Mobile Phone as a Personal Digital Shopping Assistant to Help Customers Shop in Shopping Center

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