Considering Supplier Relations and Monetization in Designing Recommendation Systems

E-commerce merchants need to optimize their recommendations and sort listings on multi-dimensional requirements beyond product attributes to include supplier considerations, long-term customer experience and the value of the sale to achieve long term success. Product recommendations for optimizing customer conversion can be modeled effectively with predictive analytic methodologies. However, supplier and customer experience elements are not easily modeled in the same manner. This paper outlines an algorithmic approach for these considerations from Expedia's experiences.