Configurable Pricing Matrix for Mobile Billing Servers
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing transaction processing systems face challenges in handling diverse currency and price point requirements across different countries, particularly when dealing with carrier restrictions and varying service levels, which complicates the processing of transactions for merchants offering virtual goods and services.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that involves configuring a pricing matrix with cells representing intersections of countries and target prices, allowing each country to have a subset of price points, which is stored and transmitted between merchant and billing servers to facilitate transaction processing, including determining carrier servers and charging accounts accordingly.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If a fixed pricing structure is used for transactions, then processing is simple and fast, but it cannot accommodate different currency and price point requirements across different countries
Solution Approach 1:
The pricing structure is segmented into a matrix format where rows represent countries and columns represent target prices. Each cell in the matrix corresponds to a specific country-target price combination, allowing the system to handle diverse pricing requirements while maintaining a structured, manageable format. This segmentation enables the billing server to efficiently retrieve and apply the correct price point for each transaction based on the consumer's country and the selected service level.
2Ease of operation
If multiple price points are offered for different service levels, then consumer choice and satisfaction improve, but determining the correct price point becomes more complex due to carrier restrictions
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-configuring the pricing matrix with all possible country-target price combinations before transactions occur. The billing server retrieves the consumer's country information in advance and uses this to quickly identify the appropriate subset of price points from the pre-organized matrix. This preliminary organization of pricing data eliminates the complexity of real-time price determination and allows consumers to freely select their preferred service level.
3Adaptability or versatility
If a comprehensive pricing matrix is maintained for all countries and price points, then all transaction scenarios can be handled, but storage and processing requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies local quality by organizing the pricing matrix so that each country has its own subset of price points tailored to its specific requirements. Rather than storing a single monolithic pricing structure, the billing server maintains country-specific pricing data with the relevant price points for each region. This allows the system to handle all transaction scenarios comprehensively while optimizing storage by only maintaining the necessary price points for each country.
Data Source
AI summary
A method of processing transactions is described. A pricing matrix is configured on a billing server. The pricing matrix has a set of cells, each cells corresponding to an intersection between a respective country and a respective target price. The merchant server downloads the pricing matrix periodically from the billing server. The merchant server determines a country of a consumer mobile phone and displays price points corresponding to the country within a mobile phone application. When the consumer selects one of the price points a transaction is processed between the consumer mobile phone, the billing server and a carrier server aligned with the billing server.