Persistent Virtual Cart Across Merchant Sites
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Solution Overview
Problem
Consumers face inconvenience when shopping online across multiple websites, as they typically need to check out and provide payment at each website separately, losing items added to a virtual cart when navigating between sites.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a persistent virtual cart service that allows buyers to add items from multiple merchant sites to a single cart, enabling them to pay for all items as a single transaction, 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 website, then the cart is simple and easy to manage at individual sites, but the consumer must check out and provide payment at each website separately, resulting in loss of items added to the cart when navigating between sites
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a service provider as an intermediary that hosts the persistent virtual cart. The service provider receives item information from multiple merchant sites and maintains the cart across different websites. This mediator resolves the contradiction by enabling cart persistence without requiring complex integration between individual merchant sites, as the service provider centralizes the cart management functionality.
Solution Approach 2:
The persistent virtual cart system provides universal functionality across multiple merchant sites. A single cart can contain items from different merchants, and a single checkout process can handle payments for multiple items from different sources. This multi-functionality enables the cart to adapt to various shopping scenarios across different websites without requiring separate cart systems at each site.
2Ease of operation
If a consumer checks out at each website separately, then each transaction is simple and self-contained, but the consumer must provide payment multiple times and cannot consolidate purchases from different merchants
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple separate checkout processes into a single consolidated transaction. Items from different merchant sites are combined in one persistent cart, and the consumer completes a single checkout process that handles payment for all items. This combining of previously separate operations eliminates the need for multiple checkouts and consolidates the purchasing process into one efficient transaction.
3Productivity
If a persistent virtual cart service is implemented, then the consumer can add items from multiple merchant sites to a single cart and pay in a single transaction, but the system requires coordination between multiple merchants and a service provider
Solution Approach 1:
The service provider acts as a coordinating intermediary that manages the complexity of multi-merchant transactions. The service provider receives item information from various merchant sites, maintains the persistent cart, and coordinates the consolidated checkout process. This intermediary structure enables efficient shopping across multiple merchants while centralizing the coordination complexity at the service provider level rather than requiring direct coordination between all merchants.
Data Source
AI summary
In some examples, a buyer device is configured to present a first graphic user interface (GUI) including information about items available from a first merchant site. The first GUI may further include a virtual control for adding a selected item to a persistent virtual cart maintained by a service provider. The buyer device may be navigated to a second merchant site to present a second GUI that may receive a selection to cause a second item from the second merchant site to be added to the persistent virtual cart. The buyer device may present a cart GUI for accessing the persistent virtual cart. The cart GUI may be used to send an instruction for ordering the items associated with the cart, causing the service provider to send an order for the first item to the first merchant and an order for the second item to the second merchant.