Decision support under imperfections in electronic commerce

The selection of products and services is a central issue in electronic commerce. Available data is often not sufficient to allow a precise evaluation and user preferences are usually vague. In this paper, a model for deciding under imperfect information is presented. The decision model handles two types of imperfections: imprecisions on the side of the alternatives and vagueness in the preferences of the users. Incomplete description of the alternatives may result in imprecisions in the evaluation of their features. The decision model provides a framework to reduce these imprecisions by completing information from external sources. Besides, fuzzy query conditions allow users to express vague preferences. A scenario illustrates the use of the decision model where the goal is to select a rental apartment from classified advertisements with respect to its availability by public transport