Product Information Retrieval on the Web: An Empirical Study

In this paper, we investigate the consumers’ perception of on-line product search using a questionnaire-based survey. We identify that the information retrieval activity of the purchase process can be performed with three Web applications: a search engine, a price comparison service, and a Web shop. The study underlines the need for linked product data as proposed by the Semantic Web. We argue that linked data will result in easier product search on the Web for the consumer.

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