How can we create a closer connection between university studies and business? For the past few years, Kaufland e-commerce has been working on this topic in partnership with the University of Cologne: The Capstone Project is an initiative that benefits both the company and the university. Every semester, the business informatics students at CIIS (Cologne Institute for Information Systems) get the chance to gain practical experience in our tech department. In this article, you can read more details about this year’s project.
Special features of a Capstone Project
Many technical degree programmes require an extensive practical project towards the end of the curriculum – the Capstone Project. It lets students apply and deepen the knowledge and skills learnt during their studies by putting them into practice in a real, comprehensive project. Generally, it addresses a specific problem or subject area, and it is usually carried out in cooperation with a company or an organisation. The main goal is for the student to complete a practical project which is showcased in a final presentation. The word “capstone” in the name symbolises the project’s importance as the final, crowning achievement in a degree programme.
The cooperative Capstone Project by Kaufland e-commerce and the University of Cologne is designed to last one semester. The students’ task was to develop a software solution for a real e-commerce problem, giving them essential initial experiences with programming as well as a direct insights into the work processes of a modern tech department.
This experience helps prepare students for the practical working world. In the past, completing a Capstone Project was a foot in the door to a successful career – including at Kaufland e-commerce.
The project in WS 23/24
The participating students met up to kick the project off at the start of the winter semester in October. This year, five students took part in the project. One of them was Mete, whose past experience as a working student at Kaufland e-commerce solidified him as the team lead of the project group.
2023’s Capstone Project in cooperation with the University of Cologne was a huge success. My role as team lead and project manager gave me the opportunity to put the theoretical aspects of management into practice. By participating in practical software projects, the students not only got their first impression of the wide range of requirements needed on the job, but also gained understanding of what quality assurance in software development means.
Mete, Working Student IT-Security
The students were supervised by our Head of Product Engineering, Konstantin, who helped out for the third year in a row. They were also supported by Prof. Dr. Christoph Rosenkranz, who teaches at the University of Cologne as the Professor for Integrated Information Systems with focuses on information systems development, software development and systems analysis and design.
From October 2023 to January 2024, the students met twice a week to work on the project in sprints. In February 2024 they gave their final presentation. A short while later, the topic was also presented internally at Kaufland e-commerce at a brown bag session.
This year’s Capstone team (from left to right): Jiyan Alis, Mete Keltek, Alexander Senden, Dora Henze, Anthony Ge
What was the topic this year?
The development of the price history chart
This year’s Capstone Project subject was created in collaboration with Team Deal: The goal was to create a price history chart – in other words, a visualisation of historic price data on our online marketplace.
History of price development of a product on our marketplace.
A price change diagram in e-commerce is a visual representation of how the price of a specific item has changed over a certain period of time. For online sellers and customers both, this is a useful tool to track price changes and trends over time. It gives customers a way to make informed decisions about the best time to make a purchase, based on previous price changes.
On the other hand, sellers can use the price history chart to analyse and adjust their pricing strategies. They can recognise highs and lows in pricing and identify trends such as seasonal fluctuations or reactions to competing offers.
This kind of diagram usually plots time on the horizontal axis and price on the vertical.
Demo: In future, the price history could be displayed below the price on the product detail page, making it easier for customers to make a purchase decision.
The future of the price history chart seems fascinating and promising. The feature is not currently live, but after a successful A/B user test, it should be implemented on our marketplace.