Managing products at a physical marketplace

• US 10,643,269 B2
• Filed: 10/16/2015
• Issued: 05/05/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 10/16/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Original Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Inventors: Weber, Dirk
• Primary Examiner(s): Pond, Robert M
• Application Number:
  US14/884,937
• Publication Number:
  US 20170109811A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,663 Days
• Field of Search: 705 26, 705 27
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0623 Item investigation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0643 Graphical representation of items or shoppers

Abstract

In various example embodiments, a system and method for managing products at a physical marketplace is described. A method includes receiving an image and a category of a product for sale by a merchant at a physical marketplace, including the image in a list of images for the category, providing the list of images to customers of the physical marketplace, retrieving additional information regarding the product in response to a request by one of the customers, and generating a listing for the product using the image, the category, and the additional information received from the merchant.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

at least one hardware processor;

an intake module, using the at least one hardware processor, to receive an image of a product and a category of the product for sale by a merchant at a physical marketplace, the product available during a time when the physical marketplace is accessible by a general population of people;

a product module to include the image in a list of images for the category, the list of images representing products available at the physical marketplace, the product module further to provide the list of images to customers of the physical marketplace; and

a listing module to;

request additional information regarding the product from the merchant in response to a request by one of the customers, the additional information being unavailable to the system;

generate, after receiving the requested additional information from the merchant in response to the request by the customer, a listing for the product using the image, the category, and the additional information;

determine that an ending time of the physical marketplace has passed; and

in response to and conditioned upon determining that the ending time of the physical marketplace has passed, cause the listing for the product to be made available on a network-based marketplace.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein:

to request the additional information, the listing module is configured to transmit the request for additional information in response to receiving a query for the additional information from the customer, and

to generate the listing for the product, the listing module is configured to provide the additional information in a field of the listing that is associated with the query.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the listing module is configured to:

provide a request to purchase the product at a particular price to the merchant by the one of the customers;

determine that the merchant is unwilling to sell the product for the particular price; and

provide in the additional information an indication that the merchant is unwilling to sell the product for the particular price in response to determining that the merchant is unwilling to sell the product for the particular price.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the listing module:

populates a first subset of a plurality of fields of the listing based on the additional information that is requested in response to the request by the one of the customers; and

requests further information from the merchant to complete a remaining second subset of the plurality of fields excluding the first subset of the plurality of fields.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the listing module further:

notifies the customer that the product is available at the network-based marketplace; and

places the listing in a specific section of the network-based marketplace dedicated to presenting a plurality of listings for items at the physical marketplace separately from other items.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the product module indicates a physical location of the product at the physical marketplace in response to the customer selecting the image of the product from the list of images.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein to generate the listing for the product, the listing module is configured to incrementally generate the listing using product information received from subsequent requests for additional information.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise indicating a physical location of the product at the physical marketplace in response to the customer selecting the image of the product from the list of images.

9. A method for generating a listing of a product in a network-based marketplace, the method comprising:

receiving an image of the product and a category of the product for sale by a merchant at a physical marketplace, the product available during a time when the physical marketplace is accessible by a general population;

including the image in a list of images for the category, the list of images representing products available at the physical marketplace;

providing the list of images to customers of the physical marketplace;

retrieving, using a processor of a machine, additional information regarding the product in response to a request by one of the customers, the additional information being unavailable to the network-based marketplace;

generating, after retrieving the additional information in response to the request by the customer, the listing for the product using the image, the category, and the additional information received from the merchant;

determining that an ending time of the physical marketplace has passed; and

in response to and conditioned upon determining that the ending time of the physical marketplace has passed, causing the listing for the product to be made available on the network-based marketplace.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising transmitting the additional information to the customer that requested the additional information.

11. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

providing a request to purchase the product at a particular price to the merchant by the one of the customers;

determining that the merchant is unwilling to sell the product for the particular price; and

providing in the additional information an indication that the merchant is unwilling to sell the product for the particular price in response to determining that the merchant is unwilling to sell the product for the particular price.

12. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

populating a first subset of a plurality of fields of the listing based on the additional information that is requested in response to the request by the one of the customers; and

requesting further information from the merchant to complete a remaining second subset of the plurality of fields excluding the first subset of the plurality of fields.

13. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

notifying the customer that the product is available at the network-based marketplace; and

placing the listing in a specific section of the network-based marketplace dedicated to presenting a plurality of listings for items at the physical marketplace separately from other items.

14. The method of claim 9, further comprising indicating a physical location of the product at the physical marketplace in response to the customer selecting the image of the product from the list of images.

15. The method of claim 9, further comprising receiving an offer from the consumer to purchase the product and transmitting the offer to the merchant.

16. The method of claim 9, wherein retrieving the additional information comprises retrieving the additional information from a remote server.

17. A machine-readable medium storing executable instructions thereon, which, when executed by a processor associated with a network-based marketplace, cause the processor to perform operations including:

receiving an image of a product and a category of the product for sale by a merchant at a physical marketplace, the product available during a time when the physical marketplace is accessible by a general public;

including the image in a list of images for the category, the list of images representing products available at the physical marketplace;

providing the list of images to customers of the physical marketplace;

requesting additional information regarding the product from the merchant in response to a request by one of the customers, the additional information being unavailable to the network-based marketplace;

generating, after receiving the requested additional information in response to the request by the customer, a listing for the product using the image, the category, and the additional information received from the merchant, the listing being incrementally generated using product information received from subsequent requests for additional information;

determining that an ending time of the physical marketplace has passed; and

in response to and conditioned upon determining that the ending time of the physical marketplace has passed, causing the listing for the product to be made available on the network ad marketplace.

18. The machine-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the operations further comprise transmitting the additional information to the customer that requested the additional information.

19. The machine-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the operations further comprise:

providing a request to purchase the product at a particular price to the merchant by the one of the customers;

determining that the merchant is unwilling to sell the product for the particular price; and

providing in the additional information an indication that the merchant is unwilling to sell the product for the particular price in response to determining that the merchant is unwilling to sell the product for the particular price.

20. The machine-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the operations further comprise:

notifying the customer that the product is available at the network-based marketplace; and

placing the listing in a specific section of the network-based marketplace dedicated to presenting a plurality of listings for items at the physical marketplace separately from other items.