Patent ID: 7418407

Claim:
A method for electronic gifting, comprising: providing a host-site accessible to an on-line giver and a recipient and web-linkable to at least one article-provider site, the article provider site having images of commercial articles for view via the web; linking the on-line giver to the host-site and selecting a structure in response to a command received from the on-line giver; using the host-site, linking the on-line giver to a set of retailers including different article-provider sites and passing at least one visual image of a commercial article from one of the article-provider sites to the host-site for view by the on-line giver; merging images of the commercial article and the structure by forming a composite image including visual representations of both the structure and the commercial article; electronically gifting the commercial article to the recipient; in response to receiving notification of the electronically gifted commercial article, linking the recipient to the host-site; and using the host-site to link the recipient to the set of retailers and passing visual images from at least one of the retailers' article provider sites to the host-site for view by the recipient, electronically exchange the electronically gifted commercial article for at least one other article selected by the recipient, and electronically bill the on-line giver for, and prompt shipment of, said at least one other article.