Delivering ordered items to an appropriate address

• US 8,856,013 B1
• Filed: 09/18/2009
• Issued: 10/07/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 11/02/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Spiegel, Joel R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Glass, Shay S
• Application Number:
  US12/562,987
• Time in Patent Office: 1,845 Days
• Field of Search: 705/1
• US Class Current: 705/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24 Querying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/954 Navigation, e.g. using categorised browsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/083 Shipping
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0838 Historical data
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0635 Processing of requisition or of purchase orders

Abstract

A method, system, and computer-readable medium for automatically determining appropriate delivery information for one or more items of an order or potential order is described. A variety of types of information can be considered when determining what delivery information is appropriate for one or more items, such as a type of the items, the particular items, relationships of the items to other items, information about the purchaser, and/or information about the recipient. In addition, the automatic determination of an appropriate address for an item being ordered or potentially ordered by a user can be made in a variety of ways, such as based on inferences from past behavior when ordering items, on inferences from information about the item and from available delivery information for the user, and/or on previous explicit indications from the user.

Claims

1. A method for an item ordering service to assist a customer in ordering items by determining an appropriate delivery address for those items, comprising:

after receiving, by one or more computing devices, from the customer a potential order for one or more items, wherein the potential order is not part of any actual order already placed by the customer, and before receiving, by one or more computing devices, input from the customer to place an actual order for the one or more items;

determining, by one or more computing devices, that the one or more items are of a first item type;

retrieving, by one or more computing devices, multiple delivery addresses previously specified by the customer;

automatically determining, by one or more computing devices, that one of the multiple delivery addresses is potentially an appropriate destination to receive delivery of the one or more items, wherein said automatically determining is based, at least in part, on the first item type;

automatically selecting, by one or more computing devices, a procurement option from among multiple alternative procurement options that are associated with the customer, such that the automatically selected procurement option includes the automatically determined delivery address; and

identifying, by one or more computing devices, the automatically selected procurement option to the customer as an option in a configuration that permits the customer to select either the automatically selected procurement option or a different procurement option for use in delivering the one or more items to a delivery address included in the customer-selected procurement option if the customer places an actual order for the one or more items.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the customer is using a client system, and wherein the identifying of the automatically selected procurement option to the customer as an option includes:

displaying at the client system information identifying the one or more items;

displaying at the client system information identifying the automatically selected procurement option as a current procurement option for ordering the one or more items; and

displaying at the client system a user-selectable element whose selection by user represents ordering the one or more items using the current procurement option.

3. The method of claim 2, including displaying at the client system an indication of each of the multiple alternative procurement options, so that the customer can use one of the multiple procurement options other than the automatically selected procurement option for ordering the one or more items.

4. The method of claim 1, including determining a delivery manner which is appropriate for use when delivering the one or more items to the automatically determined delivery address, wherein said automatically selecting the one procurement option from among the multiple alternative procurement options is further performed in such a manner that the automatically selected procurement option includes delivery instructions that will cause the one or more items to be delivered to the automatically determined delivery address in the determined delivery manner.

5. The method of claim 1, including, before the receiving from the customer the potential order for the one or more items:

receiving the multiple delivery addresses specified by the customer;

receiving indications of multiple item types, wherein one of the multiple item types is the first item type;

for each given type of the indicated multiple item types, determining at least one of the received multiple delivery addresses that is potentially an appropriate destination to receive delivery of items of the given item type; and

storing a mapping for the customer that maps each given type of the indicated multiple item types to the determined at least one of the received multiple delivery addresses that is potentially an appropriate destination to receive delivery of items of the given item type;

wherein said automatically determining that one of the multiple delivery addresses is potentially an appropriate destination to receive delivery of the one or more items includes selecting from the stored mapping one of the determined at least one of the received multiple delivery addresses that is potentially an appropriate destination to receive delivery of items of the first item type.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the determining, for each given type of the indicated multiple item types, at least one of the received multiple delivery addresses that is potentially an appropriate destination to receive delivery of items of the given item type-includes:

retrieving indications of previous orders of items by the customer; and

for each given type of the indicated multiple item types;

determining patterns in the previous orders of delivering items of the given type to one or more of the multiple delivery addresses; and

selecting at least one of those one or more delivery addresses as the determined at least one of the received multiple delivery addresses that is potentially an appropriate destination to receive delivery of items of the given item type.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the determining, for each given type of the indicated multiple item types, at least one of the received multiple delivery addresses that is potentially an appropriate destination to receive delivery of items of the given item type includes:

presenting indications to the customer of the indicated multiple item types and of at least some of the received multiple delivery addresses; and

for each given type of the indicated multiple item types;

receiving an indication of one or more of the at least some of the received multiple delivery addresses selected by the customer for the given item type; and

designating the indicated one or more of the at least some of the received multiple delivery addresses selected by the customer for the given item type as the determined at least one of the received multiple delivery addresses that is potentially an appropriate destination to receive delivery of items of the given item type.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein at least some of the multiple delivery addresses are electronic delivery addresses, and wherein said automatically determining that one of the multiple delivery addresses is potentially an appropriate destination to receive delivery of the one or more items includes selecting one of the electronic delivery addresses as potentially an appropriate destination to receive delivery of the one or more items, based at least in part on a capability of items of the first item type to be electronically transmitted.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein at least some of the multiple delivery addresses are physical delivery addresses, and wherein said automatically determining that one of the multiple delivery addresses is potentially an appropriate destination to receive delivery of the one or more items includes selecting one of the physical delivery addresses as potentially an appropriate destination to receive delivery of the one or more items, based on a determination that items of the first item type are physical items.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein at least some of the multiple delivery addresses are addresses of recipients other than the customer, and wherein said automatically determining that one of the multiple delivery addresses is potentially an appropriate destination to receive delivery of the one or more items includes selecting one of the addresses of one of the recipients other than the customer as potentially an appropriate destination to receive delivery of the one or more items, based on a determination that items of the first item type are typically given by the customer to that one of the recipients.

11. The method of claim 1, including, before the receiving from the customer the potential order for the one or more items, receiving delivery preference information for the customer, wherein at least one of said automatically determining that one of the multiple delivery addresses is potentially an appropriate destination to receive delivery of the one or more items and said automatically selecting the procurement option is based, at least in part, on the delivery preference information for the customer.

12. The method of claim 1, including receiving an indication from the customer to place an actual order for the one or more items, wherein the actual order stipulates using the automatically selected procurement option to deliver the one or more items to the automatically determined delivery address included in the automatically selected procurement option.

13. The method of claim 1, including receiving an indication from the customer to place an actual order for the one or more items, wherein the actual order stipulates using a procurement option different than the automatically selected procurement option to deliver the one or more items to a delivery address included in the different procurement option.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the item ordering service is a Web-based service, and wherein the identifying of the automatically selected procurement option to the customer includes displaying an indication of the automatically selected procurement option to the customer via a transmitted Web page.

15. A system, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory coupled to the processor, wherein the memory stores program instructions for;

after receiving from a customer a potential order for one or more items, wherein the potential order is not part of any actual order already placed by the customer, and before receiving input from the customer to place an actual order for the one or more items;

determining that the one or more items are of a first item type;

retrieving multiple delivery addresses previously specified by the customer;

automatically determining that one of the multiple delivery addresses is potentially an appropriate destination to receive delivery of the one or more items, wherein said automatically determining is based, at least in part, on the first item type;

automatically selecting a procurement option from among multiple alternative procurement options that are associated with the customer, such that the automatically selected procurement option includes the automatically determined delivery address; and

identifying the automatically selected procurement option to the customer as an option in a configuration that permits the customer to select either the automatically selected procurement option or a different procurement option for use in delivering the one or more items to a delivery address included in the customer-selected procurement option if the customer places an actual order for the one or more items.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the different procurement option is a version of the automatically selected procurement option for which the customer has selected a delivery address that is different from the automatically determined delivery address.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the different procurement option is a new procurement option defined by the customer.

18. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions for:

after receiving from a customer a potential order for one or more items, wherein the potential order is not part of any actual order already placed by the customer, and before receiving input from the customer to place an actual order for the one or more items;

determining that the one or more items are of a first item type;

retrieving multiple delivery addresses previously specified by the customer;

automatically determining that one of the multiple delivery addresses is potentially an appropriate destination to receive delivery of the one or more items, wherein said automatically determining is based, at least in part, on the first item type;

automatically selecting a procurement option from among multiple alternative procurement options that are associated with the customer, such that the automatically selected procurement option includes the automatically determined delivery address; and

identifying the automatically selected procurement option to the customer as an option in a configuration that permits the customer to select either the automatically selected procurement option or a different procurement option for use in delivering the one or more items to a delivery address included in the customer-selected procurement option if the customer places an actual order for the one or more items.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the instructions are also for receiving explicit instructions from the customer to automatically select specific procurement options for future orders for items of specific types.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the automatically selected procurement option is a procurement option defined by the customer.