Assessing Consumer Preferences to Aid Online Purchase Decisions

Fair, Issac and Company, Inc. Mathematics, 2000-01

Liaison(s): Lisa Buonpane, Ralph Keeney, Robert Oliver
Advisor(s): Darryl Yong ’96
Students(s): Natan Bershtel (TL), John Chou, Claire Launay, John Lu

Most web sites that help consumers decide between product offerings don’t explicitly incorporate preferences and tradeoffs between multiple, often conflicting, goals. In an effort to make e-commerce more personalized, our team, together with Fair, Isaac and Co., Inc., has developed two sites that help users make car-buying decisions. The first is a direct implementation of Utility Theory, while the second is based on the method of Even Swaps.