CUSTOM STORES

• US 20090177551A1
• Filed: 03/19/2009
• Published: 07/09/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 04/06/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Cue, Eduardo, Halchin, Judy D., Epis, Glenn D., Hilton, Shaun, Pfendt, Susan, Ridenour, Cathy
• Granted Patent: US 8,249,939 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.390
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0239 Online discounts or incentives
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0254 based on statistics
• 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 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange

Abstract

A custom store web page uses an external administrator to provide configuration data for a custom store web page. The configuration data can include virtual bundles of products for sale.

Claims

1. A computer-readable medium containing a program for presenting customized information at an electronic commerce site, the program comprising the instructions that cause a computer to execute the following operations:

store information in a computer database relating to products offered by a vendor at an electronic commerce site;

display said information relating to said products on a computer interface that is secured for administration but precluded from customer access;

store via said interface, configuration data in said database that defines a custom store having at least one of a restricted set of said products and non-standard pricing for said products; and

in response to an HTTP request for customer access to said electronic commerce site, determine whether a referrer header field of said request indicates that said request originated from a predetermined host and, if the referrer field indicates that the request originated from said predetermined host, generate and cause to be displayed a custom store page from said vendor'"'"'s electronic commerce site that contains the restricted set of said products and/or the non-standard pricing for said products defined by configuration data associated with said predetermined host.

2. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein said database stores standard prices for said products and said configuration data includes discount pricing information, and wherein said program further includes instructions for automatically calculating discounted prices from said stored standard prices for display on said custom store page.

3. The computer-readable medium of claim 1 wherein said database stores configuration data for a plurality of different custom stores, and wherein said program further includes instructions for selecting configuration data that is associated with said predetermined host to generate and return said custom store page.

4. The computer-readable medium of claim 3 wherein said request includes an identification of the custom store to be selected.

5. The computer-readable medium of claim 4 wherein said identification is contained in said referrer header field of the request.

6. A computer-readable medium containing a program for presenting customized information at an electronic commerce site, the program comprising instructions that cause a computer to execute the following operations:

store information in a computer database relating to products offered by a vendor at an electronic commerce site;

display said information relating to said products on a computer interface that is secured for administration but precluded from customer access;

store via said interface, configuration data in said database that defines a custom store having at least one of a restricted set of said products and non-standard pricing for said products;

in response to a request for customer access to said electronic commerce site, determine whether said request designates a custom store, and generate and cause to be displayed a custom store page from said vendor'"'"'s electronic commerce site that contains the restricted set of said products and/or the non-standard pricing for said products defined by said configuration data; and

determine whether said configuration data includes information relating to products that are no longer offered by said vendor, and provide notification via said interface if such information is included in the configuration data.

7. The computer-readable medium of claim 6, wherein said database stores standard prices for said products and said configuration data includes discount pricing information, and wherein said program further includes instructions for automatically calculating discounted prices from said stored standard prices for display on said custom store page.

8. The computer-readable medium of claim 6, wherein said database stores configuration data for a plurality of different custom stores, and wherein said program further includes instructions for selecting configuration data that is associated with said predetermined host to generate and return said custom store page.

9. The computer-readable medium of claim 8, wherein said request is an HTTP request that includes an identification of the custom store to be selected in a referrer header field.

10. A computer-readable medium containing a program which causes a computer to execute the following procedure:

as a result of web-page configuration data received via a computer interface secured for custom-store administration at a custom-store-administrator computer, storing configuration data in a database, the configuration data being securely usable to arrange at least a portion of a vendor'"'"'s custom-store web page for separate use by group members; and

producing the custom-store web page for a group member, the custom-store web page being constructed using data from the database, the data including the configuration data.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the program further causes the setting up of multiple custom stores to a web page for different groups.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, further comprising the production of an administration web page that allows an external administrator computer to modify the custom pages.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 12, wherein the administration web page enables the creation of virtual bundles of products for sale using the custom store web page.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the virtual bundles are shown as a recommended system on a main store web page.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the configuration data prevents the selection of certain products by group members at the custom web page.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the configuration data pertain to the product display on the custom store web page.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the custom store web page is based upon a main store web page.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein an instantiation software is used in a server system environment.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein a custom store software constructs the custom store using an I.D. information field in a URL of a group member.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, further comprising checking a referrer URL before the construction of the custom store web page.

21. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the group comprises an institution.

22. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein discounts for products pertaining to the custom store web pages are dynamically calculated.

23. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, further comprising reviewing the data in the database to determine whether parts which have become obsolete need to be modified at each of the custom stores.

24. The computer-readable medium of claim 23, further comprising producing an E-mail notification to the custom-store-administrator computer, notifying the administrator computer of changes that need to be made at the custom store web page.