Distributed electronic commerce system with centralized virtual shopping carts
AssigneeGoogle Inc.
InventorsArturo Crespo, Louis Perrochon, Catherine Caroline Lacavera
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An electronic commerce system includes a broker that enables customers to purchase items from multiple different merchants. A customer interacts with the merchants to identify items to purchase, and the merchants send descriptions of the items to the broker. The broker maintains a virtual shopping cart that stores the items received from the different merchants. The customer can purchase the items in the shopping cart in a single purchase transaction with the broker. Further, the customer can publish a reference that identifies the shopping cart and invite other customers to purchase the items in the cart via the broker.
Claims27
An electronic commerce system having a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable code, the computer-executable code comprising:
- a shopping cart module adapted to:
- store a plurality of virtual shopping carts associated with a customer, the plurality of shopping carts adapted to contain items from a plurality of online merchants;
- receive an item identified by the customer for purchase from one of the plurality of online merchants;
- automatically select, from the plurality of shopping carts, at least one of the shopping carts in which to store the item identified for purchase based on a characteristic of the item;
- and
- store the item in the selected shopping cart;
- and
- a transaction module adapted to:
- enable the customer to purchase the item contained within the selected shopping cart.
A computer program product having a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having executable computer program instructions embodied therein for supporting an electronic commerce system, the computer program instructions comprising:
- a shopping cart module adapted to:
- store a plurality of virtual shopping carts associated with a customer, the plurality of shopping carts adapted to hold a plurality of items offered by a plurality of different online merchants;
- receive an item identified by the customer for purchase from one of the plurality of online merchants;
- automatically select, from the plurality of shopping carts, at least one of the shopping carts in which to store the item identified for purchase based on a characteristic of the item;
- and
- store the item in the selected shopping cart;
- and
- a transaction module adapted to:
- enable the customer to purchase the item held within the selected shopping cart.
A method comprising:
- storing, by a computer system, a plurality of virtual shopping carts associated with a customer, the plurality of shopping carts adapted to contain items from a plurality of online merchants;
- receiving, by the computer system, an item identified by the customer for purchase from one of the plurality of online merchants;
- automatically selecting by the computer system, from the plurality of shopping carts, at least one of the shopping carts in which to store the item identified for purchase based on a characteristic of the item;
- and
- storing, by the computer system, the item in the selected shopping cart;
- and
- enabling, by the computer system, the customer to purchase the item contained within the selected shopping cart.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.