Providing gift clustering functionality to assist a user in ordering multiple items for a recipient

• US 20060178946A1
• Filed: 12/09/2005
• Published: 08/10/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 07/11/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon.com, Inc.
• Inventors: Agarwal, Amit D.
• Granted Patent: US 8,738,470 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/26
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0605 Supply or demand aggregation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0625 Directed, with specific intent or strategy
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0633 Lists, e.g. purchase orders, compilation or processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0635 Processing of requisition or of purchase orders

Abstract

A method and system for creating of gift clusters of multiple items in a client/server environment by users, and for the ordering of such user-defined gift clusters of multiple items. In particular, a user can specify multiple items to be associated together as a gift cluster, and can also specify a variety of descriptive information about the gift cluster. That user or another user can then order the gift cluster as a gift for themselves or for another recipient, and may also order the gift cluster for the same or different recipients multiple times. The descriptive information can provide various information about how the gift cluster is to be used, and can also assist the user or others in identifying when the gift cluster is appropriate for a recipient. When customers are later searching for appropriate gift clusters, the various categorization or other descriptive information can then assist is identifying appropriate gift clusters. The gift clustering functionality may be provided by and work in conjunction with a particular item ordering service, or instead may work independently from any particular item ordering service.

Claims

1-8. -8. (canceled)

9. A method for ordering multiple items defined by a user as a group using a client system, the method comprising:

displaying information identifying multiple items previously defined by a user to be a group, and displaying an indication of an action that is to be performed to order the user-defined group of multiple items; and

in response to the indicated action being performed, sending to a server computer a request to order the user-defined group of multiple items.

10. The method of claim 9 including receiving an indication of a recipient to whom the ordered group of multiple items is to be delivered, and wherein the sending of the request includes an indication to deliver the multiple items to the indicated recipient as a group.

11. The method of claim 9 wherein the sending of the request to the server computer results in an order being placed for the multiple items without any further interaction by a user of the client system.

12. The method of claim 9 wherein the displaying includes displaying an indication to add the user-defined group to a collection of items for later ordering.

13. The method of claim 9 wherein the displaying includes displaying to a user an indication to add the user-defined group to a collection of items for that user that is accessible to others, the collection for indicating to the others items in which that user has expressed an interest.

14. The method of claim 9 wherein the displaying includes displaying an indication of each of multiple procurement options having information related to ordering, wherein the indicated action that is to be performed to order the user-defined group is selection of one of the displayed procurement option indications, and wherein the sending of the request includes an indication to order the user-defined group using the information of the procurement option for the selected indication.

15. The method of claim 9 wherein the displaying identifies multiple user-defined groups each having multiple items, and including, before the sending to the server computer of the request to order a user-defined group of multiple items, receiving an indication of the user-defined group of multiple items to be ordered from a customer performing the ordering.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein the displaying that identifies the multiple user-defined groups of multiple items is in response to selection by the customer of a displayed indication representing the multiple user-defined groups.

17. The method of claim 15 wherein the performing of the indicated action includes the indicating of the user-defined group of multiple items to be ordered.

18. The method of claim 15 wherein the multiple user-defined groups of multiple items were previously defined by the customer.

19. The method of claim 9 wherein the ordering of the user-defined group of multiple items is performed by a second user distinct from the user.

20. The method of claim 9 wherein the user-defined group includes an item representing a product to be supplied and an item representing a service to be provided.

21. The method of claim 9 wherein the user-defined group includes items that are different types of products.

22. The method of claim 9 wherein the user-defined group includes an item that is another user-defined group of multiple items.

23. The method of claim 9 wherein the user-defined group has associated shipping instructions, and wherein the sent request is additionally to deliver the multiple items as specified by the shipping instructions.

24. The method of claim 9 wherein the user-defined group has associated wrapping instructions for the multiple items, and wherein the sent request is additionally to wrap the multiple items as specified by the wrapping instructions.

25. The method of claim 9 wherein the displayed information and the displayed indication are part of a Web page received from the server system.

26. The method of claim 9 wherein the performing of the indicated action includes clicking a mouse button when a cursor is positioned over the displayed indication.

27. The method of claim 9 wherein the displaying of the information identifying the user-defined group of multiple items is in response to determining that the user-defined group satisfies search criteria specified by a customer.

28. The method of claim 27 including assisting the customer to specify the search criteria by:

displaying indications of multiple categories related to user-defined groups of items; and

receiving indications from the customer of a value for at least one of the multiple categories.

29. The method of claim 27 wherein the search criteria relates to popularity of the user-defined group among other users.

30. The method of claim 27 wherein the search criteria relates to demographic information about an intended recipient.

31. The method of claim 27 wherein the search criteria identifies groups of multiple items such that the identified groups have a specified price.

32. The method of claim 27 wherein the search criteria identifies groups of multiple items defined for a specified recipient.

33. The method of claim 27 wherein the search criteria identifies user-defined groups appropriate for a specified occasion.

34. The method of claim 27 wherein the search criteria identifies groups of multiple items defined for users with specified interests.

35. The method of claim 9 including, before the displaying of the information, defining the group of multiple items based on received indications from the user.

36. The method of claim 35 including assisting the user to define the group of multiple items by:

displaying indications of multiple items; and

in response to received indications for at least some of the multiple items, adding the indicated items to the defined group.

37. The method of claim 35 including receiving category information to be associated with the defined group of multiple items.

38. The method of claim 35 including receiving an indication from the user to make the defined group of multiple items available for ordering to other users.

39. A computer-readable medium whose contents cause a computer system to perform the method of claim 9.

40. The computer-readable medium of claim 39 wherein the computer-readable medium is a data transmission medium transmitting a generated data signal containing the contents.

41. The computer-readable medium of claim 39 wherein the computer-readable medium is a memory of a computer system.

42. A computer-readable generated data signal transmitted via a transmission medium, the generated data signal having encoded contents that assist a first user of a computer system to order multiple items defined as a group by a second user, by:

displaying information to the first user identifying a group of multiple items defined by the second user and displaying to the first user an indication of an action that is to be performed to order the user-defined group of multiple items; and

in response to the indicated action being performed, sending to a server computer a request to order the user-defined group of multiple items.

43. The computer-readable generated data signal of claim 42 wherein the first user is distinct from the second user.

44. A client system for ordering multiple items defined by a user as a group, comprising:

a display component capable of displaying information identifying multiple items defined by a user as a group and of displaying an indication of an action that is to be performed to order the user-defined group of multiple items; and

an item ordering component capable of, after performance of the indicated action, sending to a server computer a request to order the user-defined group of multiple items.

45. A client system for ordering multiple items defined by a user as a group, comprising:

means for displaying information identifying multiple items defined by a user as a group and displaying an indication of an action that is to be performed to order the user-defined group of multiple items; and

means for in response to the indicated action being performed, sending to a server computer a request to order the user-defined group of multiple items.

46-74. -74. (canceled)