Recommender systems in e-commerce

Internet is speeding up and modifying the manner in which daily tasks such as online shopping, paying utility bills, watching new movies, communicating, etc., are accomplished. As an example, in older shopping methods, products were mass produced for a single market and audience but that approach is no longer viable. Markets based on long product and development cycles can no longer survive. To stay competitive, markets need to provide different products and services to different customers with different needs. The shift to online shopping has made it incumbent on producers and retailers to customize for customers' needs while providing more options than were possible before. This, however, poses a problem for customers who must now analyze every offering in order to determine what they actually need and will benefit from. To aid customers in this scenario, we discuss about common recommender systems techniques that have been employed and their associated trade-offs.