A smart assistant toward product-awareness shopping

This research employs sensor techniques (i.e., radio-frequency identification system) in developing a smart assistant for home furniture shopping. The implemented assistant provides friendly accessed interface that allows consumers to easily locate the product, confirm the detail information of it, and moreover, provide real-time recommendation(s) in accordance with interests of consumers. Unlike conventional online stores, the system offers the retailer extra spaces for varieties of merchandize, eliminated duplicated products display, etc. In addition, the assistant can avoid an unnecessary crashing of huge shopping carts in a crowded situation. This research discusses a new shopping pattern implemented by a smart assistant with the integration of consumer, retailer, and warehouse sides. In addition, an application is provided on smart phones in conjunction with the system to improve the competiveness in the market and increase the loyalty of their consumers. The experiment results demonstrate that collected data from end users (e.g., consumer, warehouse, and retailer itself) may provide essential information to revise business models.