Techniques for real-time dynamic pricing

• US 9,684,914 B1
• Filed: 01/17/2014
• Issued: 06/20/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 01/17/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Porter, Brandon William, Frank, Martin Robert, Johnston, Simon Kurt
• Primary Examiner(s): Civan, Ethan D
• Assistant Examiner(s): Shui, Ming
• Application Number:
  US14/158,737
• Time in Patent Office: 1,250 Days
• Field of Search: 705 261- 272
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0206 Price or cost determination based on market factors
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0611 Request for offers or quotes

Abstract

A request to view an item may be received in an electronic marketplace. The request may cause an offer request to be sent to one or more merchants. The merchants may respond with corresponding offers. Upon receipt of the offer, so long as the offered is received during a time when offers are being accepted, a price may be determined for the item based at least in part on the received offers.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

receiving, from an electronic device associated with a user, a request to view an item detail network page related to an item offered for consumption on an electronic marketplace;

responsive to the request to view the item detail network page, transmitting an offer request related to the item to a plurality of computer systems individually associated with a plurality of third-party providers, the offer request being transmitted during a time period required to generate the item detail network page in response to the request, the offer request specifying that a response must be received within the time period;

during the time period required to generate the item detail network page, receiving a plurality of offers from the plurality of third-party providers, individual offers of the plurality of offers including at least pricing information associated with the item;

during the time period required to generate the item detail network page, scoring, with one or more computers, the individual offers of the plurality of offers utilizing the pricing information and information associated with the user;

providing the generated item detail network page to display a price for the item corresponding to a optimally-scored offer of the plurality of offers; and

locking the price for the item for a pre-determined amount of time, the locking being applicable to at least one of the user, a session, or a subset of users of the electronic marketplace, the locking of the price causing offers from third-party providers to be discarded during the pre-determined amount of time.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the discarded offers remain unprocessed.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein individual offers include a cryptographic token indicating offer authenticity.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the pre-determined amount of time is less than or equal to 500 milliseconds.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the offer request comprises at least one of demographic information, past purchase history, or clickstream data associated with a customer.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein subsequent offer requests transmitted after the offer request comprise at least one of pricing information received from one or more third-party providers of the plurality of third-party providers as a result of a previously-transmitted offer request or a statistical summary of the pricing information received from the one or more third-party providers as a result of the previously-transmitted offer request.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein transmitting the offer request comprises transmitting, with the offer request, at least one of sale trend information, conversion rates, sales volume information, or item inventory of at least one other third-party provider of the item.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the one or more offer sources include at least one of a third-party provider of the item, or an offer engine authorized to make offers on behalf of the third-party provider.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein transmitting the offer request, receiving the plurality of offers, and determining the price for the item individually occur multiple times in response to receiving a triggering event, and wherein transmitting the offer request, receiving the plurality of offers, and determining the price for the item the multiple times occurs prior to providing the network page to the electronic device.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

storing the plurality of offers in a cache; and

preventing changes to the cache for a pre-determined amount of time.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, wherein the preventing changes to the cache occurs a period of time after the offer request is transmitted, and wherein the period of time is determined from historical rates of change in price for the item.

5. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

receiving, by a server device from an electronic device, a request to view a network page related to an item offered on an electronic marketplace;

transmitting, by a server device to one or more offer sources, an offer request related to the item available on the electronic marketplace;

prior to providing the network page to the electronic device, receiving, from the one or more offer sources, one or more of offers responsive to the offer request, individual offers including at least pricing information associated with the item, the one or more offers being received within a time period required to generate the network page in response to the request; and

based at least in part on a determination that the plurality of offers are received during a time when offers are being accepted, determining, by the server device from the received one or more offers, an item price to be presented on the network page, the time during which offers are being accepted corresponding to a portion of a time period needed to generate the network page.

13. A system, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the system to, at least;

receive a request to view an item detail network page related to an item offered for consumption on an electronic marketplace;

responsive to the request to view the item detail network page, transmit, an offer request for the item to a plurality of computer systems individually associated with a plurality of third-party providers, the offer request being transmitted during a time period required to generate the item detail network page in response to the request, the offer request specifying that a response must be received within the time period;

during the time period required to generate the item detail network page, receive a plurality of offers from the plurality of third-party providers, individual offers of the plurality of offers including at least pricing information for the item;

during the time period required to generate the item detail network page, score, with one or more computers, the individual offers of the plurality of offers utilizing the pricing information and information associated with the user;

provide the generated item detail network page, the generated item detail network page comprising a price for the item corresponding to a optimally-scored offer of the plurality of offers; and

locking the price for the item for an amount of time, the locking being applicable to at least one of the user, a session, or a subset of users of the electronic marketplace, the locking of the price causing offers from third-party providers to be discarded during the pre-determined amount of time.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the amount of time is calculated from at least one of an amount of network traffic associated with the electronic marketplace, a conversion rate associated with the item, a rate of change of a price associated with the item, or a historical price fluctuation associated with the item.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the offer request includes a user-defined pricing threshold.

16. The system of claim 15, further comprising:

receiving a request for the item including the user-defined pricing threshold; and

notifying the user when the determined price falls below the user-defined pricing threshold.

17. The system of claim 13, wherein the plurality of offers include at least one secondary offer, the secondary offer including at least one of an add-on item offer, a discount offer, an up-sell offer, or a bundle offer.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the individual offers of the plurality of offers are scored based on at least one of the pricing information, inclusion of the at least one secondary offer, and information associated with the user.

19. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform operations comprising:

receiving a request to view an item detail network page related to an item offered for consumption on an electronic marketplace;

responsive to the request to view the item, transmitting an offer request related to the item to a plurality of computer systems individually associated with a plurality of third-party providers, the offer request being transmitted during a time period required to generate the item detail network page in response to the request, the offer request specifying that a response must be received within the time period;

during the time period required to generate the item detail network page, receiving a plurality of offers from the plurality of third-party providers, individual offers of the plurality of offers including at least pricing information associated with the item;

during the time period required to generate the item detail network page, scoring, with one or more computers, the individual offers of the plurality of offers utilizing the pricing information and information associated with the user;

providing the generated item detail network page, the generated network page comprising the price for the item, the price corresponding to a optimally-scored offer of the plurality of offers;

locking the price for the item for a pre-determined amount of time, the locking being applicable to at least one of the user, a session, or a subset of users of the electronic marketplace, the locking of the price causing subsequent offers from third-party providers to be discarded after the locking as occurred and before the pre-determined amount of time has elapsed.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 19, wherein the plurality of offers further comprise shipping information and the scoring is further based on the shipping information.

21. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 19, wherein the scoring is further based on availability of the item from the third-party provider.

22. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 19, wherein the pricing information includes multiple prices, an individual price being valid for a particular amount of time or for a particular number of obtained items.

23. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 22, wherein the price is locked until a threshold number of total user views of the generated item detail network page since the price for the item was locked, or in response to determining that a number of scored offers have become invalid.