Intermediary API for Goal Tracking and Merchant Price Data
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Solution Overview
Problem
Users face challenges in managing goals across multiple websites and services, as there is no data connection between goal tracking services and merchant websites, leading to difficulties in tracking prices and making informed purchasing decisions, with merchants incentivizing quick purchases even during research stages.
Innovation Solution
Establishing a data connection between goal tracking services and merchant websites, allowing for real-time data sharing and embedding goal tracking information within merchant websites, and implementing user interface improvements to require multiple touch points or steps before enabling a purchase, such as waiting periods or friend approvals, to prevent impulse buying.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If goal tracking services and merchant websites remain siloed off from each other, then each service can operate independently with simple architecture, but users cannot access real-time price data across multiple platforms and must manually track goals
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary component that connects goal tracking services with merchant websites through standardized data interfaces. This intermediary enables real-time price data exchange between previously siloed systems without requiring complete architectural integration, thus reducing information loss while limiting complexity increase.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements universal data connection protocols that allow a single goal tracking service to communicate with multiple merchant websites simultaneously. This multi-functionality enables users to track prices across different platforms through one unified interface, eliminating the need for separate tracking systems for each merchant.
2Ease of operation
If merchants provide immediate purchase options without additional steps, then user convenience is maximized and conversion rates increase, but impulse purchases increase and users may make hasty decisions
Solution Approach 1:
The system requires users to complete preliminary actions such as goal verification or waiting periods before enabling the purchase function. This preliminary action ensures that users have thoroughly considered their purchasing decision and aligned it with their stated goals, reducing impulse purchases while maintaining a streamlined checkout process for verified users.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements feedback mechanisms that provide users with goal completion status and price history information before the purchase point. This feedback loop allows users to make informed decisions by reviewing whether the item aligns with their tracked goals and how prices have changed over time, thereby improving decision reliability without adding significant operational steps.
3Reliability
If multiple touch points or steps are required before purchase is enabled, then impulse purchases are reduced and decision reliability improves, but user convenience decreases and friction is introduced
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies partial action by requiring goal verification only for purchases that align with tracked goals, while allowing immediate purchase for items outside goal parameters. This selective application of multiple steps reduces friction for routine purchases while maintaining decision reliability for goal-aligned purchases, balancing the trade-off between reliability and ease of operation.
Data Source
AI summary
A method may include receiving, at a server device, a request from a third-party website over an application programming interface (API), the request including a user identification and an item identification; retrieving, at the server device, a set of goal data structures generated for a user profile of a user matching the user identification; matching, at the server device, the item identification to an identification within a goal data structure of the set of goal data structures, the goal data structure including a plurality of steps associated with the goal data structure; generating, at the server device, a response data structure including a status of each step of the plurality of steps associated with the goal data structure; and transmitting the response data structure to the third-party website.