Electronic Commerce Companies Research Articles

Utilizing a Fractional-Order Grey Model to Predict the Development Trends of China’s Electronic Commerce Service Industry

Electronic commerce plays a vital role in the digital age, and the creation of a good electronic commerce ecosystem is crucial to maintaining economic growth. The electronic commerce service industry is a leading indicator of electronic commerce development, and its possible changes imply the future trends and innovation directions of the electronic commerce industry. An accurate grasp of the possible future revenue scale of the electronic commerce service industry can provide decision-making information for government policy formulation. Electronic commerce companies must formulate operational plans based on the latest information to determine strategic directions that are reasonable and consistent with the actual situation. Although there exist many prediction methods, they often fail to produce ideal results when the number of observations is insufficient. The fractional-order grey model is a common method used to deal with small data set prediction problems. This study therefore proposes a new modeling procedure for the fractional-order grey model to predict the revenue scale of China’s electronic commerce service industry. The results of experiments demonstrate that the proposed procedure can yield robust outputs under the condition of small data sets to reduce decision-making risks. Therefore, it can be regarded as a practical small data set analysis tool for managers.

Evaluation of Consumer Complaints: A Case Study Using MAXQDA 2020 Data Analysis Software

This case study examines consumer satisfaction levels and the number of complaints about the Trendyol brand posted on the sikayetvar.com website. This research presents the approach to analyzing the content of electronic complaints and categorizing them via the MAXQDA 2020 data analysis software. The results concur with published research that has observed that the lesser-known brands with low trade volume have high satisfaction levels and a small number of complaints, while well-known brands with high trade volume have high complaints and low satisfaction levels. Consumer dissatisfaction and negative brand image categories account for 54.76% of the complaints. In addition, it has been concluded that supply and cargo problems cause consumer dissatisfaction, and consumer dissatisfaction can negatively affect the brand image. In this context, the consumer-based equity of the brand may increase when the reproach and distrust of the brand decrease. Complaints of other electronic commerce companies can be also examined in prospective studies and their code-related maps can be created, compared, and partially combined in working towards producing a canonical theme, code, and exemplary expressions.

Financial Performance Analysis Before and After the Rise of Digital Companies (Case Study in the Transportation, Banking and Manufacturing Sector Listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange)

Rapid technological developments in this era have an impact on incumbent companies or in other words, are companies that first exist and operate in the world. Technology has an influence on every area of ​​human life. The increasing number of online technology-based digital companies such as start-up companies on demand, financial technology (fintech) companies, and electronic commerce (e-commerce) companies, of course have an impact on incumbent companies in various sectors. This study was conducted to determine whether or not there are differences in the financial performance of incumbent companies between before and after the rise of digital companies. This research was conducted on companies in the transportation, banking and manufacturing sectors listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in 2012-2014 and 2016-2018, using profitability ratios, leverage ratios, liquidity ratios and activity ratios as measured by return on assets (ROA), debt ratio (DR), current ratio (CR) and total assets turnover ratio (TATO). Tests carried out include descriptive statistical analysis, normality test and hypothesis testing. In testing the hypothesis using the paired sample t-test method. The results of this study are that there is no significant difference in financial performance before and after the rise of digital companies assessed from ROA, DR, CR and TATO. In testing the hypothesis using the paired sample t-test method.

Can we work more safely and healthily with robot partners? A human‐friendly robot–human‐coordinated order fulfillment scheme

This work addresses the issue of intelligent robot–human‐coordinated parts‐to‐picker order fulfillment carried out in a human‐friendly manner. One unique feature of the proposed approach involves integrating a real‐time data‐driven stochastic‐dynamic model with a fatigue accumulation function. The optimal solutions help achieve coordination between human pickers and robots, such that robots can agilely adapt to the coordinated pickers’ efficiency and fatigue conditions. Specifically, the proposed method estimates human pickers’ instantaneous performance and robot queue lengths, which are then fed back in real time as indexes to adjust robots’ speeds of handling racks and moving them to human pickers. Using data that are provided by a giant electronic commerce (e‐commerce) company, our analyses demonstrate that the proposed robot–picker coordination system permits alleviating a picker's fatigue without much influence on picking efficiency. In particular, a picker's accumulated fatigue can be reduced by 53.74% at the expense of lowering picker efficiency by 14.79% if the proposed robot–picker coordination system is applied in the focal firm of the study case. Through our scenario design and sensitivity analysis, additional findings and managerial insights, including the rules of human‐friendly robot behaviors for coordination with human pickers in different operational scenarios are provided. They facilitate the development of “human‐friendly” intelligent robot‐human‐coordinated order‐fulfillment systems for intelligent logistics operations.

Digital currencies: Challenges between the United States, the European Union and Asia Pacific

In June 2019, Facebook announced its own cryptocurrency “Libra” to be used through WhatsApp and Messenger, in order for its value to remain stable thanks to the support from banks and electronic commerce companies, linking to different currencies and the support of important companies. EU antitrust regulators investigated it as a “threat to monetary sovereignty”. China is already testing its own DCEP cryptocurrency tied to state banks and major companies, with notable advantages. It will probably displace cash and be used even for world trade, which can make it an alternative to the traditional international payment system, compared to the current one led by the United States with the USD. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) offers “the area and the route” to extend the Yen as a global digital currency. These new developments, and their rapid and high competitiveness produced as the “art of bian lian”, have generated intense concerns in the international financial system. Will the EU, Japan or the US be able to counter the virtual yuan so quickly?
 Received: 01 September 2021Accepted: 05 November 2021

How to build employees' relationship capital through different enterprise social media platform use: the moderating role of innovation culture

PurposeThe purpose of the present study is to build a research model to study how the use of different enterprise social media platforms affects employees' relationship capital, and the moderating role of innovation culture is also examined.Design/methodology/approachStructural equation modeling was performed to test the research model and hypotheses. Surveys were conducted in an electronic commerce company in China that uses different social media platforms, generating 301 valid responses for analysis.FindingsFirst, private social media used for work-related purposes can contribute to employees' relationship capital, and public social media QQ used for work-related purposes can contribute to employees' communication quality. WeChat used for social-related purposes has a positive effect on employees' information exchange. Second, innovation culture acts as a positive moderator between work-related media use and employees' information exchange, while innovation culture acts as a negative moderator between social-related WeChat use and employees' information exchange. Third, innovation culture acts as a positive moderator between work-related QQ use and employees' trust, while innovation culture acts as a negative moderator between social-related QQ use and employees' trust.Originality/valueFirst, this paper contributes to the information system (IS) social media literature by studying the effect of the use of different enterprise social media platforms used for different purposes on employees' relationship capital. Second, the authors contribute to relationship capital theory by clarifying that use of public and private social media platforms for social- and work-related purposes is an important driver of the formation of employees' relational capital. Third, the present study also contributes to enterprise social media literature by confirming that innovation culture acts as a different moderator between use of different enterprise social media platforms and employees' relationship capital.

Methods of analyzing and evaluating the marketing environment specific to online trading

Abstract Since its inception, e-commerce had a strong impact on the way of thinking and doing business. Also, e-commerce had a strong influence on the world economy by destroying time and space barriers, offering both traders and consumers the opportunity to interact and engage in commercial transactions (no matter where they are located). Marketing environment has a significant influence on both the online stores and the shops of traditional commerce. Thus, companies must always be aware of all changes in the marketing environment. Internal and external factors can be studied and controlled so that weaknesses become strong points and threats turn into long-term opportunities. We will try to prove that elements of marketing macro environment, for example technological ones, influence in a very particular way the activity of electronic commerce companies. We also think that interacting with marketing micro environment factors, such as supply-chain sales (supply chain management), is totally different from what happens in offline trade. In this sense, two marketing researches, a qualitative focus group and another quantitative on a sample basis are made. These researches have as main objective the study of the perception of companies about the impact of environmental factors on their activity. The analysis and the results included in this paper will be useful to the companies that carry out their activity in the online environment, but also to the researchers who approach this field.

The Effect of Organizational Reputation on E-loyalty: The Roles of E-trust and E-satisfaction

Purpose- The purpose of this paper is to examine how effect of Organizational Reputation on E-loyalty with the Roles of E-trust and E-satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach- A quantitative approach was undertaken to analyze. The study used Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) operated by LISREL program to analyze the hypothesis. This paper tests the model by using data from 450 customers of Digikala firm in Iran. Findings- Results indicated that organizational reputation affects e-satisfaction significantly and the impact of organizational reputation on e-trust is significant in the selected population. Originality/value- This study emphasized on the impact of corporate reputation on increasing customer satisfaction, customer trust, and customer loyalty in the electronic commerce company. Hence, this paper investigates the interrelationships between reputation, trust, satisfaction, and loyalty as a unique context.

Revealing the Influential Factors Driving Social Commerce Adoption

Aim/Purpose: This study aims to identify the main factors influencing consumers’ adoption of social commerce (s-commerce). Based on the socio-technical theory, the study suggests a research model that investigates the key social and technical factors driving consumers’ decision to purchase from social commerce websites. In addition, the research model explores the interactive relationship among these factors. Background: The phenomenon of social commerce (s-commerce) has emerged due to the increased penetration of social media and the rapid development of Web 2.0 technologies. Electronic commerce (e-commerce) companies have made significant efforts to shift their operations to s-commerce. Therefore, to facilitate their efforts to transform, various research has been conducted to investigate the main factor influencing the adoption of s-commerce. Most of these studies have emphasised the social aspects related to s-commerce design features to understand how the use of advanced web technologies influence how customers interact with each other in s-commerce environments. However, s-commerce is viewed as a socio-technical system that requires the investigation of both social and technical factors to help in the design of effective s-commerce platforms. Methodology: To validate the proposed research model, 418 paper-based and online questionnaires were collected from online shoppers in Jordan. The Structure Equation Modelling (SEM) approach was used to test the proposed hypotheses. Contribution: This study offers a research model that serves as a theoretical framework for investigating customers’ behaviour in s-commerce environment. It represents a strong context-specific model that includes both the technical and social facilitators of s-commerce. The research model participates in gaining an improved understanding of how customers’ intention, actual purchase and post-purchase experience are formed in the s-commerce environment. Findings: The results of Structure Equation Modelling (SEM) reveal that s-commerce constructs, familiarity and user experience have a positive influence on the perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of s-commerce. In addition, perceptions of its usefulness and ease of use have a positive influence on trust, which in turn influences the purchase intention and the actual purchase. Finally, the post-purchase experience significantly influences both trust and purchase intention. Recommendations for Practitioners: This study shows that social commerce constructs strengthen customers’ perceptions of usefulness. S-commerce service providers are required to provide their customers with various channels to seek social support. Both familiarity and user experience are key enablers of customers’ perceived ease of use. S-commerce service providers consider the variation in customers’ familiarity and experience with s-commerce websites because this has a significant influence on purchase intentions and behaviour. Consequently, system designers should offer useful and sufficient information and tutorials that effectively guide customers in their searching, decision-making and purchasing activities throughout the shopping process. S-commerce service providers should understand the importance of providing secure payment systems and make their privacy policies clear to customers. Post-purchase experience has an influential role in reinforcing customers’ trust and purchase intention. The findings confirm the important role of post-purchase experience in retaining customers by improving their trust and repurchase intention. Therefore, making a customer’s post-purchase experience pleasant should be a key priority for s-commerce service providers because it has a significant influence on customers’ trust and repurchase intentions. Recommendation for Researchers: This study offers a unidimensional conceptualisation of the design features of s-commerce. These features include three main forms: recommendations and referrals, communities and forums, and reviews and ratings. Such conceptualisation provides additional insights and an understanding of the activities of information sharing in s-commerce. The significance of the technical side of s-commerce is highlighted and empirical proof is provided that social interactions guided by social technologies enhance customers’ perceived usefulness of an s-commerce website, thus increasing their trust and intention to purchase which leads to an actual purchase. This offers insights into the various types of s-commerce characteristics that contribute to facilitating customers’ purchase behaviour on s-commerce websites. Impact on Society: The findings offer insights which have important implications for research and practice to help facilitate the adoption of s-commerce. Future Research: This study considered the s-commerce websites as a homogenous online environment. Additional research could collect data from diverse online communities, such as professional groups, to provide a comprehensive understanding of how a wider variety of user behaviour is affected. Second, this was a quantitative study based on data collected in a questionnaire. Further studies may consider using qualitative or mixed methodologies (i.e. focus groups and interviews) to explore other technical and social factors that influence the use of s-commerce.

Mitigating Online Product Rating Biases Through the Discovery of Optimistic, Pessimistic, and Realistic Reviewers

The authors of this work present a model that reduces product rating biases that are a result of varying degrees of customers' optimism/pessimism. Recently, large-scale customer reviews and numerical product ratings have served as substantial criteria for new customers who make their purchasing decisions through electronic word-of-mouth. However, due to differences among reviewers' rating criteria, customer ratings are often biased. For example, a three-star rating can be considered low for an optimistic reviewer. On the other hand, the same three-star rating can be considered high for a pessimistic reviewer. Many existing studies of online customer reviews overlook the significance of reviewers' rating histories and tendencies. Considering reviewers' rating histories and tendencies is significant for identifying unbiased customer ratings and true product quality, because each reviewer has different criteria for buying and rating products. The proposed customer rating analysis model adjusts product ratings in order to provide customers with more objective and accurate feedback. The authors propose an unsupervised model aimed at mitigating customer ratings based on rating histories and tendencies, instead of human-labeled training data. A case study involving real-world customer rating data from an electronic commerce company is used to validate the method.

Research on Choice of Logistics Mode of B2C Enterprises with FAHP

Under the background of economic globalization and regional economic integration, B2C enterprises begin to focus on how to handle the relationship between logistics services and E-commerce services in the face of intense competition from other companies. This paper proposes a fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP) approach to select the logistics mode of B2C electronic commerce companies. In addition, a case study is presented to demonstrate how the approach can help in solving such problems in practice.

택배사업자의 개인정보 취급특성에 따른 개인정보보호방안 연구

National Delivery Service Industry has grown explosively in 2000s. In the background of this growth, Electronic Commerce is the major source. In 2001s, market size of electronic commerce was 118trillion won, and it is grown to almost 1,000trillion in 2012. Delivery Service is a delivery which means that is used in various areas by changing the purchasing pattern of consumer not only in electronic commerce but also in general area. In case of delivery by a third party, there was a problem between electronic commerce company and comsumer when some conflicts were occurred regarding the delivery service. At that time, the focused matter was that whether delivery service company has responsibility or not. However the social interest of the issue that how can the personal data be protected when delivery service company is dealing, has increased in these days. First of all, for delivery of goods by delivery service company in the electronic commerce, the personal data of buyer is transferred from online company to delivery service company. In this process, the personal data is used to use over the purpose of delivery or could be disclosed. Therefore, this study tries to find what is the scope of protection of personal information and the duty of delivery service company during treating of personal information of buyer. Also, it is tried to make an improvements for protecting of personal information. Actually, in the article 25 of 줐ct on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection, Etc.? the delivery service that was requested from online company was defined as an Entrusted Handling of Personal Information. So online company has some duties such as management and supervision of an entrusted handling of personal information. But because this article was intented every third party of an entrusted handling of personal information, it is not proper to apply to delivery service that has special area. That is, when delivery service is processed, the personal information is revealed in whole process. Therefore, personal information should be kept more carefully and especially encoded. In the same way, for protection of personal information of the delivery service in an entrusted handling, the access authority should be departmentalized depending on authority, and prohibit to the use of station for other purpose. Lastly, the provisions applicable mutatis mutandis should be modified by fitting a delivery service.

Guest Editors’ Page

Technology is revolutionizing the field of visual impairment and blindness, just as it is revolutionizing every other field of endeavor. This JVIB Special Issue on Technology is a rare opportunity to step back and reflect on how pervasively technology is changing education, employment, research, and society, and to look forward to what this means for the community of people dedicated to improving the lives of individuals with visual impairments. George Kerscher, the visionary leader in e-book technology interviewed in the Speaker's Corner in this issue, notes that the time when technology training was optional has passed. Young or old, low vision or blind, with additional disabilities or not, everyone in our modern society needs to use technology daily and effectively to access information. Dr. Kerscher makes a strong case that we cannot afford to neglect technology in education and rehabilitation for people who are visually impaired. Dr. Kerscher's personal example of getting in front of technology change is a signal one. Instead of waiting for the e-book revolution to happen and then spending a decade catching up, as has been traditional in the accessible technology field, he jumped into the fray and wrestled the standard format for Talking Books for people who are blind or print disabled into one that is now the primary commercial e-book standard. In a time where Amazon.com, a Seattle-based multinational electronic commerce company, sells more e-books than print books, thanks to leaders like Dr. Kerscher and the field's advocacy groups, we are getting close to a day when standard e-books work as well for blind people as they do for sighted people. With braille notetakers able to store thousands of e-books in accessible form, blind people have never had access to as many braille books as they do today. Innovation and reform initiatives demand that we change and transform practices and services using technology. This shift will have profound implications for students and adults with visual impairments. In the United States, we are about to abandon the traditional textbook with the advance of e-book technology coinciding with the advent of Common Core State Standards in mathematics and English language arts. Where and when students learn will change, and teachers will need to work with the technology the student has in his or her pocket. We are on the brink of a revolution in special education research: New technology will make it possible to collect data on tens of thousands of students in a cost-effective way. We will be able to conduct research about what really works for people with visual impairments at an unprecedented scale, which might change what we know and do about the best ways to teach and support. For a year, we have considered the key ideas for the field in the area of technology. They vary and change, but certain broad themes seem constant, such as human rights, autonomy, affordability, literacy, accessibility, equality, and sustainability. These themes emerge from complex issues that intertwine in many ways to affect the independence and quality of life for people with visual impairments. Technology can greatly advance these important themes, but it can also create major barriers. The World Wide Web, for example, is becoming the primary location for communication, education, and workplace efficiency, with access through electronic tools that are portable. However, this trend has dramatically impacted issues of accessibility for many people with disabilities, which affects autonomy, literacy, and communication at a human rights level. As a field, we need to ensure that these fundamental changes in society's use of technology lead to solutions for all people. And although technology trends provide the opportunity for greater accessibility, they can also increase the challenge of affordability for technology solutions for people with visual impairments. …

Why Do Consumers Go Internet Shopping Again? Understanding the Antecedents of Repurchase Intention

Consumer intention of reusing online websites for shopping is a major consequence for an electronic commerce company's profitability. Therefore, understanding the factors that influence online customers' repurchase intentions is of great importance to the EC companies. Drawing on specific dimensions of Social Cognitive Theory (SCT), Information Systems continuance model, Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), and empirical findings from prior studies as antecedents, the related factors were adapted and integrated within the context of Internet shopping repurchase intentions and were tested in a field study. Empirical data for hypotheses testing were collected from the online virtual store of 7-ELEVEN in Taiwan, yielding 444 valid samples. The results show that online consumer repurchase intention is determined by satisfaction, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and Internet shopping self-efficacy. Satisfaction is influenced by perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, confirmation, and positive Internet shopping experience. Perceived usefulness, in turn, is influenced by behavior modeling, positive Internet shopping experience, Internet shopping self-efficacy, and confirmation. Confirmation is affected by positive Internet shopping experience and behavior modeling. In addition, confirmation has significant effects on perceived ease of use. Finally, positive Internet shopping experience appeared to have a significant impact on Internet shopping self-efficacy. From the empirical data, meaningful findings and conclusions are derived, and suggestions for future research are also discussed.

A Fuzzy AHP Approach for Evaluating Customer Value of B2C Companies

With the development of electronic information technique, electronic ecommerce grows rapidly, including B2C electronic commerce company. The evaluation of customer value in B2C electronic commerce company is a multiple-criteria decision making (MCDM) problem with many quantitative and qualitative attributes. This paper proposes fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP) approach to evaluate customer value in B2C electronic commerce company. In addition, a case study is presented to demonstrate how the approach can help in solving such problems in practice.

A strategy-oriented operation module for recommender systems in E-commerce

Electronic commerce (EC) has become an important support for business and is regarded as an efficient system that connects suppliers with online users. Among the applications of EC, a recommender system (RS) is undoubtedly a popular issue to make the best recommendation to the users. Even if many approaches have been proposed to perfect the recommendation, a comprehensive module comprising of essential sub-modules of input profiles, a recommendation scheme, and an output interface of recommendations in the RS is still lacking. Besides, the fundamental issue of profit consideration for an EC company is not stressed in general terms. Therefore, this study aims to construct an RS with a strategy-oriented operation module regarding the above aspects; and with this module, an approach named clique-effects collaborative filtering ( CECF) for predicting the consumer's purchase behavior was proposed. Finally, we applied our proposed module to a 3C retailer in Taiwan, and promising results were obtained. Scope and Purpose This study aims to construct a comprehensive module for the recommender systems. The proposed strategy-oriented operation module comprises the essential parts of a recommender system. By utilizing the proposed module with marketing strategies and an effective on-line interface scheme, the recommender system could emphasize not only the customer's satisfaction as conventional recommender system suggested, but also the supplier's profit which shall be an important issue to an E-commerce company. Thus, a better recommendation environment could be displayed.

Business model design for biotechnology firms

The objective of this study was to develop recommendations for business model design, similar to those developed by Amit, R. and Zott, C. (2001) 'Value creation in e-business', Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 22, No. 6, pp.493-520 for electronic commerce companies, for biotechnology companies. The scientific arena of biotechnology holds great promise for solving many of mankind's greatest challenges. Many of the forms conducting this type of research are young and small allowing for great flexibility in their design. This article reviews the literature on business model design and applies those lessons to biotechnology firms. The results of the analysis of 29 questionnaires are reported. Strong management skills and fund raising skills are important at all stages of the product life cycle. Scientific skills and laboratory technician skills declined in importance over the product life cycle; while marketing skills, manufacturing skills and public relations skills increased in importance over the product life cycle.

A mathematical model for product selection strategies in a recommender system

Electronic commerce (EC) has become an important support for business. EC is regarded as an efficient platform to bridge the gape between the suppliers and consumers, but how to make use of a huge amount of transaction data and identify potential customers on the internet remains a challenge for an EC company. In particular, to recommend proper products to customers, the preferences of the targeted customers need to be accurately specified and their preferences should be taken into account. This is not only to show the goodwill of the company, but also to retain the customer relation. This study aims to construct a recommender system by focusing on the on-line decision support module with respect to customers’ characteristics and supplier’s profits. For effective decision support, a mathematical model is developed so that the right product can be recommended to the right person with the best profit for the company. A numerical example is used to illustrate how this model works when both supplier’s and consumers’ desires are taken into consideration to achieve an optimal Win–Win Strategy for market expansion.

ELECTRONIC COMMERCE AND LOGISTICS: THE LAST MILE DILEMMA REFERENCE FRAMEWORK AND SIMULATION

The electronic commerce companies that are involved in BtoC business and physical goods delivery have to deal with the Last Mile Logistics Dilemma, looking for the most apropriate solutions according to the characteristics of business models and service concepts proposed. To provide some useful suggestions to this dilemma, the article is aimed at: a) highlighting the crucial relationship between such e-commerce aproaches and logistics planning, in which the management of physical flows plays a fundamental role in providing profitability to the business; b) proposing a reference model to underly the relevant costs in the trade off between home delivery and delivery to a shop or pick-up point; c) linking those relevant costs to the main design and management leverages that can be used to define an apropriate and coherent solution to the problem; d)showing the risk of the “e-commerce trap”, that occurs when click and mortar companies have to manage multiple delivery processes and related costs.The work offers an analytical aproach to the last mile logistics design and the implementation of main alternatives. The final section reports a simulation of the final delivery process for “family durable products” showing how the described framework can be put in practice and how the different variables identified can influence the economics of the distribution process.

Assessing users' product-specific knowledge for personalization in electronic commerce

While many electronic commerce (EC) companies are adopting one-to-one marketing approaches using various personalization technologies to make their products and services unique for the purpose of attracting and retaining customers and improving their completion edges in the EC ecosystem, which, nevertheless, has low entrance barriers for new players to join and further intensify the competition, none or few of them consider a fundamental issue-the user's product-specific knowledge. Our research proposed to add this new domain of the customer's knowledge on appropriate target products into the personalization process as a part of the overall EC strategy for businesses. In this paper, we present our initial design for assessing the user's product-specific knowledge using the proposed innovative method for detecting it directly in a non-intrusive way without asking users to answer or fill out any types of questionnaires. Our method is based on customer's on-line navigation behaviors by analyzing their navigation patterns through pre-trained artificial neural networks. An empirical study designed for a case of EC store selling digital cameras was conducted in our research to prove the concept, and a good preliminary result was derived from the study. For the purpose of comparing the performances between the conventional approach of using questionnaire and the proposed innovative approach of navigation pattern mining, a questionnaire based approach for evaluating the user's product-specific knowledge was designed and incorporated into our knowledge level assessment system (KLAS). Our study result shows that although the pure questionnaire-based KLAS is intrusive and may not be accepted by some users, for those users willing to complete the questionnaire, the proposed navigation pattern approach can be combined with the questionnaire-based approach to create a hybrid KLAS which has a significantly improved accuracy rate in detecting the customer's product knowledge level.