Product catalog services

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11397933-B2
Application number	US-202016848767-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 14, 2020
Priority date	Oct 30, 2015
Publication date	Jul 26, 2022
Grant date	Jul 26, 2022

Abstract

A product catalog service allows merchants to create and store product catalogs indicating products that are available from the merchants. Transaction data from point-of-sale (POS) devices of a plurality of merchants can be received. A first catalog of a first merchant can be obtained from a first POS device of a first merchant. The first catalog contains items to be sold by the first merchant. Using the transaction data and the catalog, a second catalog of items to be sold by a second merchant can be generated or updated and transmitted to the second merchant. Items can be compared using item attributes. Item descriptions in the second catalog can be based on item descriptions in the first catalog.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system comprising:
one or more processors; and
one or more computer-readable media storing instructions executable by the one or more processors, wherein the instructions program the one or more processors to perform actions comprising:
receiving, at one or more servers and from instances of a merchant support application executing on a plurality of point-of-sale (POS) devices associated with respective merchants of a plurality of merchants, transaction data associated with a plurality of transactions of the plurality of merchants;
obtaining, by the one or more servers and from a POS device associated with a first merchant of the plurality of merchants, a first catalog including information regarding one or more first items to be sold by the first merchant;
determining, by the one or more servers and based at least in part on the transaction data and the first catalog, a comparison between the first catalog and a second item of one or more second items associated with a second merchant of the plurality of merchants;
based at least in part the first catalog, at least one of generating or updating, by the one or more servers, a second catalog including information regarding at least one of the one or more second items to be sold by the second merchant; and
transmitting, by the one or more servers, the second catalog to a merchant device of the second merchant.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the first catalog includes information regarding a particular first item.

3. The system of claim 2 , wherein determining the comparison between the first catalog and the second item comprises determining that the particular first item and the second item share item attributes.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the transaction data includes item attributes of items associated with individual transactions of the plurality of transactions, and wherein the information regarding the one or more first items includes item attributes of the one or more first items to be sold by the first merchant.

5. The system of claim 4 , wherein item attributes for a particular instance of a first item of the one or more first items are stored by the one or more servers in a corresponding instance data record for the particular instance, and wherein the instance data record indicates one more of a location, an owner, a product family identifier, an instance identifier, or an event associated with the particular instance.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein generating the second catalog comprises generating a description of at least one of the one or more second items to be sold by the second merchant based at least in part on a description of at least one of the one or more first items included in the first catalog.

7. A method comprising:
receiving, at one or more servers from instances of a merchant support application executing on a plurality of merchant devices associated with respective merchants of a plurality of merchants, data associated with a plurality of interactions of respective merchants of the plurality of merchants;
based at least in part on the data, determining, by the one or more servers, a comparison between a first catalog of a first merchant of the plurality of merchants and an item associated with a second merchant of the plurality of merchants; and
at least one of generating or updating, by the one or more servers, a second catalog of items associated with the second merchant based at least in part on the comparison.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the item associated with the second merchant comprises a second item, wherein the second catalog of items comprises a second catalog of second items, and wherein the first catalog includes information regarding one or more first items to be sold by the first merchant.

9. The method of claim 7 , further comprising transmitting, by the one or more servers, the second catalog to at least one of a merchant device of the second merchant or a device of a potential customer of the second merchant.

10. The method of claim 7 , wherein the first catalog is stored in a database associated with the one or more servers, wherein the database stores a plurality of catalogs associated with respective merchants of the plurality of merchants.

11. The method of claim 8 , wherein determining the comparison comprises determining a comparison between item attributes of a plurality of second items and respective first items of the one or more first items, wherein the item attributes include at least one of a location, an owner, variant attributes, product family identification, pricing information, or text attributes.

12. One or more computer-readable media storing instructions executable by one or more processors, wherein the instructions program the one or more processors to perform actions comprising:
receiving, from instances of a merchant support application executing on a plurality of merchant devices associated with respective merchants of a plurality of merchants, data associated with a plurality of interactions of respective merchants of the plurality of merchants;
based on the data, determining a comparison between a first catalog of a first merchant of the plurality of merchants and an item associated with a second merchant of the plurality of merchants; and
at least one of generating or updating a second catalog of items associated with the second merchant based at least in part on the comparison.

13. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 12 , the actions further comprising publishing, by the one or more servers, the second catalog for use by a purchaser.

14. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 12 , the actions further comprising receiving, from the second merchant, a request for generation of the second catalog.

15. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 12 , wherein the item associated with the second merchant comprises a second item, wherein the second catalog of items comprises a second catalog of second items, and wherein the first catalog includes information regarding one or more first items to be sold by the first merchant.

16. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 15 , wherein determining the comparison between the first catalog and the second item comprises determining that the one or more first items and the second item share item attributes.

17. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 12 , wherein the first catalog includes information regarding a location of the first merchant, and wherein determining the comparison between the first catalog and the item comprises determining that the location of the first merchant is within a threshold distance of a location of the second merchant.

18. The system of claim 1 , the actions further comprising:
receiving, by the one or more servers and from the POS device, additional transaction data indicating a purchase transaction associated with an instance of a first item of the one or more first items, wherein the additional transaction data includes an instance identifier for the instance of the first item;
based at least in part on the additional transaction data,
updating, by the one or more servers, an instance data record associated with the instance of the first item to indicate a change in at least one of ownership or location of the instance of the first item; and
based at least in part on updating the instance data record, updating, by the one or more servers, the first catalog.

19. The system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more servers are associated with a payme

Assignees

• Block Inc

Inventors

• Jen Mark
• Morel Shawn

Classifications

• G06Q10/087

  Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders · CPC title

• G06Q20/203

  Inventory monitoring · CPC title

• G06Q30/0603

  Catalogue creation or management · CPC title

• G06Q20/201

  Price look-up processing, e.g. updating · CPC title

• G06Q30/0635

  replenishment orders; recurring orders · CPC title