Dynamic construction of product taxonomy hierarchies for assisted shopping in the electronic marketplace

The electronic marketplace is a virtual trading environment over telecommunications networks, which replicates and can even improve functions of traditional physical trading markets. Based on a previously addressed method of taxonomy-hierarchy search, we propose a mechanism for electronic shopping support. Instead of searching a fixed product taxonomy hierarchy, given search conditions, the proposed method dynamically constructs and searches a product taxonomy hierarchy. The main advantage is the flexibility in product selection, especially in product shortage situations.