Affinity shopping portal
AssigneeCardinalCommerce Corporation
InventorsFrancis M. Sherwin, Michael A. Keresman, III, Ravishankar S. Bhagavatula, Chandra S. Balasubramanian
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method of administering a commercial transaction carried out over a communications network (20) used for shopping includes receiving a shopper (50) at a first web-site maintained on the communications network (20). The shopper (50) has an affinity group (40) associated therewith. The method further includes forwarding the shopper (50) to a second web-site maintained on the communications network (20), and obtaining a generated click-through fee related thereto. A portion of the obtained click-through fee is distributed to the affinity group (40) associated with the shopper (50), and it is communicated to the shopper (50) how much was distributed.
Claims12
A shopping portal comprising:
- means for maintaining a presence on a communications network such that shoppers employing the communications network can be received;
- means for identifying received shoppers;
- means for forwarding shoppers to selected shopping sites maintained on the communications network;
- means for monitoring forwarded shoppers activities at the shopping sites to which the shoppers are forwarded;
- means for obtaining click through fees based upon the monitored activities of shoppers at the shopping sites to which the shoppers were forwarded;
- means for distributing a portion of each obtained click through fee to an affinity group associated with the shopper responsible for generating the click through fee;
- means for reporting to shoppers an amount distributed to the shoppers' associated affinity groups by the distributing means;
- and
- customizing means for a representative of an affinity group to create a customized web site for the affinity group.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.