Persistent Virtual Cart Service for Cross-Merchant Checkout
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Solution Overview
Problem
Consumers face inconvenience when shopping online across multiple websites, as they typically need to check out and pay for items separately at each website, losing items added to a virtual cart when navigating to different merchant sites.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a persistent virtual cart service that allows buyers to add items from multiple merchant sites to a single cart, enabling a single transaction and allowing items to be paid for collectively, with options for pickup or delivery from respective merchants.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If a consumer uses a conventional virtual shopping cart at each merchant site, then the cart is simple and works within a single website, but the consumer must check out and pay separately at each website, resulting in multiple transactions and loss of cart items when navigating to different sites
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a service provider as an intermediary that maintains a persistent virtual cart across multiple merchant sites. The service provider receives item information from merchant sites, maintains the cart in a database, and facilitates single-transaction checkout, resolving the contradiction between cart persistence and system complexity by centralizing cart management in a neutral third-party system
Solution Approach 2:
The virtual cart system is designed to work universally across multiple different merchant websites rather than being site-specific. The service provider's cart infrastructure handles items from various merchants, enabling a single cart to serve multiple functions across different e-commerce platforms, thus achieving cross-merchant persistence without proportionally increasing complexity
2Loss of time
If a consumer checks out at each merchant site separately, then each transaction is simple and self-contained, but the consumer loses items added to the cart when navigating to different websites and must repeat the checkout process multiple times
Solution Approach 1:
The service provider maintains the virtual cart in advance across multiple merchant visits, preserving items before the consumer would otherwise lose them. This preliminary preservation of cart contents eliminates the need to repeat checkout processes, reducing total checkout time while maintaining operational simplicity through automatic cart persistence
3Productivity
If a single persistent virtual cart is implemented across multiple merchant sites, then the consumer can pay for items from multiple sites in a single transaction, but the system complexity increases requiring a service provider, database, and coordination between merchants
Solution Approach 1:
The service provider acts as a coordinating intermediary that manages the complex interactions between multiple merchants and the consumer's cart. By centralizing cart management, item information storage, and transaction coordination in a single service provider infrastructure, the system enables high purchasing efficiency without each merchant needing to implement complex multi-merchant coordination themselves
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts the cart management functionality from individual merchant sites and places it in a separate service provider infrastructure. This extraction removes the burden of complex persistent cart implementation from merchants while still enabling cross-merchant purchasing efficiency, as the service provider handles all cart persistence and coordination independently
Data Source
AI summary
In some examples, a service computing device receives an indication that a buyer associated with a buyer profile has selected a first item to purchase from a first merchant site. The service computing device associates information related to the first item with a persistent virtual cart associated with the buyer profile. The service computing device receives an indication that the buyer has selected a second item to purchase from the second merchant site. The service computing device associates information related to the second item with the buyer profile. The service computing device receives, from a buyer device, an indication of intention to purchase the items in the persistent virtual cart. Consequently, the service computing device may send an order for the first item to a computing device associated with the first merchant and an order for the second item to a computing device associated with the second merchant.