Method of testing inventory management/shipping systems

• US 20040243570A1
• Filed: 05/28/2004
• Published: 12/02/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 05/28/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: John Nicholas and Kristin Gross Trust U/A/D April 13 2010
• Original Assignee: John N. Gross
• Inventors: Gross, John N.
• Granted Patent: US 7,685,028 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/3
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• 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 30/0282 Rating or review of business operators or products

Abstract

An inventory management, and a shipping/returns management system can be analyzed to determine various performance characteristics of an e-commerce operator, such as whether the latter maintains sufficient items to meet demand, whether distribution is occurring in a timely fashion, etc. The systems are analyzed using one or more anonymous proxy accounts.

Claims

1. A method of testing a service performance of an e-commerce site, the method comprising the steps of:

(a) generating a request for an item from a client device through a client browser query to a server supporting the e-commerce site;

(b) determining an availability parameter for the item, including whether the item is presently available, or a predicted date for which the item will be available;

(c) in response to detecting said availability parameter, automatically generating a notification from the client device to inform an operator of the e-commerce site when a deficiency of inventory is detected;

wherein each of the above steps are performed over a network by a client device without directly accessing a database of transaction records maintained by the server for inventory or sales of such item.

2. The method of claim 1, further including a step:

(d) testing a shipping and returns management system used by the online content service provider, to determine delays and latencies associated with distributing inventory items to subscribers of the online content service provider, handling returns of old inventory items, and shipping new items as replacements for said old inventory items.

3. The method of claim 1, further including a step:

(d) identifying any selection bias introduced by the recommender system and reporting the same automatically to the e-commerce site.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein multiple requests are made for the item to determine a maximum available inventory.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said multiple requests made for the item are done at different times and by specifying different quantities of the item.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein said request for the item is generated automatically by a software agent on behalf of a proxy account.

7. The method of claim 1, further including a step:

(d) generating a predicted demand for the item at the client device for a predetermined period.

8. The method of claim 7, further including a step:

(e) comparing said predicted demand with an available supply for the item determined at the e-commerce site.

9. The method of claim 1, further including a step (d):

comparing an item availability parameter against a target availability parameter, and generating a notification when said target availability parameter is not achieved.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein said target availability parameter specifies that at least a minimum number of said items must be available at any moment in time from the e-commerce site.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein said target availability parameter specifies a maximum time period during which an available number of items at the e-commerce site can be below a target minimum threshold number of items.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein said target availability parameter specifies an average number of items which must be available over a predetermined time period.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein said item is a movie tile available from an online rental service.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein an availability of such item can be detected by placing such item in a customer selection queue and without requiring that such item be actually shipped.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the item is blocked from being actually shipped by maintaining a number of items sufficient to meet a maximum customer out parameter for a proxy account.

16. A method of testing item delivery performance of items ordered from an e-commerce site, the method comprising the steps of:

(a) generating a request for a first item from a user account to a server supporting the e-commerce site;

(b) receiving a first notification that said first item has been shipped to a first location associated with said user account;

(c) determining a processing time and delivery time required for the e-commerce site to process said request for the first item, distribute the first item to a first location associated with the user account, process a return of the first item from said first location, and generate a second notification that a second item has been shipped to said first location.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein during step (c), the following times are computed:

a. a first processing time associated with the e-commerce site preparing said first item for shipment;

b. a first transit time associated with delivery of the first item to said first location;

c. a second transit time associated with returning the first item back from said first location;

d. a second processing time associated with the e-commerce site processing a return for said first item and identifying that said second item is available for shipment to said first location.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein a plurality of user accounts across a plurality of separate geographical locations are tested.

19. The method of claim 16, wherein a report is generated for a plurality of separate items requested by the user account.

20. The method of claim 16, further including a step:

generating a notification to the e-commerce site when said processing time and delivery time exceed a predetermined threshold.