Online shopping system

Abstract

An online shopping system that permits a customer to submit online orders for items and / or services from a store that serves both walk-in customers and online customers. The online shopping system presents an online display of an order cutoff time and an associated delivery window for items selected by the customer. The system accepts the customer's submission of a purchase order for the item in response to a time of submission being before the order cutoff time. The online shopping system does not settle with a credit supplier of the customer until the item selected by the customer is picked from inventory but before it is delivered. Therefore, the customer can go online and make changes to the order. In addition, available service windows are presented to the customer as a function of customer selected order and service types; and further, the order picking is assigned in accordance with a picker's preference.

Description

RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] The present application is a Divisional Application of application Ser. No. 10 / 265,614, filed on Oct. 7, 2002, which is hereby expressly incorporated by reference herein.FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0002] This invention relates generally to the field of electronic commerce and more particularly, to an improved online shopping system. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0003] For a number of years, shopping over the internet has grown increasingly popular for both business and personal use as more merchants offer goods and services through associated websites. Normally, with an internet based shopping system, a customer accesses a website, views products and / or services and associated specifications, chooses a product and / or service for purchase, selects a delivery option, provides delivery and credit card payment information and authorizes a purchase transaction. [0004] When ordering goods, many shopping systems provide a virtual shopping cart for holding items selec...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0012] The present invention provides an online shopping system for groceries and related goods and services that is more flexible and efficient than known services. The online shopping system of the present invention permits a customer to change an order after it has been submitted by the customer on the webpage. By permitting the customer to make changes to the order after submission, the online shopping system better accommodates the needs of a customer shopping for groceries. Further, that flexibility relieves the provider of the online shopping system from having to address those customer order changes with customer service resources. Thus, that relatively simple capability has the potential of substantially improving customer satisfaction with the online shopping system and eliminating a potential substantial use of customer service resources.

[0014] The online shopping system of the present invention has a further capability of providing to a customer available service windows for different order types. In other words, if a customer is ordering groceries, a first set of available service or delivery windows is provided to the customer for selection; however, if a different order type is being submitted, for example, for flowers, catering services or a pick up order, respectively different sets of available service windows are provided to the customer. This added flexibility permits the provider of the online shopping system to better schedule and allocate resources.

[0016] The online shopping system of the present invention provides a substantially improved method of assigning pick routes. A large grocery store has a very large number of different goods and brand names that are spread over a large area. Normally, personnel are assigned to work in particular departments, for example, meats, produce, etc.; and after a period of time, such personnel become very familiar with the goods, their location, the brand names and the age of the inventory in such departments. Thus, with the present invention, the assignment of pick routes for orders is determined by the experience and preference of a picker for a particular area of the store. Thus, the very important labor intensive picking process is performed with greater efficiency, and there are fewer picking errors.

[0018] The opportunity for errors and customer dissatisfaction is significantly greater in a grocery shopping experience than with other shopping experiences. It would be a substantial burden for current store management personnel to resolve all of the problems arising from customers engaged in the walk-in shopping experience as well as, via telephone, the customers engaged in the online shopping experience. Thus, the online shopping system of the present invention provides a substantially improved and more automated customer service function. Online customers are able to submit service requests online, and the customer can check online the progress of the resolution of the service request. Such a service function is easier for the customer and can be centralized and handled by customer service specialists, thereby relieving the customer service load on store management personnel.

Problems solved by technology

Further, an online grocery shopping system must provide numerous brand names for each item, each of which has unique product specifications, and that complicates the viewing and ordering process not only for the shopping system provider but also the customer.

Also, once an order for grocery items is placed, often items, for example, produce, cannot be shipped in their original packaging and therefore, require special handling and repackaging.

Further, often a commercial delivery service does not exist that fulfills the needs of an online grocery shopping system.

Therefore, the delivery must be provided by the supplier of the electronic commerce shopping system, and most often, such a supplier has little or no delivery capability and even less knowledge regarding how to execute an efficient delivery system.

As a consequence of the above, grocery shopping via electronic commerce has had only limited success.

Often, to achieve economic success, the shopping service must be limited; and that, in turn, limits the capability of the grocery shopping service to fulfill the needs of the customer.

Hence, the customer often is not satisfied shopping for groceries using an online or internet shopping system.

For example, with known systems, once a customer submits an order at the end of an online shopping session, the order is settled with a credit supplier and cannot be changed by the customer.

Although this may be acceptable with many electronic shopping systems, it presents difficulties in an online grocery shopping system.

Placing another order for one or two items is not practical because of the minimum value requirement that is associated with each online order.

Some shopping systems permit the customer to call in and supplement the order, however, such a capability is labor intensive and very inefficient and costly for the internet shopping system provider.

While such systems are adequate in most environments, in a grocery shopping system, the picking process is more complicated.

First, a large grocery store has a very large number of different departments, each having a large number of goods and brand names.

Such a vast knowledge is very difficult to quickly instill in a picker.

With such a process, it is possible for an order to be inadvertently placed on the wrong delivery route or vehicle, thereby requiring that the order be returned and redelivered to the correct customer.

Not only is the customer dissatisfied, but there is a substantial unrecoverable cost added to the order.

The personalized handling of customer problems on the store premises can consume a substantial amount of time.

If the requirement to service customer problems based on an online ordering and delivery service is superimposed on top of the servicing of the problems of walk-in customers, the customer service function can become a substantial burden on available resources.

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