Patent ID: 8321290

Claim:
A system comprising: a physical communication network connecting a plurality of computing nodes; and a network server computer connected to a client computer through the network, the network server computer responding to requests from the client computer to: associate a primary online shopping basket with a first customer and at least one secondary online shopping basket, wherein each secondary online shopping basket is associated with a customer different from the first customer, and wherein the at least one secondary online shopping basket is associated with corresponding pre-defined rules defining purchase preferences for items within the at least one secondary shopping basket; allow entry into the online shopping baskets of the items which correspond to pre-defined rules; and selectively merge items from the at least one secondary online shopping basket into the primary online shopping basket, the selection being based in part on the corresponding pre-defined rules, to create a single merged online shopping basket and display the items merged into the single merged online shopping basket simultaneously with each other on a web page such that the items are simultaneously viewable on the web page before checkout of the selected items in the single merged online shopping basket during a single purchase transaction.