Patent ID: 8595092

Claim:
A method in a computing system for determining availability statuses for a plurality of item groups, wherein each item group includes multiple different items, wherein each of the multiple different items is associated with a respective individual availability status of that item, the method comprising: identifying multiple item groups of said plurality of item groups, wherein identifying each item group comprises determining that a respective individual availability status of an item included within that item group has changed; wherein for each identified item group, each of the multiple different items included with that item group are offered for sale together as a group; for each of at least some of the identified item groups: determining that the item group is not already listed on a list of changed item groups, wherein each changed item group on the list includes an item for which a respective individual availability status has changed, and in response to determining that the item group is not already listed on the list of changed item groups, adding a record of that identified item group to the list of changed item groups; utilizing predetermined quantities of computing resources at different predetermined instances in time in order to determine a respective availability status of each item group on the list of changed item groups, wherein said utilizing comprises: at each of the different predetermined instances in time: removing one or more records of at least some of the item groups previously added to the list of changed item groups, and for each item group corresponding to a record removed from the list, determining an availability status for that item group based upon an evaluation of the individual availability statuses of multiple different items included in that item group, wherein the availability status determined for that item group is: a common availability status for all items of the item group, indicative of whether all items of the item group are available to be purchased together as a group, and distinct from the individual availability statuses of the multiple different items included within that item group.