System for On-Line Merchant Price Setting

• US 20070130090A1
• Filed: 11/15/2006
• Published: 06/07/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 11/15/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: STB Enterprises
• Original Assignee: STB Enterprises
• Inventors: Mlejnek, Raymond, Staib, William
• Granted Patent: US 8,050,976 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/400
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/201 Price look-up processing, e.g. updating
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0206 Price or cost determination based on market factors
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0211 Determining the effectiveness of discounts or incentives
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0222 During e-commerce, i.e. online transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0238 at point-of-sale [POS]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0245 Surveys
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0273 Determination of fees for advertising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0283 Price estimation or determination
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes

Abstract

A method for setting a price for a product sold online by a subject merchant is provided. The method comprises accessing price information of at least one other merchant of the same product by applying a shopping robot to two or more shopping sites, including at least one price comparison site, with other offerings of the same product by other merchants; accessing pricing rules for the subject merchant that cover sales originating from the comparison site; applying the pricing rules to adjust the current product price at which the subject merchant offers the product on the two or more shopping sites to be more competitive; and responsive to a price adjustment that would reduce the product price so as to violate a specified profitability goal, increasing the shipping charges with which the merchant offers the product with the price adjustment on the two or more shopping sites.

Claims

1. A method for setting a price for a product sold online by a subject merchant and listed on at least one channel with other offerings of the same product by other merchants, comprising:

accessing available subject merchant'"'"'s sales status data for the product including sales trends originating from the at least one channel;

accessing pricing rules for the subject merchant that cover sales originating from the at least one channel, wherein the pricing rules are responsive to the sales status data, if available, and determine whether or not a price adjustment should be explored for the at least one channel;

if the pricing rules determine that the price should be adjusted, and that price information from at least one other merchant is needed, accessing price information of other merchant offers for the same product in the at least one channel;

applying the pricing rules for the at least one channel to maintain or adjust the current product price at which the subject merchant offers the product on the at least one channel; and

providing the maintained or adjusted price to a potential buyer.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

responsive to a base price adjustment that would reduce the total product price so as to violate a specified profitability goal, increasing the shipping charges with which the merchant offers the product with the base price adjustment on the channel.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising increasing the shipping charges with which the merchant offers the product by an amount sufficient to satisfy a specified profitability goal.

4. The method of claim 2, further comprising increasing the shipping charges with which the merchant offers the product by an amount sufficient to offset a base price reduction resulting from application of the pricing rules.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of accessing price information comprises determining whether other merchants on the channel offer the same product and, using stored shopping rules, calculating a product price, a shipping price and total price for a plurality of merchants on the channel that offer the same product.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the subject merchant'"'"'s pricing rules include a selectable minimum profitability criterion.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the subject merchant'"'"'s pricing rules perform a filtering analysis and include a rule configurable to remove a particular seller'"'"'s offering from a competitive analysis for at least one product.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the subject merchant'"'"'s pricing rules include a rule that applies cost analysis for the costs involved in making a sale via a sales channel that has one or more of the following cost elements:

listing fees, insertion fees, final value fee at sale, upload fee, store fee, picture fee, fees based on category, credit card fee and transaction fees.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the subject merchant'"'"'s pricing rules include a rule configurable to embody solutions to demand curve analysis based on demand curves derived from the subject merchant'"'"'s test marketing by simultaneously offering different prices to different customers of a given e-commerce store.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the subject merchant'"'"'s pricing rules include a rule configurable to embody selecting product offerings with offering factors selected from the group consisting of:

sales channel, product, time of day, and page placement of an offering on a site.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of accessing price information of at least one other merchant comprises discovering more than one price for at least one product of that at least one other merchant and the step of applying the pricing rules to adjust the current product price comprises applying a pricing rule to adjust for the subject merchant more than one price associated with the subject merchant'"'"'s offering for the at least one product.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of performing test marketing to develop demand curves for use in the pricing rules, wherein the test marketing comprises simultaneously offering different prices to different customers of a given e-commerce store.

13. The method claim 12, wherein the step of performing test marketing to develop demand curves comprises developing two or more demand curves in which the pricing is held the same and other selling parameters are varied.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the subject merchant'"'"'s pricing rules include an overall adjustment factor for the at least one channel to optimize profitability of a plurality of products the subject merchant offers in the at least one channel.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the subject merchant'"'"'s sale status data for a product include at least one of inventory level, storage costs, and sales trends.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the adjusted price is lower than the merchant'"'"'s normal profit margin requirements.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein if the subject merchant'"'"'s sales status data for the product show that there is high inventory for the product and that sales trends are down, the product is put on clearance and a lower profit margin requirement is used.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein if the subject merchant'"'"'s sales status data for the product show that there is low inventory for the product and that sales trends are up, the price of the product is increased.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein if the subject merchant'"'"'s sales trends for the product show that there is normal inventory for the product and that sales trends are up, the price is adjusted in order to ensure strong performance.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein if the subject merchant'"'"'s sales trends for the product show that there is normal inventory for the product and that sales trends are down, the price is adjusted in order to gain market share.

21. A method for setting a price for a product sold online by a subject merchant, comprising:

accessing price information of at least one other merchant of the same product by applying a shopping robot to two or more shopping sites, including at least one price comparison site, with other offerings of the same product by other merchants;

accessing pricing rules for the subject merchant that cover sales originating from the comparison site;

applying the pricing rules to adjust the current product price at which the subject merchant offers the product on the two or more shopping sites to be more competitive; and

responsive to a price adjustment that would reduce the product price so as to violate a specified profitability goal, increasing the shipping charges with which the merchant offers the product with the price adjustment on the two or more shopping sites.

22. A method for providing a product offering price to an online shopper comprising:

providing a tagging module that identifies the online shopper by means of a unique or near unique tag;

combining the tag with one or more product catalog ids (“

skus”

) to obtain a unique or near-unique identifier for the shopper and the products; and

upon a return visit of the shopper, responsive to the identifier for the shopper and a product selection by the shopper, finding a customer associated price for the product selection by the shopper.

23. The method of claim 22, where the system presents a price to the customer based on the customer'"'"'s geography.

24. The method of claim 23, where the price presented to the user is optimized by a test seller module for two or more geographic regions.

25. A method of discovering an optimized price for a product on a channel, comprising:

defining a range of prices for the product;

randomly selecting prices from the range of prices and offering them to customers on the channel;

tagging the customers so that a particular customer who revisits the channel receives the same price offer the customer received before;

developing a demand curve using sales results of the selected price offers; and

adjusting the price of the product using the developed demand curve.

26. The method of claim 25 wherein defining a range of prices for the product includes using other merchant'"'"'s prices for the same product.

27. The method of claim 25 wherein tagging the customers comprises:

providing a tagging module that identifies the customer by means of a unique or near unique tag;

combining the tag with one or more product catalog ids (“

skus”

) to obtain a unique or near-unique identifier for the customer and the products; and

upon a return visit of the customer, responsive to the identifier for the customer and a product selection by the customer, finding a customer associated price for the product selection by the customer.

28. A data processing system for setting a price for a product sold online by a subject merchant and listed on at least one channel with other offerings of the same product by other merchants, comprising:

accessing available subject merchant'"'"'s sales status data for the product including sales trends originating from the at least one channel;

accessing pricing rules for the subject merchant that cover sales originating from the at least one channel, wherein the pricing rules are responsive to the sales status data, if available, and determine whether or not a price adjustment should be explored for the at least one channel;

if the pricing rules determine that the price should be adjusted, and that price information from at least one other merchant is needed, accessing price information of other merchant offers for the same product in the at least one channel;

a component for applying the pricing rules for the at least one channel to maintain or adjust the current product price at which the subject merchant offers the product on the at least one channel; and

a component for providing the maintained or adjusted price to a potential buyer.

29. A program product on a machine readable storage medium for providing a product offering price to an online shopper comprising;

a tagging module that identifies the online shopper by means of a unique or near unique tag;

a module for combining the tag with one or more product catalog ids (“

skus”

) to obtain a unique or near-unique identifier for the shopper and the products; and

a module active upon a shopper'"'"'s return visit and responsive to the identifier for the shopper and the product selection by the shopper, for finding a customer specific price for a product selection by the shopper.