Leveraging complex event processing for supporting small and medium-sized e-commerce enterprises

E-shop operators have a particular high interest in using web-analytics software to gain deeper insight in their visitor and customer base and to use this knowledge to optimize their sales through various activities. Compared to larger-scale companies, small and medium enterprises often lack the ability, time or resources to do the necessary data analysis to effectively use and understand the available data. In order to support these smaller enterprises, a tool was designed and implemented in a prototype, which uses Complex Event Processing (CEP) in order to automate the evaluation of relevant business data originating from web-analytics software, competitor website analysis tools, real-time user interaction data and potentially additional data sources. Rules can be defined and configured, that automatically and immediately notify the user when relevant changes in the visitor or competitor behavior occur. Additional rules were implemented, aimed at directly increasing sales by dynamically changing the shop-site, based on the analysis of the individual visitor's behavior. This allows the eshop operators to concentrate on their main business while still benefiting from the available analytics data. The tool is developed as part of the SME E-Compass [I] project.