Abstract: Techniques are disclosed for using business events as triggers to drive payment processing for electronic commerce. As the business logic of a merchant's e-commerce software application reaches various stages that impact payment considerations, it issues a corresponding event notification. According to preferred embodiments, these event notifications are processed by a policy engine, which locates policy information or rules previously configured for that event. Actions are then carried out, based on the configured policy. The merchant e-commerce application is therefore shielded from the details of the underlying payment processing. New payment types can be provided, and existing payment types can be modified if necessary, by adding/modifying policies; the merchant's e-commerce application does not need to change. This event-driven model allows application developers to focus on creating software for the merchant's key business requirements, and makes it easier to maintain the software.

Abstract: Techniques are disclosed for using business events as triggers to drive payment processing for electronic commerce. As the business logic of a merchant's e-commerce software application reaches various stages that impact payment considerations, it issues a corresponding event notification. According to preferred embodiments, these event notifications are processed by a policy engine, which locates policy information or rules previously configured for that event. Actions are then carried out, based on the configured policy. The merchant e-commerce application is therefore shielded from the details of the underlying payment processing. New payment types can be provided, and existing payment types can be modified if necessary, by adding/modifying policies; the merchant's e-commerce application does not need to change. This event-driven model allows application developers to focus on creating software for the merchant's key business requirements, and makes it easier to maintain the software.

Abstract: Techniques are disclosed for using business events as triggers to drive payment processing for electronic commerce. As the business logic of a merchant's c-commerce software application reaches various stages that impact payment considerations, it issues a corresponding event notification. According to preferred embodiments, these event notifications are processed by a policy engine, which locates policy information or rules previously configured for that event. Actions are then carried out, based on the configured policy. The merchant e-commerce application is therefore shielded from the details of the underlying payment processing. New payment types can be provided, and existing payment types can be modified if necessary, by adding/modifying policies; the merchant's e-commerce application does not need to change. This event-driven model allows application developers to focus on creating software for the merchant's key business requirements, and makes it easier to maintain the software.

Abstract: The present invention provides a method for allocating inventory of a supplier to contracted requestors based on allocation priorities. The supplier sets up a distribution arrangement (contract) with each requestor interested in obtaining inventory. Each inventory record identifies a pool of available inventory. Under a distribution arrangement (between the requestor and the supplier), one or more availability records are associated (by the supplier) with the distribution arrangement. An availability record identifies an inventory record from which inventory will be allocated (to a requestor). A supplier allocates inventory (to a requestor) from a pool of inventory identified by an inventory record associated with an availability record (the availability record indicates that inventory is to be allocated from the pool of inventory identified with the inventory record) assigned (by the supplier) under a distribution arrangement.