This proposal presents the development of a real-time price comparison application, designed to empower users to identify the most advantageous deals across leading e-commerce platforms. By inputting a product name, the application delivers a comprehensive comparison of prices, delivery fees, and customer reviews from five distinguished online retailers. Utilizing APIs for data retrieval ensures the immediacy of information without necessitating a local database. A notable innovation within this application is a customizable scoring algorithm, enabling users to tailor comparison criteria — including price, delivery speed, and customer rating — to their preferences.
This application aims to significantly enhance the online shopping journey by offering an array of features. Initiated by a product name search, it conducts a live price comparison across top e-commerce platforms, facilitated by their APIs. It doesn’t stop at listing product prices; delivery costs and timing estimates are also provided for a full purchase overview. A synthesis of customer ratings offers a sentiment gauge, while the customizable scoring algorithm stands out by allowing users to adjust the comparison’s focus on price, delivery, or satisfaction. Designed with clarity in mind, the user interface guarantees effortless navigation and result interpretation.
Initially, the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) will cater to individual product searches, displaying comparative prices, delivery charges, and customer reviews, complete with customizable scoring weights. Anticipated expansions include functionalities for comparing multiple products simultaneously, tracking price histories, and enabling personalized accounts for storing user preferences, all to enrich user experience and broaden analytical depth.
Performance: Critical for a real-time price comparison application, swift search responses and rapid data comparisons are fundamental to providing an optimal user experience. This attribute ensures that users receive immediate, up-to-date information on prices, delivery charges, and customer reviews, allowing them to make quick and informed purchasing decisions.
Usability: The design of the application’s interface is pivotal in attracting and retaining users. A user-friendly interface that simplifies navigation and makes it easy for users to customize their comparison criteria ensures a satisfying and efficient shopping experience. Enhancing usability involves intuitive design elements, clear information presentation, and streamlined processes for adjusting comparison preferences.
Interoperability: Given the application’s reliance on external data from various e-commerce platforms, interoperability is essential for facilitating seamless data exchange and integration. This attribute ensures the application can efficiently communicate with different platforms’ APIs to fetch and update price information, delivery details, and customer ratings, thereby supporting a comprehensive and accurate comparison service.
The evaluation of Performance will measure the application’s response times and accuracy of data retrieval in real-time, ensuring users access the latest information swiftly. Usability will be assessed through user feedback on the interface’s ease of navigation and the effectiveness of the customization options, aiming for a high satisfaction rate. Interoperability will be evaluated by testing the seamless integration with e-commerce platforms’ APIs, verifying that data exchange is both accurate and timely across various services.