Method and apparatus for facilitating construction of e-commerce web pages having featured products and the like

• US 7,533,336 B2
• Filed: 03/01/2001
• Issued: 05/12/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 03/01/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Haynes, Dennis F., Bull, Ralf, Lala, Ravesh, Trevathan, Matthew B., Jaffe, Stephen E.
• Primary Examiner(s): Desai; Rachna S
• Application Number:
  US09/796,784
• Publication Number:
  US 20020165799A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,994 Days
• Field of Search: 715/517, 715/530, 715/243, 715/234, 705/27
• US Class Current: 715/243
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/174 Form filling; Merging
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/18 of spreadsheets form-filling G06F40/174
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces

Abstract

A method and apparatus for facilitating the creation of e-commerce Web pages that include Featured Product areas. The invention includes a spreadsheet or similar user-friendly data entry mechanism which can be used to enter content pertaining to featured products. The content is imported from the spreadsheet into a Featured Product information database. The invention further provides one or more display templates, each defining a look and feel for a Featured Product area of a Web page. Each template has a corresponding HTML file defining the template, within which the actual content is represented by variables. Display engine software retrieves Featured product information from the Featured Product database as well as retrieves a selected template HTML file and replaces the variables with the selected feature product information from the database to create a Featured Product area of a Web page.

Claims

1. A method of constructing featured product portions of Web pages, said method comprising the steps of:

(1) providing a plurality of display templates, each template comprising HTML code defining a scheme for presenting information about a plurality of featured items, said templates including variables as place holders for information content and including a plurality of areas, each for presenting information about one featured item, each of said areas including sub-areas defined for information corresponding to categories in said database;

(2) providing a database of information about featured items, said database comprising categories corresponding to said variables in said templates; and

(3) substituting data corresponding to a particular featured item and category for said corresponding variable in said templates to create a featured product portion for a Web page;

(4) enabling a user to view a visual representation of each of said templates;

(5) importing said information about featured items into said database from a spreadsheet

(6) entering said information about said featured items into said spreadsheet;

(7) when a user requests a Web page, identifying the specific page requested;

(8) finding in said database all featured items corresponding to said requested page;

(9) for each featured item in said database corresponding to said requested page, determining the template indicated in said database for displaying said featured item;

(10) substituting information from said database for corresponding variables in said template to form a populated template;

(11) inserting said populated template into said requested page;

(12) delivering said requested page to said user; and

(13) providing a graphical user interface enabling a user to view said templates;

wherein said information about the featured item is organized into categories, said categories including at least descriptive text corresponding to said item, a minimum price corresponding to said featured item, a maximum price corresponding to said item, a path to an image corresponding to said featured item, a display template category identifying a particular display template into which the information about the corresponding featured item is to be substituted, an item area category identifying a particular portion of the display template identified in the display template category into which the information about the corresponding featured item is to be inserted, and an address of a page within which said featured item is to be inserted;

wherein, when said minimum price and said maximum price corresponding to a featured product are the same, said template is populated in step (9) with only one of said minimum and maximum prices; and

wherein said variables in said templates comprise generic content corresponding to the category to which said variables correspond so that a Web browser can render an example of how said templates will look using said variables prior to being populated with said data from said database.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein step (10) comprises substituting information from said database for a featured item for the corresponding variables in the corresponding item area of the corresponding template.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein said Web pages are part of an electronic commerce Web site that offers products and/or services for sale via said Web site.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein said featured items are products and/or services.

5. A computer program product embodied on a computer readable medium, for constructing featured product portions of Web pages, said product comprising computer executable instructions for:

(1) providing a plurality of display templates, each template comprising HTML code defining a scheme for presenting information about a plurality of featured items, said templates including variables as place holders for information content, wherein said templates include a plurality of areas, each for presenting information about one featured item, each of said areas including sub-areas defined for information corresponding to categories in said database

(2) providing a database of information about featured items, said database including categories corresponding to said variables in said templates;

(3) substituting data corresponding to a particular featured item and category is substituted for said corresponding variable in said templates to create a featured product portion for a Web page;

(4) enabling a user to view a visual representation of each of said templates;

(5) importing said information about featured items into said database from a spreadsheet

(6) when a user requests a Web page, identifying the specific page requested;

(7) determining the template corresponding to said specific page indicated in said database for displaying featured items;

(8) finding in said database all featured items corresponding to said requested page;

(9) substituting information from said database for corresponding variables in said template to form a populated template;

(10) inserting said populated template into said requested page;

(11) delivering said requested page to said user; and

(12) providing a graphical user interface enabling a user to view said templates;

wherein said information about each featured item is organized into categories, said categories including at least descriptive text corresponding to featured item, a minimum price corresponding to said featured item, a maximum price corresponding to said featured item, a path image corresponding to featured item, a display template category identifying a display template into which the information about the corresponding featured item is to be substituted, an item area category identifying a particular portion of the display template identified in the display template category into which the information about the corresponding featured item is to be inserted, and an address of a page within which said featured item is to be inserted;

wherein, when said minimum price and said maximum price corresponding to a featured product are the same, said instruction (9) populates said template with only one of said minimum and maximum prices; and

wherein said variables in said templates comprise generic content corresponding to the category to which said variables correspond so that a Web browser can render an example of how said templates will look using said variables prior to being populated with said data from said database.

6. The computer program product of claim 5 further comprising computer executable instructions for:

(14) entering said information about said featured items into said spreadsheet.

7. The computer program product of claim 5 wherein instruction (10) comprises substituting information from said database for a featured item for the corresponding variables in the corresponding item area of the corresponding template.

8. The computer program product of claim 5 wherein said Web pages are part of an electronic commerce Web site that offers products and/or services for sale via said Web site.

9. The computer program product of claim 8 wherein said featured items are products and/or services.