Unified Shopping Platform for Vendor-Neutral Purchasing
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Solution Overview
Problem
The current online shopping experience is hindered by issues such as middlemen, sizing, pricing, shipping, color, authenticity, and accessibility, leading to incorrect purchases, high costs, and a lack of frictionless ways to find and purchase products, especially outside traditional retail environments.
Innovation Solution
The integration of artificial intelligence, natural language processing, vision, and robotics through machine learning and deep learning to facilitate online purchasing by identifying products through image recognition, providing contextual views, and enabling purchases from multiple vendors without relying on vendor-specific webpages, using a user's profile to suggest suitable products and sizes, and ensuring authenticity through blockchain.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If users search for products on traditional online platforms, then they can access a wide variety of products from multiple vendors, but they are directed to vendor-specific websites which increases the number of steps and time required to complete a purchase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple vendor product listings and purchase capabilities into a single unified interface. The system aggregates product information from multiple vendors and allows users to compare and purchase directly without navigating to separate vendor websites, thus merging the shopping experience into one convenient location.
Solution Approach 2:
The shopping application serves as a universal platform that performs multiple functions: product search, vendor comparison, authenticity verification, and direct purchasing. This multi-functional approach eliminates the need for users to switch between different vendor-specific websites, reducing time and steps required to complete a purchase.
2Ease of operation
If users purchase through mega-platforms, then they gain ease of purchasing, but they pay higher prices due to middlemen and platform fees
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the middleman function from the traditional e-commerce model. By enabling direct peer-to-peer transactions between buyers and sellers through the platform, it removes the need for mega-platforms to charge high fees, thus reducing the cost burden on consumers while maintaining ease of purchasing through the application's interface.
Solution Approach 2:
The shopping application acts as a lightweight intermediary that facilitates direct transactions between buyers and sellers without charging excessive platform fees. It provides essential services like search, comparison, and transaction coordination while allowing more value to be retained by the actual buyers and sellers compared to traditional mega-platforms.
3Ease of operation
If users purchase online without verification, then they gain convenience, but they risk receiving fake or pirated products
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary verification of product authenticity before the purchase is completed. The system checks vendor credentials, product legitimacy, and authenticity markers in advance, allowing users to make informed purchasing decisions without sacrificing convenience. This preliminary action ensures reliability is established before the transaction occurs.
4Adaptability or versatility
If users return incorrect products, then they can exchange for suitable items, but they must pay multiple shipping and handling fees
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary product matching and verification before purchase to ensure users receive the correct items on the first attempt. By using AI-powered product recommendations, size guidance, and detailed product information, the system reduces the need for returns and exchanges, thereby eliminating the associated shipping and handling fees that would otherwise be incurred.
Data Source
AI summary
This disclosure is directed to systems, methods, and machine readable media for facilitating online purchasing. In general, techniques are disclosed to facilitate online and mobile purchasing. The disclosure includes technology that allows an agnostic shopping experience, i.e., the shopping may occur on a vendor neutral platform. According to one or more embodiments, facilitating online purchasing may allow a person to purchase correctly sized products or products suited to the need, more conveniently, more consistently, more cheaply and more easily. The more accurate or correct shopping of products saves the wasting of resources required in return shipments and replacement shipments and packaging.