Bottomless inventory interface
AssigneeeBay Inc.
InventorNeelakantan Sundaresan
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The present disclosure is directed to apparatuses, systems, and methods for providing a presentation layer to present a “bottomless” inventory of products or items to client device users. In response to not identifying a product or item listing to satisfy a user search query, embodiments can transmit an offer, from the user, to buy the product or item to one or more vendors to accept, thereby proactively fulfilling the user's request for the product or item even in the absence of inventory for the product or item. These vendors can comprise vendors utilizing physical retail locations, online-only vendors, etc. The vendors can receive the user's offer to buy the product or item in real time or near-real time.
Claims24
A non-transitory machine-useable storage medium embodying instructions which, when executed by a machine, cause the machine to execute operations comprising:
- executing a search for one or more product listings in response to receiving a user query, from a client device, for a product;
- in response to identifying one or more product listings to satisfy the user query, transmitting data, for the client device to display via a graphical user interface (GUI), associated with the identified one or more product listings;
- and
- in response to not identifying a product listing to satisfy the user query:
- transmitting data, for the client device to display via the GUI, for the user to generate an offer to buy the product;
- in response to receiving the offer to buy the product from the e user via the client device, transmitting the offer to buy the product to one or more vendors;
- and
- in response to receiving at least one offer to sell the product from a vendor, transmitting data, for the client device to display via the GUI, associated with the at least one received offer to sell the product.
A system comprising:
- a network-based product search engine to:
- execute a search for one or more product listings in response to receiving a user query, from a client device, for a product;
- in response to identifying one or more product listings to satisfy the user query, transmit data, for the client device to display via a graphical user interface (GUI), associated with the identified one or more product listings;
- and
- in response to not identifying a product listing to satisfy the user query:
- transmit data, for the client device to display via the GUI, for the user to generate an offer to buy the product;
- in response to receiving the offer to buy the product from the user via the client device, transmit the offer to buy the product to one or more vendors;
- and
- in response to receiving at least one offer to sell the product from a vendor, transmit data, for the client device to display via the GUI, associated with the at least one received offer to sell the product;
- one or more memory devices communicatively coupled to the network-based product search engine;
- and
- one or more processors to execute the network-based product search engine.
A method comprising:
- executing a search for one or more product listings in response to receiving a user query, from a client device, for a product;
- in response to identifying one or more product listings to satisfy the user query, transmitting data, for the client device to display via a graphical user interface (GUI), associated with the identified one or more product listings;
- and
- in response to not identifying a product listing to satisfy the user query:
- transmitting data, for the client device to display via the GUI, for the user to generate an offer to buy the product;
- in response to receiving the offer to buy the product from the user via the client device, transmitting the offer to buy the product to one or more vendors;
- and
- in response to receiving at least one offer to sell the product from a vendor, transmitting data, for the client device to display via, the GUI, associated with the at least one received offer to sell the product.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.