price-bots (Adaptation of Storefront model)

Lesson 5	e-Business architecture
Objective	priceBOTS (an adaptation of the storefront model)

Describe priceBOTS.

Wouldn't it be nice to have someone to compare the prices of each item you were thinking about buying and let you know where the best deal was? This is exactly what priceBOTS have allowed e-Shoppers to do. PriceBOTS are an adaptation of BOTS. BOTS are software programs that use
artificial intelligence^[1] to run automatically, and search through vast amounts of data.
PriceBOTS, also known as spiders, are search engines used for price comparisons. They actively search specific Web sites for prices on various products. PriceBOTS can be programmed to search for items based on any number of variables. The following graphic outlines some of the common variables by a priceBOT shopping for a book.

Bots Graph

Shoppers always like to get a good deal. As the popularity of priceBOTS grows, and customers are able to comparison shop by simply pointing and clicking, developing brand loyalty is likely to become even more challenging.

[1] Artificial intelligence: A branch of computer science dedicated to making computers mimic human intelligence. Examples include robotics, language processing, and learning systems.