Method and apparatus for commerce item information homogenization in electronic commerce system

A system for quantizing the effectiveness of advertising using an online merchant system that facilitates commercial transactions involving commerce items, comprising:

• a commerce item information receiving system that is accessible by at least one online entity that may interface with the commerce item information system to deliver a data feed comprised of plurality of commerce item information packets that relate to commerce items that can be shopped for by online users via the online merchant system, the commerce item information receiving system under hardware and software control to,
• receive, map and store each commerce item information packet into an aggregate database using a common commerce item information format, and
• associate a commerce item information tag to each commerce item information packet stored within the aggregate database;
• the system for quantizing the effectiveness of advertising also including,
• a commerce metric recording system that records commerce metrics reflecting related to the online activity regarding any particular commerce item by recording queries of the aggregate database returning a specific unit of commerce item information and the associated commerce item information tag.

A commerce item information tagging system for use in an online merchant system, the online merchant system including;

• a system for homogenizing the format of received commerce item information from at least two distinct online entities, an aggregate database for storing the homogenized commerce item information, and a user interface that accesses the aggregate database for query and retrieval of competitive commerce item information from the online entities and displays it within a user's Web browser window;
• the commerce item information tagging system comprising;
• a mechanism for associating commerce item information tags with the commerce item information received from the distinct online entities;
• and
• the commerce item information tag comprising a unique sequence of elements associated with the online entity that originated the commerce item information.