Method, system, and computer readable storage medium for conducting an online shopping session between a customer and one or more vendors through a central host
One or more networked computers (18) receives input from a customer (12) specifying two or more vendors having vendor web sites (14) from which to purchase goods or services during an online shopping session, receives input from the two or more vendors indicating that the customer has purchased goods or services at the two or more vendor web sites during the online shopping session, and outputs a single online receipt (32) to the customer reflecting all goods or services purchased at the two or more vendor web sites during the online shopping session. Sales tax may be collected from the customer for goods or services purchased during the online shopping session and electronically disbursed tax to one or more tax authorities. Payment for the goods or services purchased during the online shopping session may be electronically collected and disbursed to vendors. Credits for one or more purchased goods or services may also be disbursed. Reports may be generated based on a plurality of data collected during POS transactions.
This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 10/386,886, filed Mar. 12, 2003 now abandoned, and further claims priority to U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 60/363,437, filed Mar. 12, 2002.
STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCHNot Applicable.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONThe present invention relates generally to electronic commerce, and more specifically to a novel method and system for hosting centralized online point-of-sale (“POS”) activities for a plurality of distributed customers and vendors.
The operation and architecture of conventional Internet commerce suffers from at least three general drawbacks. First, customers who wish to purchase goods or services from multiple vendor sites during an online shopping session must make multiple purchase transactions. For example, a customer who purchases three goods from three different vendors has to input his or her shipping address, billing address, credit card number, e-mail address, etc. three separate times. Besides simply being frustrating and time consuming, this redundant data entry is prone to errors.
Another general drawback associated with the operation and architecture of conventional Internet commerce is the fact that each purchase transaction results in a separate vendor receipt 16a-16d that the customer must account for and maintain. Due to varying post-transaction practices at the vendor sites, the receipts are e-mailed back to the customer at varying times after the actual time of purchase, only complicating customer accounting and maintenance. This multi-receipt problem also increases the chances that one of the several receipts will be lost—by the customer, the vendor, or otherwise.
Yet another general drawback associated with the operation and architecture of conventional Internet commerce is the lack of centralized tax collection and disbursement. Today, each tax-collecting vendor must independently collect taxes from each of its customers, and disburse those taxes to the appropriate tax collection agencies. Each vendor site may be required to collect and disburse these revenues to all 50 States plus other national and international jurisdiction, resulting in costs for added employees and equipment.
Because each Internet vendor is currently responsible for independently hosting their respective point-of-sale activities (e.g. customer account maintenance, payment processing, receipts, returns, tax collection/disbursement, etc.) an inherent inefficiency exists. Despite the welcome diversity among the broad spectrum of specialized products and services that each individual vendor offers, they must each redundantly staff, host, execute and support the same basic point of sale activities.
What is needed is a method and system for hosting centralized online point of sale activities for a plurality of distributed customers and vendors.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONPreferred embodiments of the present invention illustrated and described herein include an online method and system for hosting centralized point of sale activities for a plurality of distributed customers and vendors. More specifically, these and other embodiments of the present invention include a novel and efficient means for providing customers with a single receipt for an online sales session, independent of the number of different online vendors from which goods or services are purchased. The invention is an Internet E-Commerce purchasing/sales control and sales tax collection vehicle (i.e., software system) that is “inserted” between the end customer and the Point-of-Sale (POS) software systems of each vendor.
In addition, embodiments of the present invention facilitate central sales tax collection and disbursement, eliminating the need for the distributed vendor sites to provide costly and timely investments in redundant taxation services that are not related to the quality of the goods or services that vendors offer. Put another way, online vendors utilizing features of the present invention do not have to make the time and capital investment necessary to host tax collection and disbursement activities, many of which are or will soon be required by law.
Another advantageous feature of the present invention allows a customer to input payment information only once during an online shopping session, independent of the number of different online vendors from which goods or services are purchased. This feature simply reduces the redundancy, time and aggravation many customers experience during their online shopping sessions.
Another advantageous feature of the present invention supports the processing of customer returns and processing in a centralized fashion similar to the centralized sale processing aspects of the present invention.
Preferred embodiments of the present invention include a method and system for centrally hosting online point of sale activities. A system comprising one or more networked computers is operably programmed and configured to receive input from a customer specifying two or more vendors having vendor web sites from which to purchase goods or services during an online shopping session, receive input from the two or more vendors indicating that the customer has purchased goods or services at the two or more vendor web sites during the online shopping session, and output a single online receipt to the customer reflecting all goods or services purchased at the two or more vendor web sites during the online shopping session. The one or more networked computers may additionally be programmed and configured to collect sales tax from the customer for goods or services purchased during the online shopping session and electronically disburse the collected sales tax to one or more tax authorities (either immediately or on a periodic basis). The one or more networked computers may additionally be programmed and configured to collect and electronically disburse payment for the goods or services purchased during the online shopping session. Payment may be electronically disbursed to the two or more vendor web sites (either immediately or on a periodic basis). Payment may be electronically disbursed to vendor banking institutions (or maintained in a bank account of the hosting entity), and may be subject to a transactional fee for hosting the point-of-sale activities.
The one or more networked computers may additionally be programmed and configured to disburse a credit for one or more purchased goods or services. The one or more networked computers may additionally be programmed and configured to electronically obtain payment authorization from the customer's credit card company for goods or services to be purchased at the two or more vendor sites.
The one or more networked computers may additionally be programmed and configured to present the customer with an online table of contents including a plurality of hyperlinks to different vendor web sites.
In one aspect of the invention, a method is provided for conducting an online shopping session between an end customer and a vendor through a central host. The end customer contacts the central host to initiate an online shopping session, and then they invoke at the central host an address of a vendor site. The central host enters an idle state for passing through communications between the end customer and the vendor site as the end customer makes purchase selections on the vendor site. The central host sets a trigger in response to a payment information screen being sent to the end customer by the vendor site. The central host intercepts payment information of the end customer in response to the trigger. Then the central host queries the end customer whether the online shopping session is completed. If yes, the central host sends an enumerated receipt including all purchase selections from the online shopping session and then closing the online shopping session. If no, the central host holds the purchase selections already made and returns to steps (b)-(g) invoking another address for another vendor site.
Embodiments of the present invention include a method and system for hosting centralized online point of sale activities for a plurality of distributed customers and vendors.
In accordance with the preferred implementation illustrated in
Online POS activities hosted by ASP 18 include but are not limited to (i) payment processing for goods and/or services rendered to customers 12a-12e, (ii) tax collection and disbursement between customers 12a-12e and tax authorities 22, respectively, (iii) issuance of receipts 18a, 18b to customers 12a-12e, (iv) issuance of payment to vendors 14a-14d or credit card companies 19 for goods and/or services sold, and (v) processing of customer returns and refund/credit processing.
Notably, ASP 18 centralizes online POS activities between customers 12, credit card companies 19, and tax collecting authorities 22 such that a customer purchasing multiple goods or services from multiple vendor sites 14a-14d during an online shopping session undergoes a single online payment/taxation transaction and receives a single consolidated online sales/credit receipt 18a-18b therefor, independent of the number of purchases or vendors involved.
In a preferred embodiment; ASP 18 includes one or more networked server computers in operable communication with web browsers operating on customer client computers 12a-12e, and vendor server computers hosting vendor sites 14a-14d. Additionally, ASP 18 server computers may be in operable communication with payment institutions 19 (e.g., banks, credit card companies, etc.) and tax authorities 22. ASP 18 server computers include software systems to act as a controlling agent for the point-of-sale activities and to “pass through” an end customer to venders' sales sites.
In scenario “B”, ASP 18 forwards the payment information through to the vendor 14 for vendor-managed purchase approval and disbursement. ASP 18 awaits a purchase receipt 25 from vendor 14. When the receipt 25 is obtained, ASP 18 adds a transactional fee and the appropriate sales tax (i.e. by jurisdiction), and executes a payment transaction on these amounts only. In this scenario, however, only the tax authority and the ASP itself are thereafter credited (the vendor has already executed a customer payment transaction for goods sold).
Preferably, transactional charges and sales tax are added on a per-line-item basis. Next, the ASP 18 writes all line items and corresponding tax and transaction charges to a sales transaction file 28 and sales tax file 30 for the customer's current online shopping session. Notably, receipt 25 is not forwarded to customer 12 at this time.
Preferably, customer payment information is maintained at ASP 18 throughout the online shopping session such that a customer need only submit his or her payment information once.
If customer 12 indicates that he or she is finished shopping, the consolidated receipt 32 is forwarded to the customer and the current online shopping session is terminated. Preferably, the consolidated receipt includes all line item sales from all vendors along with the corresponding taxes and transactional charge(s).
Notably, web-based POS sales activities such as those illustrated and described above may be configured and implemented to support cross-jurisdictional (e.g. inter-state, multinational, etc.) collection and disbursement of payment for goods purchased and corresponding sales taxes (e.g., United States sales taxes, Canadian value added taxes (VAT), etc.).
Another aspect of the present invention supports customer return/refund processing. According to one embodiment of the present invention customer return/refund processing is managed via ASP 18 in a fashion similar to sale processing discussed and illustrated with respect to
Another aspect of the present invention supports report generation. According to one embodiment of the present invention, ASP 18 is programmed and configured to collect and store a plurality of information as customer and vendor POS activities such as those described herein are transacted. Preferably, certain data collected is associated with a country, state/province, county, township/borough, and city. This aspect of the present invention enables queries and corresponding reports to target geographical criteria at various levels of granularity. Of course, multiple levels of granularity may be implemented across a wide variety of other collected data including age group, market, etc. This aspect of the present invention additionally enables relative comparisons and analyses (e.g. trend analyses, point-in-time analyses, etc.).
Table 1 below includes a variety of example reports generated by ASP 18. Of course, other reports may be generated within the scope of the present invention.
A further embodiment of the invention based on a software system referred to as VIDECT is described in connection with
Upon selection of the website sales address, the end customer is “passed through” to the vendor's sales site as shown in
As shown in
As shown in
Outcome A is shown in greater detail in
As shown in
As shown in
As shown in
As shown in
As shown in
As described above, the VIDECT software system controls the payment vehicle approach outlined in A and B. In Outcome A, the VIDECT software systems request the payment information, not the sales vendor. As such, it is the VIDECT software systems that receive approval from the credit card issuer/bank and collect the total amount of the sale from the credit card issuer/bank. This method requires the vendor to provide the VIDECT operator with bank account information as to where to deposit the collected amounts to overnight. The collected monies on behalf of the vendor would not be held back, as the vendor will no doubt need to facilitate their business operations on a daily basis.
The second method as outlined in Outcome B requires virtually no change to the vendors POS software systems and the methods used to collect the sales due amounts. The VIDECT software systems become, in essence, a sales tax collection mechanism and enumerated receipt mechanism only. The “universality” of the purchasing mechanism is somewhat muted although the universality of the sales tax collection mechanism remains. A preferred embodiment is a combination of the Outcomes A and B for the VIDECT software systems. The VIDECT system acts as the total collection agent for both the original sales amount, the added sales tax and the transactions charge amounts. In essence, this allows the VIDECT software systems to act as the controlling agent in any/all POS applications that E-Commerce vendors employ on the internet to carry out their sales/return functions. This “universality” of the VIDECT software systems allows for overall efficiencies of scale including significant cost reductions to occur for the customer, the vendor, and for the sales tax jurisdictions that levy/collect E-Commerce sales taxes.
Claims
1. A method for conducting an online shopping session between an end customer and a one or more vendors through a central host, comprising the steps of:
- (a) the end customer contacting the central host to initiate an online shopping session;
- (b) the end customer invoking at the central host an address of a vendor site;
- (c) the central host entering an idle state for passing through communications between the end customer and the vendor site as the end customer makes purchase selections on the vendor site;
- (d) the central host setting a trigger in response to a payment information screen being sent to the end customer by the vendor site;
- (e) while the trigger is set, the central host intercepting payment information returned by the end customer;
- (f) the central host holding the purchase selections already made and returning to steps (b)-(e) invoking another address for another vendor site;
- (g) the central host receiving an indication from the end customer that the online shopping session is completed;
- (h) the central host calculating appropriate sales taxes in response to the held purchase selections;
- (i) the central host obtaining payment authorization electronically according to the intercepted payment information to collect at least the sales taxes; and
- (j) the central host sending an enumerated receipt including all purchase selections from the online shopping session and the collected sales taxes, and then closing the online shopping session.
2. The method of claim 1
- wherein in step (i), the central host obtains payment authorization to collect both the cost of the purchase selections for disbursement to respective vendors and the sales taxes for disbursement to respective tax authorities.
3. The method of claim 2 wherein disbursement of the cost of the purchase selections is substantially immediate.
4. The method of claim 2 wherein disbursement of the cost of the purchase selections occurs on a periodic basis.
5. The method of claim 2 wherein disbursement of the sales taxes is substantially immediate.
6. The method of claim 2 wherein disbursement of the sales taxes occurs on a periodic basis.
7. A system for conducting an online shopping session between an end customer and a vendor through a central host, the system comprising:
- the central host;
- at least one computer of an end customer; and
- at least one vendor server;
- wherein, the system is configured to perform the steps comprising:
- (a) the end customer contacting the central host to initiate an online shopping session;
- (b) the end customer invoking at the central host an address of a vendor site;
- (c) the central host entering an idle state for passing through communications between the end customer and the vendor site as the end customer makes purchase selections on the vendor site;
- (d) the central host setting a trigger in response to a payment information screen being sent to the end customer by the vendor site;
- (e) while the trigger is set, the central host intercepting payment information returned by the end customer;
- (f) the central host holding the purchase selections already made and returning to steps
- (b)-(e) invoking another address for another vendor site;
- (g) the central host receiving an indication from the end customer that the online shopping session is completed;
- (h) the central host calculating appropriate sales taxes in response to the held purchase selections;
- (i) the central host obtaining payment authorization electronically according to the intercepted payment information to collect at least the sales taxes; and
- (j) the central host sending an enumerated receipt including all purchase selections from the online shopping session and the collected sales taxes, and then closing the online shopping session.
8. The system of claim 7 wherein in step (i), the central host obtains payment authorization to collect both the cost of the purchase selections for disbursement to respective vendors and the sales taxes for disbursement to respective tax authorities.
9. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions stored thereon for conducting an online shopping session between an end customer and a vendor through a central host by performing the steps of:
- (a) the end customer contacting the central host to initiate an online shopping session;
- (b) the end customer invoking at the central host an address of a vendor site;
- (c) the central host entering an idle state for passing through communications between the end customer and the vendor site as the end customer makes purchase selections on the vendor site;
- (d) the central host setting a trigger in response to a payment information screen being sent to the end customer by the vendor site;
- (e) while the trigger is set, the central host intercepting payment information of returned by the end customer;
- (f) the central host holding the purchase selections already made and returning to steps (b)-(e) invoking another address for another vendor site;
- (g) the central host receiving an indication from the end customer that the online shopping session is completed;
- (h) the central host calculating appropriate sales taxes in response to the held purchase selections;
- (i) the central host obtaining payment authorization electronically according to the intercepted payment information to collect at least the sales taxes; and
- (j) the central host sending an enumerated receipt including all purchase selections from the online shopping session and the collected sales taxes, and then closing the online shopping session.
10. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 9
- wherein in step (i), the central host obtaining payment authorization to collect both the cost of the purchase selections for disbursement to respective vendors and the sales taxes for disbursement to respective tax authorities.
11. A method for conducting an online shopping session between an end customer and a one or more vendors through a central host, comprising the steps of:
- (a) the central host receiving a contact from an end customer to initiate an online shopping session;
- (b) the central host receiving an invocation of an address of a vendor site from the end customer;
- (c) the central host entering an idle state for passing through communications between the end customer and the vendor site as the end customer makes purchase selections on the vendor site;
- (d) the central host setting a trigger in response to a payment information screen being sent to the end customer by the vendor site;
- (e) while the trigger is set, the central host intercepting payment information returned by the end customer;
- (f) the central host holding the purchase selections already made and returning to steps (b)-(e) for invoking another address for another vendor site;
- (g) the central host receiving an indication from the end customer that the online shopping session is completed;
- (h) the central host calculating any applicable sales taxes and a cost of all purchase selections in response to the held purchase selections;
- (i) the central host obtaining payment authorization electronically according to the intercepted payment information to collect the cost of all purchase selections for vendor disbursement and any applicable sales taxes; and
- (j) the central host sending an enumerated receipt including the collected cost of all purchase selections from the online shopping session and any collected sales taxes, and then closing the online shopping session.
12. The method of claim 11 wherein the invocation in step (b) corresponds to a hyperlink previously sent by the central host to the end customer.
13. The method of claim 11 wherein in step (g), the central host obtains payment authorization to collect the sales taxes for disbursement to respective tax authorities.
14. The method of claim 11 wherein disbursement of the cost of the purchase selections is substantially immediate.
15. The method of claim 11 wherein disbursement of the cost of the purchase selections occurs on a periodic basis.
16. The method of claim 11 wherein disbursement of the sales taxes is substantially immediate.
17. The method of claim 11 wherein disbursement of the sales taxes occurs on a periodic basis.
18. A central host for conducting an online shopping session between an end customer and a vendor, wherein the central host is adapted to communicate with at least one computer of an end customer and at least one vendor server, the central host being configured to perform the steps of:
- (a) receiving a contact from the end customer to initiate an online shopping session;
- (b) receiving invocation of an address of a vendor site;
- (c) the central host entering an idle state for passing through communications between the end customer and the vendor site as the end customer makes purchase selections on the vendor site;
- (d) the central host setting a trigger in response to a payment information screen being sent to the end customer by the vendor site;
- (e) while the trigger is set, the central host intercepting payment information returned by the end customer;
- (f) the central host holding the purchase selections already made and returning to steps (b)-(e) for invoking another address for another vendor site;
- (g) the central host receiving an indication from the end customer that the online shopping session is completed;
- (h) the central host calculating any applicable sales taxes and a cost of all purchase selections in response to the held purchase selections;
- (i) the central host obtaining payment authorization electronically according to the intercepted payment information to collect the cost of all purchase selections for vendor disbursement and any applicable sales taxes; and
- (j) the central host sending an enumerated receipt including the collected cost of all purchase selections from the online shopping session and any collected sales taxes, and then closing the online shopping session.
19. The central host of claim 18 wherein in step (g), the central host obtains payment authorization to collect the sales taxes for disbursement to respective tax authorities.
20. The central host of claim 18 wherein the invocation in step (b) corresponds to a hyperlink previously sent by the central host to the end customer.
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Type: Grant
Filed: Mar 7, 2011
Date of Patent: Feb 28, 2012
Inventor: Michael Tillman (Howell, MI)
Primary Examiner: William Allen
Attorney: MacMillan, Sobanski & Todd, LLC
Application Number: 13/041,524
International Classification: G06Q 30/00 (20060101); G06F 17/30 (20060101);