Systems and methods for managing and updating an internal product catalog

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10896158-B2
Application number	US-201815956106-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 18, 2018
Priority date	Apr 19, 2017
Publication date	Jan 19, 2021
Grant date	Jan 19, 2021

Abstract

A system for managing and updating an internal product catalog, including an internal product catalog database, at least one external product catalog database, and an application program interface. The internal product catalog database includes a plurality of existing item files in which each existing item file is associated with a product and includes at least one attribute of the product. The at least one external product catalog database includes a plurality of external item files in which each external item file is associated with a product and includes at least one attribute of the product. The application program interface is communicatively coupled with the internal product catalog database and the at least one external product catalog database. The application program interface is configured to accept a user search request to search for a new product in which the user search request includes at least one attribute of the new product.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A system for managing and updating an internal product catalog comprising:
an internal product catalog database comprising a plurality of existing item files, each existing item file associated with a product and comprising at least one attribute of the product;
at least one external product catalog database comprising a plurality of external item files, each external item file associated with a product and comprising at least one attribute of the product; and
an application program interface communicatively coupled with the internal product catalog database and the at least one external product catalog database and configured to:
accept a user search request to search for a new product, the user search request comprising at least one attribute of the new product;
facilitate a search of both the internal product catalog database and the at least one external product catalog database based on the user search request, the search of the at least one external product catalog database being facilitated when the product is not found from the internal product catalog database search, and
if search results are found, present the search results and accept a selection of a search result to pre-populate a new item file, or
if no search results are found, present a setup form for a new item file; and

save the new item file as a draft new item file in the internal product catalog database in a draft state, wherein the draft state indicates that draft new item file is temporarily accessible as part of the internal product catalog database through a push to the internal product catalog database from a local network prior to subsequent approval to an approved state.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the application program interface is configured to pre-populate the setup form with the at least one attribute of the new product of the user search request if no search results are found.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the at least one attribute of the product and the at least one attribute of the new product are selected from the group consisting of: a Universal Product Code (UPC), a bar code, a Quick Response (QR) code, a radio frequency identification (RFID) identifier, a product title, a product number, a product brand, a product long description, a product department, a product dimension, a product keyword, a manufacturer suggested retail price (MSRP), a product cost, a product Uniform Resource Locator (URL), and a product image.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the application program interface comprises a user interface configured to accept the user search request; present the search results and accept the selection of a search result to pre-populate the new item file; and present the setup form for a new item file.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the at least one attribute of the new product provided in the user search request comprises an image of the new product, and wherein the application program interface is configured to use at least one image recognition technique to facilitate the search of both the internal product catalog database and the at least one external product catalog database using the image.

6. The system of claim 5 , wherein the application program interface is communicatively coupled with a camera, and wherein the camera is the source of the image of the new product.

7. The system of claim 6 , wherein the application program interface resides on a mobile electronic device that comprises the camera.

8. The system of claim 7 , wherein the mobile electronic device comprises a smartphone, a tablet computing device, a laptop computing device, an augmented reality device, or a wearable electronic device.

9. The system of claim 1 , wherein the application program interface is configured to accept data from a local item file for the new item file.

10. A method of managing and updating an internal product catalog comprising:
accepting a user search request to search for a new product, the user search request comprising at least one attribute of the new product;
searching both an internal product catalog database and at least one external product catalog database based on the user search request, the search of the at least one external product catalog database being facilitated when the product is not found from the internal product catalog database search;
if at least one search result is found,
presenting the at least one search result, and
accepting a selection of one of the at least one search result to pre-populate a new item file;

if no search results are found, presenting a setup form for a new item file; and
saving the new item file as a draft new item file in the internal product catalog database in a draft state, wherein the draft state indicates that draft new item file is temporarily accessible as part of the internal product catalog database through a push to the internal product catalog database from a local network prior to subsequent approval to an approved state.

11. The method of claim 10 , further comprising pre-populating the setup form with the at least one attribute of the new product of the user search request if no search results are found.

12. The method of claim 10 , wherein the at least one attribute of the product and the at least one attribute of the new product are selected from the group consisting of: a Universal Product Code (UPC), a bar code, a Quick Response (QR) code, a radio frequency identification (RFID) identifier, a product title, a product number, a product brand, a product long description, a product department, a product dimension, a product keyword, a manufacturer suggested retail price (MSRP), a product cost, a product Uniform Resource Locator (URL), and a product image.

13. The method of claim 10 , wherein the at least one attribute of the new product provided in the user search request comprises an image of the new product, and wherein the searching comprises using at least one image recognition technique to facilitate searching of both the internal product catalog database and the at least one external product catalog database using the image.

14. The method of claim 13 , further comprising obtaining the image using a camera.

15. The method of claim 10 , further comprising accepting data from a local item file for the new item file.

16. The method of claim 10 , wherein accepting a user search request to search for a new product comprises accepting a bar code as the at least one attribute of the new product.

Assignees

• Walmart Apollo Llc

Inventors

• Tucker Benjamin
• Bond Jimmie
• Clark Kenneth
• Terjak David

Classifications

• G06F16/20 Primary

  of structured data, e.g. relational data · CPC title

• G06Q30/0603

  Catalogue creation or management · CPC title

• G06Q30/0625 Primary

  by formulating product or service queries, e.g. using keywords or predefined options · CPC title

• G06F16/11

  File system administration, e.g. details of archiving or snapshots (error detection or correction of the data by redundancy in operations G06F11/14) · CPC title

• G06Q30/0601

  Electronic shopping [e-shopping] · CPC title