Internet strategic brand weighting factor

• US 20030093331A1
• Filed: 11/13/2001
• Published: 05/15/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 11/13/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Kim, Moon Ju, Childs, Jane, Rogers, Lamana, Martynenko, Paul Nicholas, Levangia, Susan Burlingame, Leon-Rodriguez, Juan
• Granted Patent: US 7,272,573 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/26.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06393 Score-carding, benchmarking or key performance indicator [KPI] analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0256 User search
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces

Abstract

A method, software and apparatus are provided which enable a merchant to promote products and services in a deterministic manner. When a shopper enters a set of key words in an entry in an on-screen form for a web server to obtain a list of items (products and/or services) of interest to the shopper, the documents describing the items are prioritized based on the web sites owner'"'"'s organizational strategic decisions by the merchant providing a weighting factor for the products and services. The weighting factor is combined with existing ranking mechanisms to the documents to increase the probability that certain items come to the top when the search results are presented to the shopper. These items could be used to ensure shoppers do not overlook special offers or to reduce overstocks by promoting products with a large inventory. The weighting factor is configured so as to not decrease the shoppers confidence in the ranking process.

Claims

1. A method for enabling a on-line merchant to tailor a response to a shopper'"'"'s on-line interrogation, said software comprising:

ranking the merchants products at least partially based on the number of hits to product descriptions in the merchants database on-line requests of the shopper specifying characteristics of a product desired by the shopper;

modifying the ranking of at least one of the merchants products ranked by the ranking, which modification is by a factor based on the merchants marketing strategy; and

transmission software for providing a presentation of products to the customer that presents the products in order of rank determined by both the initial ranking and the modification of at least one of the merchants products.

2. The method of claim 1 including using other weighting factors in the ranking for taking into account other adjustments of tailor the presentation.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the other ranking factors include factors for the customer'"'"'s buying preferences and product popularity.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the ranking is in accordance with the following formula:

R=1−

n rank factors score+n(SWF Factor)

where;

n is a number less than 1 representing the proportion of the adjustment applied to the SWF weighting factor

SWF=is the weighting factor value selected by the merchant

R=Rank

5. The method of claim 1 including modifying the ranking of a group of the merchants products based on the merchants marketing strategy.

6. The method of claim 5 including limiting the highest ranked of the group for insertion into the presentation prior to application of the SWF Factor.

7. The method of claim 6 transmitting the presentation on the Internet intermixed with products of other merchants where the products of all merchants is presented to the shopper in order of rank.

8. A computer software product on a computer usable medium for enabling a on-line merchant to tailor a response to a shopper'"'"'s on-line interrogations, said software comprising:

ranking computer code for ranking the merchants products based on the number of hits in product descriptions to on-line requests specifying characteristics of products described by the shopper;

weighting computer code for modification of the rank of at least one of the merchants products by the ranking computer code, which modification is based on the merchants marketing strategy; and

transmission software for providing a presentation of merchants products to the customer that presents a plurality of the merchants products in order of rank, where the rank of at least one of the products is determined by both the ranking and weighting computer code.

9. The computer program product of claim 8 including other weighting computer codes for taking into account other ranking factors.

10. The computer program code of claim 9, wherein the other ranking factors include the customer'"'"'s buying characteristics and a product'"'"'s popularity.

11. The computer program code of claim 10, wherein the ranking of the at least one product is in accordance with the following formula:

R=1−

n[F(%wTf+x%Popularity+y%/LA)]+n(SWF Factor)

where;

n is a number less than 1 representing the proportion applied to the SWF weighting factor

SWF=is the weighting factor for the merchants marketing strategy

w, x and y=proportions applied to the other weighting factors

Popularity=product popularity conforming to the raw weighting factor

LA=users past buying practice

Tf=Text Factors