Abstract—Personal Digital Shopping Assistant (PDSA) is a software application used for mobile phone and Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). This application is developed to solve the difficulties of the customers while shopping. i.e. difficulties to find the products and the location of a particular shop, comparing the price and brand, and to get the latest info and promotions. There were two modules designed. Firstly, the module for main PDSA application, developed using Adobe Flash. Secondly, the module for administrator, to be used for entering data in the web administrator at the shopping center server, developed using PHP programming language and MySQL database for storing the data. The features available are mapping feature to find shop locations with pictures of the map, price and brand comparison feature, searching feature to find the specific store or good suitable for the customers, information and promotion feature to announce the latest news. At the administration side, there is a report and analysis about customer behavior and habits while shopping. Testing for the application created has been done using Personal Digital Assistant HP iPAQ h1940 connected to the mobile phone equipped with Bluetooth connection and dial up modem to be connected with shopping center server. Based on a questionnaire that has been distributed to some customers, it can be concluded that the PDSA is suitable for use by all ages from teenagers to adults, especially for young executives both men and women and is an user friendly application with - average rating of 85% and to assist and streamline the activities of shopping, with - average rating 100%
Index Terms—Personal Digital Shopping Assistant, mobile phone, shopping center, Adobe Flash , PHP, MYSQL
Djoni Haryadi Setiabudi is an Associate Professor at Petra Christian University, Surabaya, Indonesia
Cite: Djoni Haryadi Setiabudi and Lady Joanne Tjahyana, "Mobile Phone as a Personal Digital Shopping Assistant to Help Customers Shop in Shopping Center," International Journal of Information and Education Technology vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 126-131, 2011.