Using an Emotional Intelligent Agent to Support Customers´ Searches Interactively in e-Marketplaces

Emotions play a key role in any purchasing process even more when it is done through web portals. In this paper, we present a fuzzy-logic based system aimed to generate emotions for a virtual seller or avatar. The 3D avatar is integrated within the e-Zoco e-commerce portal and its behaviour depends on the product search results. Moreover, the mood of the avatar not only depend on the products that the portal can offer, but also the recommendations that can be used to guide the customer when beginning a new search. The system provides advice to the clients in order to assist them in the specification of constraints and thus obtain more interesting products in a shorter time.