An important issue in Internet marketing is the possibility of designing autonomous agents that are able to interpret subjective values in goods and services. From the customer's point of view, it is important to evaluate all aspects linked to the product before purchasing, not only easily identified objective parameters such as price. From a marketing perspective, the building of a brand is probably the most efficient way to distinguish a product from those of the competitors. It is therefore important for both customers and marketers to design agents that are able to interpret certain subjective product characteristics when searching for products or services on the Internet. This paper outlines a generic model of an autonomous agent Internet marketing system with a discussion on the possibilities of handling subjective product characteristics. 

This paper describes the design of an e-commerce system with the capability to generate consumer data. A system prototype has been created which supports real-time identification, selection, and exposure of personalized content. Combined with tracking of the visitor’s movements on the Web-site, the system makes it possible to establish detailed behavioral patterns. The paper aims at making design process and considerations transparent to the reader.

This paper describes a personalization system aiming at one-to-one marketing with the ability to support real-time identification, selection, and content creation where the interaction is performed on a web-based e-commerce platform. The personalization system is capable of controlling and presenting the web site in different shapes to different consumers – controlled bifurcation.  When combined with the tracking of the visitor’s site movements, detailed consumer behavior patterns can be established.

One important means has been to create a system that can later on be used in consumer behavior research.  The bifurcation capability means that the system can be used to test the impact of different layouts of the web site – or of different sales offerings – in the same way direct marketing methods work.  This system will be able to present different layouts of the site or offerings to randomized groups of visitors.  Their responses, in the form of movements within the site, purchase frequencies, etc., can then be measured by the system.

The development of a broadband application which integrates TV, Internet, picture telephones etc has been going on for several years within Telia, Sweden's leading telecom operator. The prototype solutions have been developed from a vision of how the distant communication of the future could function. Results of a qualitative study of how the prototype is perceived by consumers and service providers are presented. Compared to the Internet, the NNS prototype was perceived as being simpler, less confusing, faster to navigate and suited for all kinds of people. This paper has two aims: to provide an inspiration for new applications in a broadband environment, and to indicate problems connected with presenting content in a broadband environment.

Marketing and sales of goods through the Internet (i.e. e-commerce) is often described as an area of major importance for the future development of the Internet. Today there is a special interest in the Internet as an arena for the marketing and sale of consumer goods. Estimates indicate that there will be a rapid growth of turnover for the consumer goods industry on the Internet during the next five years. At the same time many actors on the e-commerce market have experienced problems in reaching the expected and predicted economic objectives. This may indicate that important strategic factors tied to e-commerce still have to be discovered. This paper examines the structure of the traditional retail trade and the e-commerce market and shows differences and similarities between the two market systems.

The number of players marketing consumer goods and services on the Internet is steadily increasing.  The original (physical) retailers experience fierce competition from other suppliers who market directly to the consumers. How should physical retailers meet this competition? In this paper we show there are many areas which can complement each other between the physical retail store and the e-store. We concentrate our analyses on three basic retailing activities: building the assortment, providing information about the products offered and finally, providing access to the products as part of the final transaction. We ascertain that it makes sense for traditional retailers to establish electronic retailing as part of their current business to meet the competition. The results are based on an strengths and weaknesses analysis of how the basic retail functions change when performed electronically. This evaluation is made from a consumer perspective, based on extensive empirical data. The paper ends with suggestions on how retailers can improve their e-retailing service to the consumers.