1.1 Introduction
An online bookshop is an internet website that runs an e-commerce service where online users can access information about books, buy or rent books whenever their timing is ideal. This online book selling websites helps to buy the books online with Recommendation system which is one of the stronger tools to increase profit and retaining buyer. On-line Book shopping entails buying and selling of books of all sorts with the buyer still making his choice and making the payment through the internet or through any other computer network. This pattern of trade conducted through the internet has grown extraordinarily simultaneously with wide spread use of the internet. This new trend in fact has contributed immensely to the growth of E-business and particularly in E-education. On-line Bookshop normally makes use of the World Wide Web (www) to an extent in the transaction life cycle; it also involves shopping of the physical items requested on-line.
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of Study
The Federal Polytechnic Nekede, Owerri is one of the Higher Institutions of Learning the Federal Government can boast of because of the quality of graduates it produces. It was established with the aim of providing and equipping adequate and edifying information and motivation for the students who enroll therefore studies. It is located in the eastern part of Nigeria. In this school is cited the school bookshop located in the School of Business and Management Technology. It was established not only for the precipitate need of investment or source of revenue for the school. It was built to aid students in their learning by providing books for them at a cheaper rate with less compulsion. The Bookshop is called POLYNEK CONSULTANCY LIMITED. It is from the revenue that is generated from the bookshop that the POLYNEK Farm Plantation is managed. They also take care of dispatching toilet tissues to the school hostels and the files opened by students during admission.
The challenges encountered that led to the execution of the research work is that, a lot of researchers depend on human ratings for books before acquiring theirs. It is against the background that the developments of this software to enable researcher to get high rated books with ease, thereby making optimum recommendation of impactful books. This research work is based on providing adequate information about books. At the end of this project, the research work, the software will be able to recommend high rated and reviewed books that have been of help to other researchers with reference to their research goal.
1.3 Statement of Problems
Investigation revealed that the existing system of operation and method of transaction in the schools’ bookshop has been haunted by the following problems;
- Poor arrangement of books in the shop.
- Dirty and stuffy hall.
- Time wastage in searching for desired books.
- Wrong location of the bookshop.
- Time wastage in attending to students.
- Conflicting, confusing and inadequate record keeping of daily transactions.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study
The aim of the study is to design and implement an Online Bookshop that will recommend high rate and most reviewed book. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows to develop an application software that will:
- Save the precious time of customer and very efficient to use.
- Provide large number of choices for books and also recommend for books.
- Enable user to buy book easily by making online payment.
- Identify the problems inhibiting the bookshop growth and recommend practical solutions, analyzing the existing problems or systems of transaction and complete mode of operation.
1.5 Significance of Study
The importance of this study is based on transaction changes in the operation, the cost of executing some other operations, their functions and their benefits. This study will be of immense benefit to Students, Doctors, Engineers and other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.
1.6 Scope of Study
The study focuses on the Design and Implementation of an Online Bookshop System using Federal Polytechnic Nekede Library as a Case Study.
1.7 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet).
1.8 Definition of Terms
Bookshop: It is sometimes referred to as bookstores. It is therefore a room or shop where books of a particular type or various types are packed and sold.
Recommender: a recommender is a word used to portray someone who puts forward (something or someone) as being suitable for a particular purpose or role.
