Systems and methods for providing automated customer order cross referencing
AssigneeW.W. Grainger, Inc.
InventorGeoffry A. Westphal
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An auto cross-referencing functionality related to an order number directed to a product within an electronic catalog hosted by a vendor system is presented on a client computing device in a page providing an access point for ordering an item. The system allows a customer to enter a manufacturer, competitor, or other non-vendor specific ordering number into an ordering system and have the provided number transformed in-situ to the vendor's ordering number, either in real-time and/or through a batch-like process.
Claims16
A non-transient, computer readable media having stored thereon instructions for providing access to an automated cross referencing functionality related to a customer order within an electronic vendor system, the instructions performing steps comprising:
- storing in a data repository a listing of a plurality of products that are available for purchase, wherein each of the plurality of products is directly associated with a vendor item number and wherein each of the plurality of products is capable of being associated with at least one of a secondary item number or a description;
- causing a page to be displayed on a client computing device, the page comprising an order access point in which an order number corresponding to a desired item is enterable;
- in response to an entering of the order number in the order access point causing the vendor system to query the data repository to cross reference the entered order number with the vendor item number and to query the data repository to cross reference the entered order number with at least one of the secondary item number or the description of each of the plurality of products, and obtain a subset of relevant products associated with the entered order number when the entered order number does not correspond to a specific vendor item number stored in the data repository;
- causing a plurality of user interface elements, each corresponding to one of the subset of relevant products to be presented on the client computing device;
- and
- in response to a selection of one of the user interface elements from the presented plurality of user interface elements causing a performance by the vendor system to replace the entered order number in the order access point with the vendor item number associated with the one of the subset of relevant products corresponding to the selected one of user interface elements.
A non-transient, computer readable media having stored thereon instructions for providing access to an automated cross referencing functionality related to a customer order within an electronic vendor system, the instructions performing steps comprising:
- storing in a data repository a listing of a plurality of products that are available for purchase, wherein each of the plurality of products is directly associated with a vendor item number and wherein each of the plurality of products is capable of being associated with at least one of a secondary item number or a description;
- causing a page to be displayed on a client computing device, the page comprising an order access point in which an order number corresponding to a desired item is enterable;
- in response to an entering of the order number in the order access point causing the vendor system to query the data repository to cross reference the entered order number with the vendor item number and to query the data repository to cross reference the entered order number with at least one of the secondary item number or the description of each of the plurality of products, and obtain a subset of relevant products associated with the entered order number when the entered order number does not correspond to a specific vendor item number stored in the data repository;
- causing at least one group of product attributes, each of the at least one group of product attributes corresponding to each of at least one returned product matches to be presented on the client computing device in a direct product comparison matrix window.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.