Business Analytics in E-Commerce: A Literature Review

Abstract

This paper attempts to identify the value and the use of business analytics (BA) in E-commerce, and challenges and trends associated with BA in E-commerce. It systematically examines the literature about BA, with a particular focus on E-commerce. BA has critical value in E-commerce. BA has been used in customer analysis and website usage analysis. The most important factor for the value of E-commerce BA is customer. This paper also suggests an E-commerce BA research model which describes the BA iterative process from data to analysis, to decision, to estimation, and separates BA analysis results as functional-level and competitive-level results. Challenges identified in this paper hold theoretical and practical implications. Future studies could seek an enhanced understanding of BA through quantitative analysis.