Unified product purchasing method

• US 7,373,314 B2
• Filed: 06/15/2001
• Issued: 05/13/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/15/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Liberty Peak Ventures, LLC (Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC)
• Original Assignee: American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. (American Express Company)
• Inventors: Thomason, Kenny W., Sovine, Scott, Moeller, Kelvin, Aliabadi, Amir
• Primary Examiner(s): Gart, Matthew S.
• Application Number:
  US09/882,368
• Publication Number:
  US 20020065737A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,524 Days
• Field of Search: 705 26- 27, 705/25
• US Class Current: 705/26.64
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0629 for generating comparisons

Abstract

The present invention is directed to providing a method, apparatus and system for a unified product purchasing service and order injection system. More specifically, the present invention is directed to providing a shopping service that obtains products for a consumer across many different merchant and supplier sites while maintaining a consistent user interface for the consumer no matter which merchant provides the products. In particular, the present invention allows a consumer to search for, compare prices and order products from many different merchants located on the Internet. The consumer completes their shopping on the shopping site provided by the present invention and is not directed to another merchant'"'"'s site to complete an order.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for collecting product data to facilitate at least one of searching, comparing prices, viewing and ordering products at a single shopping website, comprising:

retrieving, by a host computer, a product feed from a plurality of websites associated with at least one of suppliers and merchants;

determining a source of said product feed, wherein said source is said at least one of said suppliers and merchants;

extracting an image from said product feed when said source is a supplier;

retrieving an image from a website of said merchant when said source is a merchant;

creating a normalized data feed from said product feed;

parsing said normalized data feed and either said extracted image or said retrieved image into categorized data elements to determine when a category exists in a product table which corresponds to said categorized data elements, wherein said categorized data elements are added to a buffer table when said category does not exist and said categorized data elements are integrated with stored product data within said product table when said category exists to create integrated data; and

,

providing said integrated data to a user such that said user may utilize a single shopping website to search for, compare prices and order said products, wherein said products are associated with said stored product data from a plurality of websites, wherein each of said plurality of websites may be associated with a different at least one of said suppliers and said merchants.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said parsing comprises matching product producer names and product producer product identifiers from said categorized data elements to product producer names and product producer product identifiers from said stored product data.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein said parsing comprises matching product SKUs from said categorized data elements to product SKUs in said stored product data.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein said at least one of said suppliers comprise at least one of canonical suppliers.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising indexing said stored product data and forwarding said indexed stored product data to at least one searchable database.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein said at least one searchable database has at least one mirrored database.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein said indexed stored product data comprises index meta-data and indexed data.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein said at least one searchable database is load balanced with at least one mirrored database.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising updating at least one priced products database with said stored product data.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising examining said buffer table and determining that at least one entry in said buffer table contains product data which may be entered with said stored product data.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising categorizing said at least one entry.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising

parsing said product feed according to data types to determine, by said host computer, whether a second portion of said product feed may not be added to said stored product data within a database;

and

adding said second portion to said buffer table.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein said data types includes at least one of product description, price, merchant information, manufacturer information, and image.