System and method for classifying relevant competitors

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10504127-B2
Application number	US-201313841487-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 15, 2013
Priority date	Nov 15, 2012
Publication date	Dec 10, 2019
Grant date	Dec 10, 2019

Abstract

Competitors are classified in terms of products the competitors offer. A product set is generated from product information received from a user. Also, a competitor set is generated, where the competitor set comprises at least one competitor determined to be relevant to one or more products in the product set. A target price rule is generated that is operative to change a price offered by the user for the at least one product. A competitors relevancy can be determined by considering factors such as: (1) unique visitors to the competitor's website, (2) reviews on the competitor's website (3), ratings on the competitor's website, (4) absolute number of products common to the user's website and the competitor's website, (5) percentage number of products common to the user's website and the competitor's website, and (6) number of products offered by the competitor that comprise the product set.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A system for classifying competitors of a user of the system, the system comprising:
a website crawler that runs on a processor, the website crawler operable to obtain raw data from a plurality of Internet domains associated with a plurality of potential competitors' websites, wherein one or more wrappers is applied to the raw data to extract competitor product information from the raw data;
a competitor classifier that runs on the processor, the competitor classifier operable to:
determine respective relevancy scores of a plurality of potential competitors to at least one product in a product set by assigning a value to a first variable, the first variable comprising at least one of:
an absolute number of products common to the user's website and the potential competitor's web site, or
a percentage of products common to the user's web site and the potential competitor's website,
wherein the absolute number or the percentage is determined at least in part based on the competitor product information extracted from the raw data;

the competitor classifier operable to determine the respective relevancy scores further by assigning a value to a second variable, the second variable comprising at least one of:
unique visitors to the potential competitor's website;
reviews on the potential competitor's website;
ratings on the potential competitor's web site; or
number of products offered by the potential competitor that comprise the product set;

determine, for each potential competitor, if the computed relevancy score is greater than a threshold value; and
add each competitor having a computed relevancy score greater than the threshold value to a competitor set;

a user interface coupled to the competitor classifier, the processor operable to cause the user interface to display product set information and competitor set information to a user;
wherein the product set information comprises, for the at least one product in the set, at least one of:
product SKU;
product category; or
product brand;

and the competitor set information comprises, for each competitor in the competitor set, the first variable and the second variable.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the respective values assigned to the first variable and the second variable are weighted.

3. The system of claim 2 , wherein the respective values assigned to the first and second variables are weighted differently.

4. The system of claim 3 , wherein the competitor classifier is further operable to:
find the sum of the weighted values; and
compare the sum to the threshold.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the competitor classifier is further operable to:
identify if a potential competitor having a computed relevancy score greater than the threshold value is associated with a disqualifying variable; and
exclude the competitor associated with the disqualifying variable from the competitor set.

6. A method for classifying competitors, the method comprising:
obtaining, by a website crawler run on a processor, raw data from a plurality of Internet domains associated with a plurality of potential competitors' websites;
applying, by the processor, one or more wrappers to the raw data to extract competitor product information from the raw data;
using the processor, determining respective relevancy scores of a plurality of potential competitors to at least one product in a product set by:
assigning a value to a first variable, the first variable comprising at least one of:
an absolute number of products common to the user's website and the potential competitor's website, or
a percentage of products common to the user's website and the potential competitor's website,
wherein the absolute number or the percentage is determined at least in part based on the competitor product information extracted from the raw data; and

assigning a value to a second variable, the second variable comprising at least one of:
unique visitors to the potential competitor's website;
reviews on the potential competitor's website;
ratings on the potential competitor's web site; or
number of products offered by the potential competitor that comprise the product set;

determining, by the processor, for each potential competitor, if the computed relevancy score is greater than a threshold value; and
adding, by the processor, each competitor having a computed relevancy score greater than the threshold value to a competitor set;
using the processor, displaying product set information and competitor set information to a user, wherein the product set information comprises, for the at least one product in the set, at least one of:
product SKU;
product category; and
product brand;

and the competitor set information comprises, for each competitor in the competitor set, the first variable and the second variable.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the respective values assigned to the first variable and the second variable are weighted.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the respective values assigned to the first and second variables are weighted differently.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein computing a relevancy score further comprises:
finding the sum of the weighted values; and
comparing the sum to the threshold.

10. The method of claim 6 , further comprising:
identifying if a potential competitor having a computed relevancy score greater than the threshold value is associated with a disqualifying variable; and
excluding the potential competitor associated with the disqualifying variable from the competitor set.

11. An apparatus for classifying competitors, the apparatus comprising:
a memory; and
a processor coupled to the memory, the processor operable to:
generate a product set from product information received from a user;
generate a competitor set, the competitor set comprising at least one competitor determined to be relevant to at least one product in the product set, the processor operable to generate the competitor set by determining respective relevancy scores of a plurality of potential competitors by:
obtaining, by a website crawler run on a processor, raw data from a plurality of Internet domains associated with a plurality of potential competitors' websites;
applying one or more wrappers to the raw data to extract competitor product information from the raw data;
assigning a value to a first variable, the first variable comprising at least one of:
an absolute number of products common to the user's website and the potential competitor's website, or
a percentage of products common to the user's web site and the potential competitor's website,
wherein the absolute number or the percentage is determined at least in part based on the product information extracted from the raw data; and

assigning a value to a second variable, the second variable comprising at least one of:
unique visitors to the potential competitor's website;
reviews on the potential competitor's web site;
ratings on the potential competitor's web site; or
number of products offered by the potential competitor that comprise the product set;

determining, by a processor, for each potential competitor, if the computed relevancy score is greater than a threshold value; and
adding, by a processor, each competitor having a computed relevancy score greater than the threshold value to a competitor set; and

generate a target price rule for the at least one product, wherein the target price rule is operative to change a price offered by the user for the at least one product.

12. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein the respective values assigned to the first variable

Assignees

• Home Depot Product Authority Llc

Inventors

• Carvalho Rodrigo Pierzchalski

Classifications

• G06Q30/0204 Primary

  Market segmentation · CPC title