Abstract:
A shopping assistant for online shopping. The invention provides for a software system to assist consumers in automatically locating and systematically applying discount codes to electronic commerce platforms to obtain reduced prices. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, discount codes are automatically located, evaluated against a user&#39;s shopping cart, and evaluated for the best results for the consumer. In the preferred embodiment, information about the utility of discount codes is recorded to machine readable storage.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
       [0001]    1. Field of the Invention 
         [0002]    This invention relates to the field of online shopping. More specifically, the invention comprises an automated assistant technology to help shoppers easily find and receive the best price available. 
         [0003]    2. Description of the Related Art 
         [0004]    Thousands of merchants offer products for sale via the Internet through stores presented to consumers as websites, mobile websites, mobile applications and other electronically connected purchase environments. Many of these online merchant stores, also known as electronic commerce platforms or ecommerce sites, offer discounts to consumers who enter a specific code into a form box while shopping or to consumers who follow a specially formatted hyperlink or perform other actions to activate a discount. These Codes are often called ‘coupon codes’, ‘promo codes’, ‘discount codes’, or other many other terms. For purposes here, Codes will include any actions taken by a consumer to access a different price for all or a portion of the goods or services they are considering purchasing. 
         [0005]    These Codes frequently offer things like free or discounted shipping or a lower price on an entire basket of products, a category of products, a specific product, a certain number of products, products over a certain value, or even a combination of products meeting some criteria. In some cases these Codes are advertised to consumers during the online shopping experience, but frequently they are hidden from most consumers and only known to those exposed to them through other channels. 
         [0006]    To help consumers locate available Codes, Code Aggregator websites exist to aggregate Codes and make them searchable and discoverable by consumers. Code Aggregators often provide search tools to find Codes by merchant on the Code Aggregator website. A few Code Aggregators have developed web browser plugins or web browser extensions that display Codes while shopping on merchant websites (Browser Enhancements). 
         [0007]    To use Codes from Code Aggregators, consumers identify a promising Code to use and copy the Code into the Code box on the merchant website and submit the Code typically by clicking a form button, frequently labeled ‘apply’. 
         [0008]    While Code Aggregators make their best effort to keep the list of Codes and information describing their expected behavior accurate and up-to-date, frequently consumers attempting to use Codes from Code Aggregators encounter problems where a Code does not work, or does not work as described by the Code Aggregator. To compound the problem, the number of different Codes made available by the Code Aggregators can be significant making it a burden for a shopper to identify a working Code. 
         [0009]    As a result, most consumers do not comprehensively test all of the Codes that could give them a better price. Just as one example, when trying Codes from a leading Code Aggregator on a leading domain name merchant&#39;s website. The 18 th  code, with no description on what a consumer should expect, resulted in a price of $3.13 for a product that previously cost $14.17—a 78% savings. This experience is not uncommon. 
       BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE PRESENT INVENTION 
       [0010]    The present invention comprises a system to systematically identify and apply the best Codes on behalf of a consumer while shopping on electronic commerce platforms. The invention&#39;s primary benefit is to help consumers achieve the best price available without a large amount of time and effort. The invention&#39;s additional benefits include but are not limited to building and maintaining a crowd-sourced database of Codes that are understood to be working or applicable to certain shopping situations. 
         [0011]    In a preferred configuration, customers shopping on electronic commerce platforms are presented with the option to automatically find and apply available Codes by clicking one special button added to the shopping experience by a web Browser Enhancement. 
         [0012]    After clicking the special button the computer software of the invention begins systematically applying Codes to the consumer shopping cart on the merchant website. In the preferred configuration, a list of possible Codes corresponding to the merchant website and optionally related to the products contained in a user&#39;s shopping cart is retrieved from a remote server. In this embodiment, the remote server returns a prioritized ordering of the list containing one or more Codes to try along with, in some instances, configuration information about how to apply Codes to the merchant electronic commerce platform. In the preferred embodiment, this information retrieval occurs prior to clicking the special button to reduce latency for the user. 
         [0013]    With a set of Codes and information about how to apply them, the software system of the invention begins systematically applying them to the merchant website, either one at a time, or if a merchant website supports it, with more than one at a time. In a case where the merchant website supports the application of one Code at a time, the software system adds a code to the Code box on the merchant website and simulates a click or other consumer interaction, as though the customer were entering the Code. The software system of the invention then listens for the response from the merchant website to understand whether the Code was accepted and optionally to detect the impact of the Code on the price. 
         [0014]    Results from applying Codes can optionally be recorded locally within the software system or in a remote data storage capacity. In the preferred configuration results from applying codes are stored in a remote data storage that is subsequently used to inform the creation of lists of Codes for other customers or for use in other applications. 
         [0015]    The software system of the invention uses results from applying Codes to decide which additional Codes should be tried, if any, with the primary objective being to reduce the total price to be paid by the customer using the software. A secondary objective of the software could optionally be to reduce the amount of time required to return a final result. A third objective of the software could be to adjust the price to meet a particular target or target range for a particular consumer and could be informed by a business relationship with the merchant or another reason why a specific price range is more desirable than just the lowest price. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0016]      FIG. 1  is a schematic view of one embodiment of the invention system. 
           [0017]      FIG. 2  is an example of a typical electronic commerce platform with a discount code box during the checkout flow. 
           [0018]      FIG. 3  depicts a typical electronic commerce platform with a button inserted by a Browser Enhancement as in one embodiment of the invention. 
           [0019]      FIG. 4  depicts one embodiment of the invention as presented to the customer while applying a plurality of Codes to an electronic commerce platform. 
           [0020]      FIG. 5  depicts one embodiment of the invention as presented to the customer reporting results of applying a plurality of Codes to an online commerce platform. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
       [0021]    The following detailed description describes the present embodiments with reference to the drawings. In the drawings, reference numbers label elements of the present embodiments. These reference numbers are reproduced below in connection with the discussion of the corresponding drawing features. 
         [0022]      FIG. 1  describes one embodiment of the present invention. In  FIG. 1 , S 101  identifies a plurality of ecommerce sites, also referred to as electronic commerce platforms, upon which the invention works. At present there are hundreds of thousands of such electronic commerce platforms ranging in size and scope from large multi-national online retailers like Amazon.com selling a wide assortment of product to small boutique operations selling a single product. Also included in this are mobile websites and apps or websites designed to be used on smaller screens, tablets, mobile devices, interactive televisions or other Internet connected stores. 
         [0023]    S 102  corresponds to a list of promotional, discount, or coupon code (Codes). In some cases these Codes could be multi-dimensional, contained within a special URL link or accessed by a certain user action. In the preferred embodiment, this list is intelligently arranged based upon information about a consumer&#39;s shopping cart and data previously collected about the effectiveness of the Codes. 
         [0024]    S 103  corresponds to instructions about how to apply codes to an electronic commerce platform. While many electronic commerce platforms have a similar structure to handle Codes, the specific computer code required to simulate user interaction with the site often requires electronic commerce platform-specific configuration information. To the extent that such information is needed it is include in these instructions. Additionally, instructions include other electronic commerce platform-specific information such as, but not limited to, how to interpret results, how many codes to process, timing between actions, and how to identify products in the cart. 
         [0025]    S 104  corresponds to the software system of the invention. The software takes instructions (S 103 ) and Codes (S 102 ) as input, and it uses this information to find a better price for the consumer. The invention software system optionally listens for results from the ecommerce website (S 106 ) and input from the consumer (S 107 ) as control signals. 
         [0026]    S 105  corresponds to the process by which the software system (S 104 ) interfaces with the electronic commerce platform (S 101 ) to systematically apply Codes. S 105  combines the information of S 102  and S 103  with the control logic embodied in S 104  to manipulate S 101  in a desired manner to achieve the desired results as set forth in S 104 . 
         [0027]    S 106  corresponds to the feedback from the electronic commerce platform that can optionally be monitored by the software system S 104 . S 106  most commonly includes messages displayed on the electronic commerce platform in response to submitting a Code. For example, the total price displayed on the cart may be reduced when a Code is successfully applied, or an error message may be displayed on the website when an invalid code is submitted. This information can be analyzed and recorded. 
         [0028]    S 107  corresponds to optional user input. In the preferred embodiment, one example is initiating the software system on an electronic commerce platform, though in other embodiments the software system in S 104  could be triggered without user input. 
         [0029]    Note that the location of logic and storage, while separated in this diagram can be combined, separated, or even sub-divided in different embodiments of the invention. For example, the software system S 104  could include software code contained both on the user client (e.g., as a web browser enhancement) and in software code loaded from a remote server (e.g., remotely loaded javascript computer files). In fact in the preferred embodiment of the invention, S 104  is sub-divided as described. 
         [0030]      FIG. 2  depicts a typical electronic commerce platform&#39;s shopping cart without enhancement from the present invention. 
         [0031]    S 201  shows a Code entry box which is typically formatted as an html input box that accepts text input. 
         [0032]    S 202  shows a button that a user clicks to submit a Code to the site to apply a Code to the shopping cart. On most electronic commerce platforms this triggers a handler that exchanges information about the validity of the Code that has been submitted. 
         [0033]    S 203  shows an example message displayed by the electronic commerce platform in response to a Code being applied on the site that indicates the current status of a Code. Some sites display more than one message—others display none. 
         [0034]    S 204  shows the total price for the products in the cart, typically including tax and shipping if that information is known. 
         [0035]    S 205  shows the title of a product in the cart. Frequently this title will include a hyperlink to a product details page with more information about the product. 
         [0036]      FIG. 3  depicts a typical electronic commerce platform&#39;s shopping cart with the present invention dynamically displayed by the software system. 
         [0037]    S 301 , S 302 , S 303 , S 304 , and S 305  are comparable to S 201 , S 202 , S 203 , S 204 , and S 205 . 
         [0038]    S 306  shows a special button inserted by the software system of the present invention. In one embodiment of the invention, a user clicking on the button shown by 
         [0039]    S 306  triggers the software system to systematically apply Codes to the website. Alternatively, in other embodiments, Codes could be applied without user interaction or after an alternate user interaction. 
         [0040]      FIG. 4  depicts one embodiment of feedback displayed to the user after the software system has initiated applying Codes to the website, but before completion. In another embodiment this feedback could be removed. 
         [0041]    S 401  shows a progress bar and text feedback to the user while the software system systematically applies Codes to the website and records the results. In this particular embodiment, while the user sees this message, the software system is applying one or more Codes to the website by using instructions to apply a Code(s) to the merchant website, submit them for evaluation, and optionally record the results to local and/or remote computer storage for evaluation. 
         [0042]      FIG. 5  depicts one embodiment of feedback displayed to the user after the software system has completed applying Codes to the website. 
         [0043]    S 501  shows a message to a user indicating that the software system has successfully evaluated 18 Codes and applied Code(s) resulting in savings to the user. To reach this state, the software system has systematically applied Code(s) in an optionally prioritized manner, optionally evaluating the success or failure of the application of Code(s) and optionally has selected an optimal set of Code(s) to apply to create the final state. Depending on information controlling the application of Codes to a specific site, an embodiment of the system could use one or more of these steps to create the final state of a shopping cart on one merchant website while applying a different one or more of these steps on another merchant website.