Unified Web Search and Bidding System for Vertical Product Comparison
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current online shopping systems require users to juggle multiple windows to compare and sort information, leading to inefficiencies and user frustration, as they typically conduct horizontal searches across multiple databases rather than vertical searches within a single database, resulting in increased time and potential loss of sales.
Innovation Solution
A web-based search and bidding system that provides access to a mega database of over 75,000 retail merchants, offering vertical search capabilities and integrating social media interaction, allowing users to search, compare, and purchase products efficiently while receiving real-time information and alerts, and enabling merchants to manage bids effectively.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If users conduct horizontal searches across multiple databases to compare products, then they can access diverse information sources, but they must juggle multiple windows which increases time consumption and user frustration
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple retailer databases into a single unified database that aggregates product information from thousands of merchants. This allows users to conduct vertical searches within one database rather than horizontally across multiple windows, consolidating diverse information sources while reducing time consumption and operational complexity
Solution Approach 2:
The unified database serves multiple functions simultaneously: it stores product information from diverse retailers, enables vertical search capabilities, provides price comparison, and supports bidding operations. This multi-functional system replaces the need for separate databases and windows while maintaining access to diverse information
2Loss of information
If users access multiple online windows to compare product information, then they can gather comprehensive data, but the device complexity and ease of operation deteriorate due to managing multiple windows
Solution Approach 1:
Multiple retailer databases and product information sources are merged into a single unified database structure. This consolidation maintains comprehensive product data from diverse sources while reducing the interface complexity from multiple windows to a single integrated search interface
Solution Approach 2:
The system transitions from horizontal searching across multiple windows to vertical searching within a single database. This dimensional change in search approach, combined with the unified database structure, maintains information completeness while significantly reducing operational complexity
3Adaptability or versatility
If users conduct horizontal searches across multiple databases, then they can access different retailers, but productivity decreases due to inefficient search methodology
Solution Approach 1:
The system merges access to thousands of retailers into a single unified database interface, enabling users to search across all retailers simultaneously through vertical search. This eliminates the need to switch between multiple retailer websites while maintaining broad access, thereby significantly improving purchase resolution speed
Data Source
AI summary
A method of accepting a bid for an item offered for sale through an internet web portal comprising the following steps: listing with an internet web portal bid program by an item being sold by a merchant; accessing the internet web portal bid program by a user to obtain of bid information of the item; placing with the internet web portal bid program by the registered user of a bid for the item, the bid containing a price that the registered user will pay for the item; presenting by the internet web portal bid program to the registered merchant of one or more economic factors to assist the registered merchant in selecting at least one bid from the one or more bids as a winning bid, one or more economic factors being based on item information and being other than the bid price.