SQL Server Data Mining—Alternative Solution

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Alternative Solution: Build a Feed from the Data Warehouse to the E-Commerce System

Because the e-commerce application already has some built-in BI capabilities, we could use these features for customer segmentation and product recommendations if we built a feed from the corporate data warehouse to supply extra information, such as detailed customer profile information or even sales totals for other channels.

However, this approach is not recommended in this case because it will be impractical to meet the business requirements. Product recommendations need to be based on sales through the physical store channel as well as online transactions, and copying all the sales transactions to the e-commerce data warehouse database is not viable. Also, customer segmentation is a core activity for the marketing department, and they need to have access to all the rich information in the data warehouse.

In summary, although many e-commerce applications have built-in analytical functionality, most large retailers that also have physical stores will already have an investment in a data warehouse, and the most appropriate approach will often be to find ways to extend this with information from the Internet channel.