Patent ID: 7778922

Claim:
An online shopping system comprising: at least one user device which is connected onto Internet and for reading a merchant site on the Internet; an agent device which is connected to said at least one user device and the merchant site, relays and sends a purchase instruction from said at least one user device to the merchant site; and a settlement device which is connected to said agent device, and settles an account for a product purchased in accordance with the purchase instruction sent from said at least one user device, said at least one user device including purchase-instruction inputting means for inputting an instruction for purchasing a product on sale in the merchant site, and a first purchase-instruction sending means for sending ID (identification) information of a user, as a first purchase instruction, together with information regarding the product input by said purchase-instruction inputting means to said agent device, and said agent device including user-information storage means for storing the ID information, user information regarding the user, and information regarding settlement means held by the user, in association with each other, purchase-instruction receiving means for receiving the first purchase instruction sent from said first purchase instruction sending means, user-information extraction means for searching said user-information storage means for user information based on the ID information of the user which is included in the first purchase-instruction, and extracting corresponding information regarding the user and corresponding information regarding the settlement means, when said purchase-instruction receiving means receives the first purchase instruction, second purchase-instruction sending means for sending, as a second purchase instruction, information regarding the product and being included in the first purchase-instruction received by said purchase-instruction receiving means, and information regarding the user and being extracted by said user-information extraction means, to the merchant site, and settlement requesting means for requesting said settlement device for settling an account for the purchased product, based on the information regarding the product and being included in the first purchase instruction received by said purchase-instruction receiving means and the information regarding the settlement means of the user and being extracted by said user-information extraction means wherein; said agent device further includes obtaining means for obtaining convenient-settlement means, for use only in settling the account for the product purchased in accordance with the first purchase instruction received by said purchase instruction receiving means, and which differs from the settlement means of the user; and said second purchase-instruction sending means inserts information regarding the obtained convenient settlement means into the second purchase instruction, and sends the second purchase instruction to the merchant site.