Price Estimation Module Using Decay Formula for Marketplace Listings
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Solution Overview
Problem
Users of mobile devices struggle to decide whether to list items for sale on a marketplace without knowing the potential proceeds, as existing technologies lack efficient price estimation tools for offline-stored items.
Innovation Solution
A price estimation module is provided on camera-enabled mobile devices, allowing users to receive an approximation of sale proceeds by selecting similar items from a marketplace database, applying a decay formula, and ranking listings based on sales and impressions, enabling users to batch-list items with confidence.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If users list items for sale on a marketplace without price estimation, then the listing process is simple and quick, but users cannot make informed decisions about potential proceeds
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs price estimation before the user commits to listing items. By calculating estimated proceeds in advance using marketplace data and decay formulas, users gain information needed to make informed decisions without committing resources to the listing process yet.
Solution Approach 2:
The price estimation module acts as an intermediary between the user's offline item storage and the marketplace listing system. It processes marketplace data and applies decay formulas to generate estimated prices, serving as a bridge that provides decision-support information without requiring direct integration with the listing functionality.
2Productivity
If users manually review marketplace listings to estimate prices, then no automated system is needed, but it is time-consuming and inefficient
Solution Approach 1:
The system automatically retrieves marketplace listing data and performs price estimations without requiring user intervention. The price estimation module independently accesses marketplace databases, applies decay formulas, and generates estimated proceeds, eliminating the need for users to manually research prices.
Solution Approach 2:
The manual process of reviewing marketplace listings is replaced by an automated computational system. Instead of users manually searching and analyzing listings, the price estimation module uses algorithms and decay formulas to automatically calculate estimated prices based on marketplace data.
3Measurement precision
If the system uses recent marketplace listings for price estimation, then the estimates reflect current market conditions, but older sales data becomes less relevant over time
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies a decay formula that dynamically adjusts the weight of historical sales data based on its age. Recent listings retain higher weight in the estimation calculation, while older listings gradually contribute less. This parameter change over time ensures the estimation reflects current market conditions while still utilizing historical data efficiently.
Solution Approach 2:
The price estimation system is dynamic rather than static. It continuously updates estimates as new marketplace listings become available and automatically adjusts the influence of historical data through the decay formula. This dynamic approach ensures estimates remain current without requiring manual intervention to adjust for market changes.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods are provided for receiving image data from a mobile device; identifying, based on the image data, an item and a product characteristic of the item; generating listing data of the item based on the product characteristic; determining that the item is associated with a product category; identifying a set of listings associated with the product category; applying a decay formula to the set of listings to generate a discounted number of sales and a discounted number of impressions at least one listing of the set of listings; determining a ratio of the discounted number of sales to the discounted number of impressions; determining a ranking of the set of listings based on the ratio; generating a price estimate of the item based on the ranking of the set of listings based on the ratio of the discounted number of sales to the discounted number of impressions; and causing display of a user interface including a request to list the item, the user interface including the listing data and the price estimate of the item.