types of predictions. The
first one is predicting unavailable data values and the second one is as soon as
classification model is form on a training set, the class label of the object can be pre-
dicted based on the attribute values of the object. Prediction is more often referred
to the forecast of missing numerical values [10] .

3. Some Common Data Mining Tools

1) Weka
To have accurate data mining result require the right tool for the dataset you are
mining. Weka however, gives the ability to put into reality the learning methods
algorithms. The tool has lots of benefits as it’s include all the standard data mining
procedures like data pre-processing, clustering, association, classification, regression
and also attribute selection. It has both the Java and non-Java version together with
visualization application, and the tool is free to users to customize it to their own
specification [11] [12] .
2) NLTK
It is mainly for language processing task with pool of different language processing
tools together with machine learning, data mining and sentiment analysis, data
scrapping and different language processing tasks. NLTK tool require a user to install
the tool on his systems and have access to the full package. It is built in python and
a user can build application on top and can play around with the tool to his own
specification. All the three mentioned tools above are open source [11] .
3) Spider Miner
A data mining tool that does not require a user to write a code, written in Java
programming language. Part of SpiderMiner tool capability is that, it provides a
thorough analytics via template-based frameworks. It is very flexible tool and user
friendly offered as a service, and apart from data mining function, the tool can
visualize, predict, data pre-processing, deployment statistical modelling and of
course evaluation functions. In the tool there learning schemes, algorithms and
models from WEKA and R script which makes the tool to be more powerful [12] . All
the three mentioned tools above are open source.

Data mining in e-commerce is a vital way of repositioning the e-commerce company

for supporting the enterprise with the required information concerning the business.
Recently, most companies adopt e-commerce and being in possession of big data in
their data repositories. The only way to get the most out of this data is to mine it to
increase decision making or to enable business intelligence. In e-commerce data
mining there are three important processes that data must pass before turning into
knowledge or application

he first and easier process of data mining is data preprocessing and it is actually a
step before the data mining, whereby, the data is cleaned by removing the
unwanted data that has no relation with the required analysis. Hence, the process
will boost the performance of the entire data mining process and the accuracy of the
data will also be high and the time needed for the actual mining will be minimise
reasonably. Usually this happens if company already have an existing target data
warehouse, but if not then the process will consume at least 80% of the selection,
cleaning and transformation of data termed as preprocessing [13] .
Mining pattern is the second step and it actually refers to techniques or approach
used to develop a recommendation rules, or developing a model out of a large data
set. It can also be referred as techniques or algorithms of data mining. The most
common patterns used in e-commerce are prediction, clustering and association
rules.
The purpose of third step which is pattern analysis is to verify and shade more light
on the discovered model in order to give a clear path for the startup up for applying
of the data mining result. The analysis lay much emphasis on the statistics and rules
of the pattern used, by observing them after multiple users have accessed them
[14] .
However all this has to do with how iterative the overall process is, and the
interpretation of visual information you get at each sub step. Therefore, in general
data mining process iterates from the following five basic steps, which are:
• Data selection: This step is all about identifying the kind of data to be mined, the
goals for it and the necessary tool to enable the process. At the end of it the right
input attributes and output information in order to represent the task are chosen.
• Data transformation: This step is all about organising the data based on the
requirements by removing noise, converting one type of data to another,
normalising the data if there is need to, and also defining the strategy to handle the
missing data.
• Data mining step per se: Having mined the transformed data using any of the
techniques to extract pattern of interest, the miner can also make data mining
method by performing the proceeding steps correctly.
• Result interpretation and validation: For better understanding of data and it
synthesised knowledge together with its validity span, the robustness is check by
data mining application test. The information retrieved can also be evaluated by
comparing it with the earlier expertise in the application domain.
• Incorporation of the discovered knowledge: This has to do with presenting the
result of discovered knowledge to decision maker so that it is possible to compare or
check/resolve for conflict with an earlier extracted knowledge where a new
discovered pattern can be applied [15]

Benefits of Data Mining in E-Commerce

Application of data mining in e-commerce refers to possible areas in the field of e-
commerce where data mining can be utilised for the purpose of enhancements in
business. As we all know while visiting an online store for shopping, users normally
leave behind certain facts that companies can store in their database. These facts
repre- sent unstructured or structured data that can be mined to provide a
competitive advantage to the company. The following areas are where data mining
can be applied in the field of e-commerce for the benefits of companies:
1) Customer Profiling
This is also known as customer-oriented strategy in e-commerce. This allows
companies to use business intelligence through the mining of customer’s data to
plan their business activities and operations as well as develop new research on
products or services for prosperous e-commerce. Classifying the customers of great
purchasing potentially from the visiting data can help companies to lessen the sales
cost [17] . Companies can use users’ browsing data to identify whether they
purposefully shopping or just browsing or buying something they are familiar with or
something new. This helps companies to plan and improve their infrastructure [18] .
2) Personalization of Service
Personalization is the act to provide contents and services geared to individuals on
the basis of information of their needs and behavior. Data mining research related to
personalization has focused mostly on recommender systems and related subjects
such as collaborative filtering. Recommender systems have been explored
intensively in the data mining community. This systems can be divided into three
groups: Content-based, social data mining and collaborative filtering. These systems
are cultured and learned from explicit or implicit feedback of users and are usually
represented as the user profile. Social data mining, in considering the source of data
that are created by the group of individuals as part of their daily activities, can be
important source of important information for companies. Contrarily, personalization
can be achieved by the aid of collaborative filtering, where users are matched with
particular interest and in the same vein the preferences of these users to make
recommendations [19] .
3) Basket Analysis
Every shoppers’ basket has a story to tell and market basket analysis (MBA) is a
common retail, analytic and business intelligence tool that helps retailers to know
their customers better. There are different ways to get the best out of market basket
analysis and these include:
• Identification of product affinities; tracking not so apparent product affinities and
leveraging on them is the real challenge in retail. Walmart customers purchasing
Barbie dolls shows an affinity towards one of three candy bars, obscure connection
such as this canbe discovered with an advanced market basket analytics for planning
more effective marketing efforts.
• Cross-sell and up-sell campaigns; these shows the products purchased together,
so customers who purchase the printer can be persuaded to pick up high quality
paper or premium cartridges.
• Planograms and product combos; are used for better inventory control based on
product affinities, developing combo offers and design effective user friendly
planograms in focusing on products that sells together.
• Shoppers profile; in analyzing market basket with the aid of data mining over time
to get a glimpse of who your shoppers really are, gaining insight to their ages,
income range, buying habits, likes and dislikes, purchase preferences, levering this
and giving the customer experience [19] .
4) Sales Forecasting
Sales forecasting involves the aspect of the time an individual customer spend to
buy an item and in this process trying to predict if the customer will buy again. This
type of analysis can be used to determine a strategy of planned obsolescence or
figure out complimentary products to sell. In sales forecasting, cash flow can be
projected into three which include the pessimistic, optimistic and the realistic. This
helps to have a plan on the adequate amount of capital available to endure the
worst possible scenario that is if sales do not go actually as planned [19] .
5) Merchandise Planning
Merchandise planning is useful for both online and offline retail companies. In the
case of online business, merchandise planning will help to determine stocking
options and the inventory warehousing, while in the case of offline companies,
business that are looking to boost by adding stores can assess the required amount
of merchandise they will be adequately needing by having a foresight at the exact
layout of the current store [20] .
Using the right approach to merchandise planning will definitely lead to answers on
what to do with:
• Pricing: the aspect of database mining will help determining the suited best price
of products or services in the processes of revealing customer sensitivity.
• Deciding on products; data mining provides e-commerce businesses with the
aspect of which products customers actually desire, which includes the aspect of
intelligence on competitor’s merchandise.
• Balancing of stocks; in mining the retail database, it helps determine the right and
specific amount of stocks needed i.e. not too much and not too less, throughout the
business year and also during the buying seasons.
6) Market Segmentation
Customer segmentation is one of the best uses of data mining. From the lots of data
gotten, it can be broken down into different and meaningful segments like income,
age, gender, occupation of customers, and this can be used when either the
companies are running email marketing campaigns or SEO strategies. The aspect of
market segmentation can also help a company identify its own competitors. This
provided information alone can help the retail company identify that the periodic
respondents are usually not the only ones pointing the same customer money as the
present company is [21] .
Segmenting the database of a retail company will improve the conversion rates as
the company can focus there promotion on a close-fitted and highly wanted market.
This also helps the retail company to understand the competitors that are involved
in each and every segment in the process permitting the customization of products
that will actually satisfy the target audience in a generic way [21] .

eCommerce Case Studies

1. HP
Concerns
HP is one of the pioneers in computers, workstations, and printers
manufacturing. When HP expected to expand their market to the Asia-
Pacific region with 5 new online stores, they came to a realization that the
new online platform must support multiple HP stores on a global scale. In
order to win the heart of potential customers, from individual shoppers to
small businesses in new regions, HP Asia needed to deliver localized
experiences across multiple geographies. However, this mission might be
quite challenging when they’re a huge, multinational technology company.
More than that, HP team also wished for controlling omnichannel, project
management and customer relationship management (CRM) in one place,
which required a comprehensive online platform to support.
Solution
Magento Commerce became HP Asia-Pacific’s first choice to deliver the
true taste of local experience that could attract potential customers from
different backgrounds. Thanks to Magento Commerce, HP was able to
create several new online stores across different regions and countries that
are equipped with an exclusive set of content management, payments
processing, and language translation functionality.

Results
HP has utilized Magento Commerce to expand their online business to 5
different countries. 23% of customers decided to make a purchase online
rather than going to in-person stores, and an excellent user experience is
recorded both from online shoppers and HP Asia-Pacific employees.
2.Mainline Mens wear
concerns
Mainline is an online clothing retailer that distributes many designer brands in
fashion. As Mainline Menswear offers market presence in over 100 countries via
seven custom-built websites and an app, it’s of increasing importance to
continually deliver an excellent web browsing experience. Their main goal was to
complement their current mobile website with native app features that focused on
mobile-friendly design and functionality.

Solution
Mainline Menswear made a strategic decision to build and launch Progressive Web
Apps to provide a smooth and seamless customer experience on the web, as well as
ensure the best performance. They believed transforming the original version of the
Mainline Menswear website to a PWA would enable them to take advantage of the
fast-moving web technology, and ensure the website framework (Nuxt.js, utilizing
Vue.js) would be future-proof.

Results
With the new PWA technology, the Mainline Menswear website enjoyed
a 55% higher conversion rate, and a 243% higher revenue per session in PWA
compared to the old web.