ONLINE ORDERING SYSTEM AND METHOD

• US 20080162298A1
• Filed: 11/14/2007
• Published: 07/03/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/15/2000
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Liberty Peak Ventures, LLC (Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC)
• Original Assignee: American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. (American Express Company)
• Inventors: Tarvydas, Martin, Aliabadi, Amir, Hammond, Jeffrey T., Sutton, Becky, Frangos, Anargiros Zacharias, Dalton, Noreen, Licardi, Courtney Ann
• Application Number:
  US11/940,149
• Publication Number:
  US 20080162298A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/26
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/02 Reservations, e.g. for tickets, services or events
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/04 Forecasting or optimisation specially adapted for administrative or management purposes, e.g. linear programming or "cutting stock problem" market predictions or forecasting for commercial activities G06Q30/0202
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/047 Optimisation of routes or paths, e.g. travelling salesman problem
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/12 specially adapted for electronic shopping systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0234 Rebates after completed purchase
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0255 based on user history
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0283 Price estimation or determination
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0603 Catalogue ordering
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0605 Supply or demand aggregation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0621 Item configuration or customization
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0625 Directed, with specific intent or strategy
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0631 Item recommendations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0633 Lists, e.g. purchase orders, compilation or processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0643 Graphical representation of items or shoppers
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/06 : Energy or water supply
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/40 : Business processes related to the transportation industry shipping G06Q10/083
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/50 : Business processes related to the communications industry metering or billing arrangements H04L12/14; telephonic communication involving automatic or semi-automatic exchanges H04M3/00; arrangements for metering, time-control or time indication H04M15/00; prepayment telephone systems H04M17/00; accounting or billing for wireless communication networks H04W4/24

Abstract

Systems and methods for facilitating an on-line purchase of at least one item on behalf of a consumer are disclosed. A consumer may shop and purchase at least one item on a consolidated shopping (CS) website displaying one or more items available for purchase on one or more different merchant websites. The CS website provides consumers with advanced searching that takes into consideration a personal profile of the consumer, the consumer'"'"'s previous shopping history, transactional data relating to a group of similar consumers, and the like. A host computer providing the CS website may access a merchant website selling the requested item, and order the requested item on behalf of the consumer, and charging a transaction fee, listing fee, receiving a rebate and/or offering a rebate for performing such. One embodiment allows a consumer to purchase/order multiple items from multiple websites in a single purchase request to the CS website.

Claims

1. A method of processing product orders, via a network, to allow consumers to order products from a plurality of merchants, using a web page comprising a consistent user interface, comprising the steps of:

receiving a search request from a user, wherein said search request includes at least one of;

an item description and a category description;

retrieving user data corresponding to said user;

searching a local database, in accordance with said user data and at least one of;

an item description and a category description, to locate product information prior to searching websites for said product information, wherein said websites include a plurality of at least one of;

affiliated websites and unaffiliated websites; and

,

displaying said information from at least one of said local database and said websites within said web page comprising a consistent user interface.

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

receiving a product selection command from a consumer indicative of selecting a product;

adding said selected product to said universal shopping cart;

determining whether said selected product is from an affiliated web site;

transmitting an order for said selected product directly to an owner of said affiliated web site when said selected product is from said affiliated web site;

injecting a product order at an unaffiliated website when said selected product is from said unaffiliated web site, wherein said product order is injected to an unaffiliated website according to pattern matching; and

,

identifying a common accepted payment method from said plurality of merchants, wherein said common accepted payment method is displayed within said webpage.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising performing an analysis of said user data to determine item category preferences of said user.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising performing an analysis of said user data of a subset of users to determine item categories that are searched most frequently.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising identifying products that were previously selected for purchase when no purchase occurred.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising retrieving an offer based on said user data.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining a product category corresponding to said search request, wherein said product category is used to locate information relating to a plurality products relating to said search request.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising retrieving a subset of products relating to a product category relating to said search request.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising transmitting browser executable code to a browser application of said user, wherein said browser executable code tracks interaction between said user and said consistent user interface to provide a search suggestion to said user.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein said user data includes at least one of:

a user profile, shopping habits, transaction history, and search preferences.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising unbundling a bundled product, wherein said unbundling creates a plurality of individual products.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising receiving unbundling rules from a subset of said plurality of merchants.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising associated said user with a specialized status, wherein said user is provided a subset of said information based on said specialized status.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing said user with a personalization interface, wherein said personalization interface includes controls for configuring at least one of:

text, graphic, color, and configuration for a product selected from said information.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein said personalization interface provides a rendering of said product selected from said information based on said configuring.

16. A machine-readable medium having stored thereon a plurality of instructions, said plurality of instructions when executed by a processor, cause said processor to perform a method comprising the steps of:

receiving a search request from a user, wherein said search request includes at least one of;

an item description and a category description;

retrieving user data corresponding to said user;

searching a local database, in accordance with said user data and at least one of;

an item description and a category description, to locate product information prior to searching websites for said product information, wherein said websites include a plurality of at least one of;

affiliated websites and unaffiliated websites; and

,

displaying said information from at least one of said local database and said websites within said web page comprising a consistent user interface.