Shared shopping basket management system

• US 6,876,977 B1
• Filed: 07/27/2000
• Issued: 04/05/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 07/27/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Schneider Electric Systems USA, Inc. (Schneider Electric SE)
• Original Assignee: The Foxboro Company (Schneider Electric SE)
• Inventors: Marks, Michael A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Cuong
• Application Number:
  US09/627,017
• Time in Patent Office: 1,713 Days
• Field of Search: G06/F01.7/60, 705 26- 27
• US Class Current: 705/26.62
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0625 Directed, with specific intent or strategy
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0637 Approvals

Abstract

A computer implemented method is provided for conducting business-to-business electronic commerce over the Internet. The method includes the step of providing a website that enables electronic communication with users, and including on the website an electronic shopping basket which is selectively actuatable into various states. An additional step includes enabling two or more remote users to simultaneously access the shopping basket. Each of the users is assigned one or more hierarchically distinct abilities to affect the state of the shopping basket, so that the users are permitted to simultaneously view the status of the shopping basket and sequentially affect the state of the shopping basket. This enables various actions in the purchasing process to be accomplished by various individuals. These abilities to affect the state of the basket may also include providing the users with various selected levels of access to the basket, i.e., to prevent unauthorized purchases. Notification of any change of the state of the shopping basket is automatically sent to all of the users by affecting a display of the shopping basket on the website.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method in an interactive medium for conducting commerce, said method comprising the steps of:

(a) providing a website, the website adapted for electronic communication with a plurality of users;

(b) providing on the website an electronic shopping basket being selectively actuatable into a plurality of states;

(c) enabling at least two of the plurality of users to access the shopping basket when the shopping basket is disposed in either of at least two of the states;

(d) assigning to each of the users at least one of a plurality of hierarchically distinct abilities to affect the state of the shopping basket;

(e) wherein the users are permitted to view the status of the shopping basket and affect the state of the shopping basket to collectively select and approve items for purchase.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least two of the plurality of users comprises two users and the at least two of the states comprises two states.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least two of the plurality of users comprises all of the users and the at least two of the states comprises all of the states.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of states provide selected levels of access to the users.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of automatically notifying each of the users of any change of state of the basket.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein said step of automatically notifying the plurality of users comprises affecting a display of the shopping basket on the website.

7. The method of claim 5, further comprising means for said automatically notifying step, selected from the group consisting of:

automatically e-mailing the users;

automatically affecting a display of the shopping basket on the website; and

manually e-mailing the users.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the users comprise members of a shopping group.

9. The method of claim 6, further comprising a plurality of shopping groups.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein at least one of said users are members of the plurality of shopping groups.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the members are disposable at a plurality of discrete locations.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein said members are disposed within and without a purchasing company.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of integrally coupling financial data associated with the items to the basket.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of providing two-way communication between users integrally with changes of state of the basket.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the two-way communication comprises transmitting an inquiry simultaneously with placing the basket into a suspend state.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein the two-way communication comprises one user notifying an other user of a change of state and the other user confirming an other change of state to the one user.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the two-way communication comprises one user notifying an other user the basket is ready for approval, and the other user confirming approval of the basket to the one user.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of hierarchically distinct abilities to affect the state of the basket comprise the ability to place items into the basket, to place the basket into an suspend state, to place the basket into a denial state, to place the basket into an approval state, and to effect no changes of state.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the users comprise hierarchical users having hierarchically arranged abilities to affect the state of the shopping basket.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the hierarchical users comprise a specifier, and an approver.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the hierarchical users comprise a first level approver and a second level approver.

22. The method of claim 20, wherein the hierarchical users further comprise a buyer and a receiver.

23. The method of claim 19, further comprising the step of sequentially permitting hierarchically adjacent ones of the hierarchical users to communicate bi-directionally with one another prior to interaction with others of the hierarchical users.

24. The method of claim 1, wherein said providing step (b) and said enabling step (c) further comprise providing a plurality of the shopping baskets which are accessible by the plurality of users.

25. The method of claim 1, wherein the access comprises viewing the contents and viewing the state of the shopping basket.

26. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of permitting a user to copy baskets, name baskets, and recall baskets.

27. The method of claim 20, wherein a transaction is consummated upon authorization by the approver.

28. The method of claim 8, wherein users are invited to join the group by an e-mail message.

29. The method of claim 18, wherein ownership of the cart is selectively transferable to another member of the group.

30. The method of claim 8;

wherein membership of said group is editable.

31. The method of claim 30, wherein members of the group include representatives of both a selling entity and a purchasing entity.

32. The method of claim 8, further comprising selective pricing rules, wherein members are selectively permitted to view both list and net prices, list prices, or no pricing.

33. The method of claim 1, wherein the shopping cart is selectively disposable in dormant, suspend, or normal states.

34. The method of claim 33, wherein in said dormant state, identification and contents of said cart are viewable, while said cart is unavailable for subsequent processing.

35. The method of claim 33, wherein in said suspend state, said cart is unavailable for approval or buying functions.

36. The method of claim 1, wherein said cart comprises a selectable persistence function serving to purge the cart upon expiration of a pre-selected time period.

37. The method of claim 1, further comprising a selectable security function to nominally prevent individual ones of the members from accessing the cart.

38. The method of claim 1, further comprising a re-price function wherein all items in the cart are re-priced when a user subsequently attempts to view the cart.

39. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

(f) opening a shopping group administration window;

(g) creating a group hierarchy;

(h) opening a list of predetermined names; and

(i) for each entry in the group hierarchy, selecting a member from the list.

40. The method of claim 39, wherein the list of predetermined names includes an affiliation parameter identifying the individual'"'"'s relationship to a purchasing company.

41. The method of claim 40, wherein the affiliation parameter is selected from the group consisting of:

customer company employee, selling entity employee, agent of customer company, and agent of selling entity.

42. The method of claim 39, wherein said creating step (g) comprises selecting the group hierarchy from a list of predetermined group hierarchies.

43. The method of claim 42, wherein said creating step (g) further comprises creating a custom group hierarchy by the steps of:

(j) modifying the group hierarchy to create a desired sequence of levels; and

(k) assigning role objects to each level.

44. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of providing a search engine to look up items for placement into the shopping cart.

45. The method of claim 44, wherein the search engine includes a name search field and description search field.

46. The method of claim 44, further comprising the step of indexing results generated by the search engine.

47. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of interfacing the website with an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, by generating an order for the approved items and sending the order to the ERP system.

48. The method of claim 47, wherein the interfacing step comprises sending the order to an ERP router which is communicably coupled to an Order Entry component of the ERP system.

52. The method of claim 1, wherein the ability to affect the state of the shopping basket comprises assigning to each of the plurality of users at least one of a plurality of hierarchically distinct levels of authority selectively permitting and preventing alteration of the shopping basket into the plurality of states.

53. The method of claim 52, further comprising the step of permitting users having the same level of authority to each affect the state of the shopping basket.

54. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of users may simultaneously access the shopping basket.

49. A computer implemented method in an interactive medium for conducting commerce, said method comprising the steps of:

(a) providing a website, the website adapted for electronic communication with a plurality of users;

(b) providing on the website an electronic shopping basket being selectively actuatable into a plurality of states, the states providing selected levels of access to the users;

(c) enabling the plurality of users to access the shopping basket when the shopping basket is disposed in any of the states;

(d) assigning each user to a shopping group, wherein each member of the shopping group has at least one of a plurality of hierarchically distinct abilities to affect the state of the shopping basket;

(e) enabling the users to become members of a plurality of shopping groups;

(f) enabling each shopping group to have a plurality of shopping baskets;

(g) automatically notifying each of the members of a shopping group of any change of state of a basket;

(h) providing a selectable persistence function to purge the cart upon expiration of a pre-selected time period;

(i) providing a selectable security function to nominally prevent individual ones of the members from accessing the cart;

(j) providing a search engine to look up items for placement into the shopping cart;

(k) wherein the members of a shopping group are permitted to simultaneously view the status of the shopping basket and sequentially affect the state of the shopping basket to collectively select and approve items for purchase; and

(l) interfacing the website with an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, by generating an order for the approved items and sending the order to the ERP system.

50. A computer system in an interactive medium for conducting commerce, said computer system comprising:

a website adapted for electronic communication with a plurality of users;

an electronic shopping basket disposed on the website, the shopping basket being selectively actuatable into a plurality of states, and being accessible by a plurality of users when the shopping basket is disposed in any of the states; and

a hierarchy table coupled to the shopping basket, wherein the state of the shopping basket is selectively affectable according to hierarchically distinct abilities assigned to each of the users;

wherein the users are permitted to view the status of the shopping basket and sequentially affect the state of the shopping basket to collectively select and approve items for purchase.

51. An article of manufacture for conducting commerce in an interactive environment, said article of manufacture comprising:

a computer usable medium having a computer usable program code embodied therein, said computer usable medium having;

computer readable program code for providing a website, the website adapted for electronic communication with a plurality of users;

computer readable program code for providing on the website an electronic shopping basket being selectively actuatable into a plurality of states;

computer readable program code for enabling the plurality of users to access the shopping basket when the shopping basket is disposed in any of the states; and

computer readable program code for assigning to each of the users at least one of a plurality of hierarchically distinct abilities to affect the state of the shopping basket;

wherein the users are permitted to view the status of the shopping basket and sequentially affect the state of the shopping basket to collectively select and approve items for purchase.

55. A computer implemented method in an interactive medium for conducting commerce, said method comprising the steps of:

a. providing a website, the website adapted for electronic communication with a plurality of users;

b. providing on the website an electronic shopping receptacle;

c. enabling at least two of the plurality of users to access the shopping receptacle, the at least two of the plurality of users including a first user and a second user; and

d. assigning to each of the users at least one of a plurality of unequal abilities to interact with the shopping receptacle, the abilities including enabling the first user to select items for placement into the shopping receptacle, and enabling the second user to purchase the items wherein the items are shipped to the first user.

56. The method of claim 55, wherein said assigning step (d) comprises assigning mutually distinct abilities to each of the plurality of users.

57. The method of claim 55, wherein the abilities further comprise enabling the first user to purchase the items.

58. The method of claim 55, further comprising the step of automatically notifying at least one of the plurality of users when items have been selected for placement into the shopping receptacle.

59. The method of claim 58, further comprising means for said automatically notifying step, selected from the group consisting of:

automatically e-mailing the users;

automatically affecting a display of the shopping basket on the website; and

manually e-mailing the users.

60. The method of claim 55, wherein said assigning step (d) further comprises assigning to a second user a subset of the abilities assigned to a first user.

61. The method of claim 55, wherein the shopping receptacle is selectively actuatable into a plurality of states.

62. The method of claim 61, wherein the plurality of states comprises an item selection state and an item purchase state.

63. The method of claim 62, wherein the plurality of states provide selected levels of access to the users, so that the second user is unable to place the shopping receptacle into the item selection state.

64. The method of claim 55, further comprising the step of re-pricing items in the shopping receptacle when a user views the shopping receptacle.

65. The method of claim 55, further comprising the step of providing a search engine to look up items for selection and placement into the shopping cart.