Electronic shopping system utilizing multiple configurable item orders

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10650435-B2
Application number	US-201815896944-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 14, 2018
Priority date	Oct 31, 2013
Publication date	May 12, 2020
Grant date	May 12, 2020

Abstract

An electronic shopping system, such as an ecommerce retail website, is constructed and programmed to provide online shoppers with the ability to create and manage multiple configurable item orders contemporaneously within a single customer account. Each item in an item order is associated with a “purchase status” which can, in addition to other discrete adjustments, be toggled between “active” and “inactive” states at or before checkout. Each item order is itself configurable in respect of delivery address, payment source, frequency, and schedule. Orders and settings are saved within the customer's account to be recalled, reviewed, refined (if desired), and executed at checkout.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. An electronic shopping system comprising:
a customer account database,
a merchandise selection facility,
an authentication agent, and
a purchase facility, wherein:
the authentication agent is configured to authenticate one or more remote customers of a plurality of retail customers accessing the electronic shopping system over a network through remote customer computing devices, and enable remote access over the network to databases of merchandise information;
the customer account database comprises a plurality of customer account records;
the merchandise selection facility comprising a catalog of merchandise and the merchandise selection facility is configured to:
allow each authenticated customer of the plurality of retail customers to each remotely create and manage multiple different item orders contemporaneously in association with a single customer account record associated with that customer, remotely access over the network the merchandise information, and to select one or more items in said catalog for inclusion in at least one of several potential item orders associated with a single customer account record corresponding to said customer;
default each customer to a single item order until express intent is received from the customer to utilize multiple different item orders and providing enhanced purchase through rate for those customers not intending to implement multiple item orders;
communicate data to cause to be displayed to the customer a plurality of item order options each corresponding to one of multiple item orders associated with the single customer account record;
receive from the remote customer computing device a selection of one or more of the multiple item orders associated with the single customer account record and into which a selected one or more items selected from said catalog are to be included; and
maintain the customer account database remote from the customers to associate the selected one or more items with the selected one or more item orders; and

the purchase facility comprising an order review interface wherein the purchase facility causes data to be communicated to cause the remote customer computing device to display the order review interface allowing the customer to discretely review and modify said item orders associated with said single customer account record;
wherein the purchase facility is configured to automatically repeat execution of purchases of the one or more items of each of the multiple item orders associated with the single customer account record that are designated as recurring item orders in accordance with corresponding defined recurring schedules; and
wherein the order review interface is communicated to cause order frequency data to be displayed, and enables modification of the purchase status data for the one or more items of each of the multiple item orders, and wherein the order review interface causes communication of modifications of the frequency data to indicate that one or more of the item orders is either a recurring order or a non-recurring order.

2. The electronic shopping system of claim 1 , wherein each of said item orders comprises payment information, delivery information, and item information for each item included in the item order, said item information comprising item quantity data and purchase status data.

3. The electronic shopping system of claim 2 , wherein the delivery information includes the order frequency data and order scheduling data.

4. The electronic shopping system of claim 3 , wherein the order scheduling data comprises a starting date of a recurring order and a termination date of the recurring order.

5. The electronic shopping system of claim 3 , wherein the order review interface enables modification of the order scheduling data to specify a temporal parameter for delivery or shipment of the item order.

6. The electronic shopping system of claim 5 , wherein the temporal parameter is configured to display on the remote customer computing device as a cascading sequence of temporal parameters and values that when selected by the customer combine to define at least part of the ordered scheduling data.

7. The electronic shopping system of claim 1 , comprising an order notification facility, wherein:
said order notification facility transmits an automated predefined notification relating to said item order to a customer at a customer contact included in said customer account record.

8. The electronic shopping system of claim 1 wherein each item order of said customer is recorded within the customer account record of said customer.

9. The electronic shopping system of claim 8 , wherein the customer account database, the merchandise selection facility, and a purchase facility are hosted on a retailer computer network.

10. The electronic shopping system of claim 9 , wherein the merchandise selection facility and the purchase facility are accessible by the customer through an internet protocol.

11. The electronic shopping system of claim 1 , wherein the purchase facility is further configured to cause the order review interface to be displayed that includes a navigation option that when activated causes the display of a listing of item orders associated with the single customer account record.

12. The electronic shopping system of claim 11 , wherein the order review interface comprises an interactive menu comprising scripting that induces a pulling of item order information, and causes a display of the listing of item orders.

13. The electronic shopping system of claim 11 , wherein the navigation option comprises a drop down menu such that causing the plurality of item order options to be displayed further comprises causing a listing of the plurality of item order options each corresponding to one of multiple item orders associated with the single customer account record to be displayed in response to a selection of the navigation option.

14. The electronic shopping system of claim 1 , wherein the merchandise selection facility is configured to: communicate data to cause to be displayed to the customer a new item order option, after a product is selected, that is selectable by the customer allowing the customer to create a new item order; create a new item order in response to detecting a selection of the new item order option; and add the selected product to the newly created item order.

15. The electronic shopping system of claim 1 , wherein the merchandise selection facility is configured to: define a first of the multiple item orders as a default item order.

16. The electronic shopping system of claim 1 , wherein the merchandise selection facility is configured to generate an alert to notify the customer of a change affecting a product specified in one of the item orders associated with the customer.

17. The electronic shopping system of claim 1 , wherein the electronic shopping system is further configured to automatically determine a status of at least one of the multiple item orders associated with the single customer account record, and automatically cause a notification of the status of the at least one of the multiple item orders to be communicated to the customer.

18. The electronic shopping system of claim 1 , wherein the electronic shopping system is further configured to establish the item order as a reusable order template that is usable in establishing subsequent one or more item orders.

19. The electronic shopping system of claim 1 , wherein multiple customer account records of the plurality o

Assignees

• Walmart Apollo Llc

Inventors

• Kumar Vivek
• Pise Dinesh Amarnath Rao
• Purbia Preetam
• Deverachetty Praveen
• Rastogi Vibhor
• Mohanty Soumya Ranjan

Classifications

• G06Q30/0633 Primary

  Managing shopping lists, e.g. compiling or processing purchase lists (shipping orders G06Q10/083; order filling G06Q10/087) · CPC title