International Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering (IJECE) Vol. 14, No. 3, June 2024, pp. 3220~3229 ISSN: 2088-8708, DOI: 10.11591/ijece.v14i3.pp3220-3229  3220 Journal homepage: http://ijece.iaescore.com Alleviating cold start and sparsity problems in the micro, small, and medium enterprises marketplace using clustering and imputation techniques Sri Lestari 1 , Yulmaini 1 , Aswin 2 , Singgih Yulizar Ma’ruf 1 , Sulyono 1 , Ruki Rizal Nul Fikri 1 1 Faculty of Computer Science, Institute of Informatics and Business Darmajaya, Lampung, Indonesia 2 Faculty of Economics and Business, Institute of Informatics and Business Darmajaya, Lampung, Indonesia Article Info ABSTRACT Article history: Received Nov 28, 2023 Revised Jan 29, 2024 Accepted Jan 30, 2024 Recommendation systems are often implemented in e-commerce and micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) marketplaces to improve consumer services by providing product recommendations according to their interests. However, it still faces problems, namely sparsity and cold start, thus affecting the quality of recommendations. This research proposes clustering and imputation techniques to overcome this problem. The clustering technique used is k-means, while the missing value imputation method uses average values. The imputation results are then implemented in the k-nearest neighbor (KNN) and naïve Bayes algorithms and evaluated based on performance accuracy. Experimental results show an increase in accuracy of 16.48% in the KNN algorithm from 83.52% to 100%. Meanwhile, the naïve Bayes algorithm increased accuracy by 35.30% from 64.70% to 100%. Keywords: Cold start Imputation K-means Sparsity System recommendation This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA license. Corresponding Author: Sri Lestari Faculty of Computer Science, Institute of Informatics and Business Darmajaya ZA. Pagar Alam St., No. 93 Gedong Meneng, Bandar Lampung, Indonesia Email: srilestari@darmajaya.ac.id 1. INTRODUCTION Internet and mobile technology make it easy for users to access information anytime and anywhere. This also influences people's lifestyles, which are more intense in carrying out online activities, from accessing social media, e-commerce, and various other applications [1]. The same thing also happens to companies that change the way they do business; many companies utilize internet technology to provide services and market their products online. Online marketing will open up wider opportunities in terms of market reach, not only local, national, even international without being constrained by time and space. In addition, digital and social marketing offers significant opportunities in the form of lower costs for marketing, increasing brand awareness and increasing sales [2]. Digital media and social media have become important and integral components of a business marketing plan for a company [3]. With this media, companies will connect with customers, thereby increasing awareness of their brand, influencing consumer attitudes, getting feedback from consumers, and helping increase sales. Likewise with the marketplace which will connect many entrepreneurs and consumers, including micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs). MSMEs are important for a country, because MSMEs are very capable of playing a role in encouraging regional economic growth and improving community welfare [4], [5]. In this case, many countries are digitizing MSMEs, including in Indonesia. There are many MSMEs marketplaces have emerged.