Because of the nature of its business, Amazon has one of the world’s largest databases with thousands of entries concerning its products, and those of its Marketplace sellers, and millions of order and customer information. There are also vast quantities of information concerned with payments; visitors’ browsing habits; product information; product reviews; and pricing structures. For a consumer, it could be thought that browsing through these immense quantities of products, prices and information would be a tedious process but it is managed so effectively that the process is speedy and accurate.
Naturally, there are some data management issues. For example, if you are looking for a book, should any reviews of that title be confined to each particular edition, or to all of them? This may not matter if the book in question is a novel because the content will inherently be the same, but if it is an academic work, or a text book, different editions can have very marked differences and so customers may be misled.
All the data that Amazon holds is purely a huge catalogue of facts that needs to be broken down so that it is relevant to each particular user. For example, the data that customers need is the information that interests them: Product information and their accounts. This data therefore has already been broken down into information, which in turns gives them knowledge of factors such as those already mentioned and the status of their order.
Other data is channelled in a similar way to others, for example, data regarding popular and fast selling items informs those responsible and gives them knowledge so that they can make informed choices about reordering stock.
Naturally, there are some data management issues. For example, if you are looking for a book, should any reviews of that title be confined to each particular edition, or to all of them? This may not matter if the book in question is a novel because the content will inherently be the same, but if it is an academic work, or a text book, different editions can have very marked differences and so customers may be misled.
All the data that Amazon holds is purely a huge catalogue of facts that needs to be broken down so that it is relevant to each particular user. For example, the data that customers need is the information that interests them: Product information and their accounts. This data therefore has already been broken down into information, which in turns gives them knowledge of factors such as those already mentioned and the status of their order.
Other data is channelled in a similar way to others, for example, data regarding popular and fast selling items informs those responsible and gives them knowledge so that they can make informed choices about reordering stock.
