Recommender systems for sales assistance on the internet - State-of-the-art and consumer acceptance

Recommender systems assist consumers in making product choices by providing recommendations regarding the range of products and services in a Webshop. This article deals with design options of recommender systems, depicts models for e-commerce applications and presents results of two quantitative consumer surveys that focus on acceptance and use of recommender systems. The results indicate that most Internet users prefer to request recommendations and that they are often reluctant to buy recommended products immediately.