2018 4th IEEE International Conference on Information Management
Personalization Features on Business-to-Consumer E-Commerce: Review and
Future Directions
Muhammad Fadhil Dzulfikara1, Betty Purwandaria2, Dana Indra Sensuse a3, Jonathan Sofian Lusab4,
Iis Solichah a5, Pudy Primaa6, Iik Wilarso a7
a
Faculty of Computer Science, Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia bMagister Ilmu Komputer, Universitas Budi Luhur,
Indonesia e-mail: 1m.fadhil71@ui.ac.id, 2bettyp@cs.ui.ac.id, 3dana@cs.ui.ac.id, 4sofian.lusa@budiluhur.ac.id,
5
iis@cs.ui.ac.id, 6pudy.prima61@ui.ac.id, 7iiik@cs.ui.ac.id
Abstract—Personalization in e-commerce has potentials to
increase sales, customers’ purchase intention and acquisition,
as well as improvement of customer interaction. It is
understood that personalization is a controllable variable for
successful e-commerce. However, previous research on
personalization proposed diverse concepts from numerous
fields. As a result, it leads to bias construct of e-commerce
personalization development and evaluation by academia and
industry. To address this gap, a study was conducted to
unravel personalization features from various perspectives. A
Kitchenham’s systematic literature review was used to
discover personalization research from Q1/Q2 journals and
top conference papers between 2012-2017. A theory-driven
approach was administered to extract 21 selected papers. This
process classifies personalization features into four dimensions
based on three characters i.e objective, method, and user
model. They include architectural, relational, instrumental and
commercial dimensions. The results show that instrumental
and commercial personalization have been proved as the most
popular dimension in the academic literature. However,
relational personalization has been consistently rising as a new
interesting topic to study since the massive growth of social
media data.
Keywords—B2C, e-commerce, features, personalization
I. INTRODUCTION
The appearance of disruptive technologies such as mobile
Internet, cloud technology, big data and Internet of Things
(IoT) has driven the digital revolution in daily life, including
economics and business [1]. The development of these
technologies has a significant impact for business players to
expand their markets through electronic commerce or e-
commerce [1][2]. EMarketer research estimated that e-
commerce sales were globally increased to 21.9% in 2017. It
was claimed that Asia Pacific was the region with the highest
growth in the world [3]. Besides, a positive growth also
occurs in the digital buyer. By 2017, the number of digital
consumers in Asia Pacific is predicted to reach 921.6
million, 13.5% increase from 2016 [3]. Consequently,
consumers have more expectations on e-commerce in
fulfilling their needs and preferences [4][5]. Fortunately, the
unique benefit from implementing e-commerce is the ability
to tailor personalization based on customer preferences. A
personalized e-commerce is developed by changing the
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interface, functionality, and content to meet the relevant
user needs.
Nowadays, customer profiling process is supported by
various real-time data like web cookies, transactional data,
click-stream, customer personal data, or browsing history.
Besides, big data analytics also enable to tailor personalization
for the customers [6]. Hence, personalization is continuing to
expand rapidly. It is also supported by the fact that
personalization could increase conversion rates and consumers’
purchase intention [7]. 81% of consumers shift their loyalty to
platforms that offer better personalized
services [4]. Besides, personalization also reduce the
acquisition costs by 50%, lift the revenues by 5% to 15%,
and increase the marketing efficiency by 10% to 30% [8].
Personalization has supported the successful of Amazon, the
most popular B2C platform in the world [7].
Many technologies offer diverse concepts from
numerous fields. It can lead to bias construct of
personalization development and evaluation by academia
and industry [5]. To address this gap, this study aims to
unravel personalization features from various perspectives.
This process classifies personalization feature into four
dimensions, including architectural, relational, instrumental
and commercial [9]. It is based on the Fan and Poole
research which categorized personalization from three
characters i.e objective, method and user model.
This research consists of four sections, including
introduction, research methodology, discussion and
conclusion. The explanation of systematic literature review
methodology is described in second section. Next, the result
analysis from the selected papers is presented in third
section, which identify the state-of-the-art and future
directions of personalization features. In the last section,
there are research conclusion and limitation.
II. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
A Kitchenham’s systematic literature review was used to
discover personalization research [10]. According to
Kitchenham, systematic literature review (SLR) is a systematic
process to identify, evaluate and interpret all sources of
research, which related to research question [11]. Several
stages in the systematic literature review were used in this
study, including planning, implementation, and reporting. The
research methodology can be seen in Figure 1.
220
 high-level framework, which classify personalization into
four dimensions, including architectural, instrumental,
relational, and commercial based on the personalization
characteristics, i.e objectives, means or method, and user
model (Table I) [12].

Potentially related
papers: 206
Exclude papers based
on title & abstract: 164

Relevant for futher

review: 42
Exlude papers based
on full-text: 21

Figure 1. Systematic literature review methodology [10] Final papers: 21

Science Direct (6),
IEEExplore (6), ACM (4),
A. Planning Stage
Ebscohost (2), Springerlink
The planning review consists of two phases, identifying (2), Proquest (1)
the objective of SLR and developing the review protocol
[11]. The first phase started with formulating the main Figure 2. The selection process of final papers
objective of this research. It is to identify the state-of-the art
and future direction of personalized features in B2C e-
commerce. In the second phase, a review protocol was TABLE I. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF PERSONALIZATION APPROACH [12]
developed, which consists of criteria and research question.
For selection process, there are two criteria, i.e inclusion Architectural Instrumental
and exclusion. The selection process included papers which Objectives Objectives
Creating a delightful Web Increasing efficiency and
have relevant keywords and enable to answer the research environment to meet user productivity of e-commerce
question. Besides, the selection process excluded papers personal style. system to meet user needs.

from unindexed journals or conference papers. For Means
formulating the research questions, this study used PICOC Developing a delightful Web
formula (Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome environment (user interface)
and Context). and Web experience.
User Model
B. Implementation Stage Cognitive, affective, and
user social-cultural.
To identify the research, several scientific databases
were selected in this study. These are ACM, Science Direct, Relational
Proquest, Springer Link, IEEExplore, EBSCOhost, and Objectives
Emerald Insight. This research used Mendeley software to Creating a common, convenient
manage identification and selection process. Some of the platform for social interaction to
keywords were used to search the relevant literatures. The meet user need to socialise and
Individual
Means
Developing useful and
functional tools/features.
User Model
User context including time,
location, and surrounding
environmental parameters.
Commercial
Objectives
Increasing business outcomes
and enhance customer loyalty to
meet user needs for his/her
Interactional

keywords were arranged into Boolean sentences with the fulfill sense of belonging welfare.
Means Means
composition: ((Personalization OR Personal* OR Developing social interactions Developing personalized
recommendation OR recommender) AND (feature*) AND and interpersonal content (product, service,
(B2C OR e-commerce OR retailer OR e-retailer)). relationships. information).
References that used are from 2012 to 2017. Selection of User Model User Model
primary studies was conducted in several steps. Firstly, the Social context and relational User demographic, browsing
initial step discovered 206 sources from digital libraries aspects of the user. and purchase behavior.
using Boolean searching. Secondly, the selection process Affective Utilitarian
used the inclusion criteria based on the title and abstract.
Finally, full text selection has produced 21 relevant III. RESULT AND ANALYSIS
references (13 journal papers and 8 proceeding papers). The
selection process can be seen in Figure 2. A. The State-of-The-Art of B2C Personalization
To extract the data, we used theory-driven approach. 1) Architectural personalization
Research from Fan and Poole was selected to organize the Architectural personalization is generally influenced
secondary data. They have defined personalization through from the field of architecture, environmental psychology,

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and urban planning. Architectural field has become a quickly emerged as an important service to provide relevant
reference for HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) research, information. The relational personalization features are
especially graphic design and computer visualization. It shown in Table IV.
affects digital buyers’ trust and make them easy to process 4) Commercial personalization
the purchasing [13]. In previous research, Belk et al (2015) The result of systematic literature review on commercial
has proposed a personalization framework called personalization has classified personalized features (Table
PersonaWeb. It improved users’ shopping experience by V). McKechnie and Nath in 2016 suggested a personalized
adapting the visual and interaction design of e-commerce reward feature based on the early-bird deals. The users need
Web environment [14]. The personalization process was to sign up for the deal reward [16]. In 2016, Balan and
based on the difference of human cognitive styles (verbal or Mathew have evaluated the impact of personalized product
imager) and working memory capacity [14]. However, this review based on consumer buying decision and cognitive
research needs to classify more various user profiles and efforts [31]. It can reduce the information-processing efforts
device types. Besides, the method for user profiling was still and support in best product selection. The other feature is
using manual input by the users. The aesthetic aspect of user personalized online advertisement, which tailors the feature
interface plays an important role in architectural based on users’ preferences [32]. Online retailers use third
personalization. It enables customers to customize the partner (email provider and social media platform) to collect
aesthetic preferences, including product style, color, and consumer data. They offer the products through online
design features. Table II shows the mapping result of advertisement. It has been used as a marketing strategy to
architectural personalized features. influence purchase intention. The result shows
2) Instrumental personalization personalization through overt information collection
This personalization involves the fields of computer strategies enables the increasing over click-through
science, information systems and cognitive sciences. intentions.
Instrumental personalization focuses on developing systems
that have right usability and functionality according to user B. Future Direction of B2C Personalization
needs. The most studied feature of instrumental 1) Architectural personalization
personalization is product recommendation. It has attracted According to Salonen et al (2016), design
researchers’ consideration because the ability to handle personalization or we classify as architectural
information overload [15]. Some proposed personalization personalization need to be explored in future research. A
solutions have been published by researchers. For instance, comprehensive study for user controlled (explicit), and
instrumental personalization feature which is studied by automatic personalization (implicit) is needed. Various
Mckechnie et al [16]. There are several personalized device types for architectural personalization also can be
features that were developed by them, such as personalized studied for future research. Moreover, the broadness of
wish list, newsletter, personal assistant, and recently design elements need to be reviewed and explored more.
browsed items. Besides, Sahu et al have suggested a
recommendation engine using Hadoop platform according TABLE II. ARCHITECTURAL PERSONALIZATION FEATURES
to the purchase history. This technology is proposed to
Architectural
handle the large data sets or called as big data [17]. Personalization Description Ref
The other research findings state that the classic Features
recommendation techniques, including collaborative filtering, User interface of navigation tool is tailored
content-based, and fuzzy still use by many researchers. Navigation Tool based on user cognitive style and working [14]
However, the hybrid recommended system is getting popular memory capacity.
since the limitation of a single recommendation method [15]. A feature that enables colors combination of
New recommendation methods such as social network-based Color e-commerce website in order to give [13]
aesthetic impressions.
and context awareness-based have been studied initially by A feature that allows users to customize the
several researchers. The result of instrumental personalization Layout [13]
website layout.
mapping can be seen in Table III. A feature that allows the website language
Language [13]
3) Relational personalization tailored to the preferences of each user.
A relational approach is closely related to the field of
sociology, communication and anthropology. Relational TABLE III. INSTRUMENTAL PERSONALIZATION FEATURES
personalization is another alternative in personalization that
enables the creation of social relationships. There are many
Instrumental
proposed methods by researchers to enhance the Personalization Description Ref
personalized recommendation performance. In 2016, Cheng Features
et al proposed a method using social network data for [15] [17]
recommending a product. The study finds that the Product/Service/
Recommended product/service [18] [19]
Item
recommendations from social networking (trusted friends or Recommendation
based on user profile. [20] [21]
social trend) are more acceptable for users. [29]. Moreover, [22] [23]
the rise of social network information has supported Gift/ Wish List A personalized wish list. [16] [23]
personalized recommendation to the customers [30]. It has Newsletter A personalized news or promotions [16]

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 to be emailed. 3) Relational personalization
Personal Virtual personal assistant that [16] [15] Social product recommendation can support relevant
Advisor/Asistant serves user needs. [24] [25] information more effectively based on community or social
Recently Displaying relevant product based
[16]
suggestion. It positively affects in increasing the relationship
browsed Items on previous search history. between customer behavior and online recommendation.
Product/Service Product search feature allows users
[23]
However, the privacy issues are still challenging for
Search to get relevant searching results. relational personalization. It enables the privacy risk by
Product/service searching based on communicating using sensitive information to others
Local Search [26]
location. (friends, coworker, and family). There is no silver bullet that
Local Advertisement or promotional can handle privacy-personalization system. User controls
Advertisement/ feature that matches the user GPS [27] [28] must be considered on the priority of personalization in order
promotion location. to increase user trustworthy. The other challenge is the
accuracy of social network-based personalization [30].
TABLE IV. RELATIONAL PERSONALIZATION FEATURES
4) Commercial personalization
Relational Since the rapid growth of technology, consumers enable
Personalization Description Ref to exchange information through social media channel
Features
Social-Based Recommended product / item based
easily and in real time. It can simultaneously facilitate the
[29] [30] interaction with other users. Those dynamic enviroments
Recommendation on social network data.
Summary of A feature that displays user reviews have influenced the online personalized advertisement
Product result based on to the consideration [31] performance. However, consumer trust and privacy concern
Review/Rating of each user. are also challenging for researchers.
TABLE V. COMMERCIAL PERSONALIZATION FEATURES IV. CONCLUSION
Commercial This research contributes to the B2C personalization
Personalization Description Ref features by reviewing the current issues (state-of-the-art)
Features and indentifying future research. We have identified several
A feature that offers rewards to consumers personalized features from each dimension, including
Rewards based on their purchasing or loyalty [16] architectural, instrumental, relational and commercial. The
performance. findings show the different goals for each perpective.
An online advertisement feature that adjusts
Online
advertisement content based on user
[33] Therefore, the objective of personalization needs to be
Advertisement [32] identified before the implementation. Architectural
preferences.
Personalized pricing based on the personalization features needs to be explored more by the
Pricing users’characters, purchase history or [34] researchers. There is a gap between architectural dimension and
purchase power. the other dimensions. Moreover, instrumental and commercial
Bundle-Based Offering bundle-based pricing according to features have been proved as the most popular dimension in the
[15]
Pricing user preferences.
academic literature. However, relational personalization has
A feature that offers the best deals of a [23]
Best Offer
product according to user preference. [35] been consistently rising as a new interesting topic to be studied
[15] since the massive growth of social network data. Expert
A personalized feature that promotes a
[36] reviews are potential to enrich the findings. Besides, more
Promotion Deal product based on user behavior or purchase
history.
[37] academic papers could be included to give broader perspective.
[23] For future research, the classified features can be implemented
A feature that enables personalization of using personalization method to ensure the effectiveness of
[38]
Discount discount price based on user purchase
power, loyalty and user purchase history.
[39] personalization.

2) Instrumental personalization
Since the increasing of Internet of Things research,
instrumental personalization has started to broad another
platforms beside the Web-based. The future research will
implement new platform such as smart wearable devices.
Besides, e-commerce personalization has matured quickly
and become the rising field in the Web services. Therefore,
recommender systems are expected to be improved by
applying big data analytics effectively and efficiently. As
well as, the utilization of location-based recommender
system. The other issue is the datasets usually consist of
sparseness and information loss. To resolve these issues, in
recent years trust factor is used as an important role in
increasing personalized recommendation performance.
AKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work was supported by PITTA research grant
contract no 3770/UN2.R3.1/PPM.00.0/2018 funded by
Universitas Indonesia, Faculty of Computer Science UI, and
LPDP.
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