Customer centric virtual shopping experience with actors agents and persona

A program product carried on a physical medium for use in a computer, said program product being an on-line catalog comprising:

• product software containing product descriptions of goods or services available thru the catalog;
• persona software containing customer personas defining a plurality of customer types and persona-content affinities linking the customer types to product descriptions;
• salesman software containing a plurality of virtual sales representatives with differing sales characteristics to advise a shopper;
• selection software providing a selection mechanism permitting the shopper to form an imaginary customer-actor based on the personas defining the customer types and in addition to select one of the virtual sales representatives to advise the shopper on use of the catalog;
• and
• presentation software for presenting to the shopper those product descriptions attuned to the imaginary customer-actor's characteristics based on the affinities established between the personas and the product descriptions.

A method of providing a shopping experience using an electronic catalog comprising:

• providing in the catalog product descriptions of goods available thru the catalog and a plurality of customer personas setting forth a plurality of customer types;
• associating the customer personas to the product descriptions with persona-product affinities linking the customer types to product descriptions;
• permitting the shopper to form all imaginary customer-actor based on one or more of the personas defining the customer types;
• and
• presenting to the shopper-product descriptions attuned to the customer-actor's characteristics based on the affinities established between the personas and the product descriptions.

A method of organizing and presenting an electronic catalog for use by a shopper comprising:

• providing in the catalog product descriptions of goods available through the catalog, customer personas defining a plurality of customer types, and a plurality of virtual sales representative with differing sales characteristics to advise a shopper;
• associating the customer personas to the product descriptions using persona-product affinities linking each of the personas to one or more of the product descriptions;
• permitting the customer to form an imaginary customer-actor based on the personas defining the customer types and to select one of the sales representative for advice on the catalog selection and ordering process;
• and
• presenting the catalog content to the shopper in terms of the customer-actor's characteristics based on the affinities established between the personas of the product descriptions.