Patent ID: 7996328

Claim:
A method of providing notification of impending delivery of a shipment shipped by a shipper to a shipping address specified by a customer, comprising: periodically querying, by a broker computer system independent of the shipper and a merchant and which enabled the customer to purchase an item contained in the shipment from the merchant, a shipper computer system to obtain status information for the shipment with each query, wherein a periodic query of the shipment computer system comprises: requesting status information from the shipper computer system by providing a shipment identifier of the shipment to the shipper computer system; and receiving status information in response thereto; responsive to status information obtained with a periodic query indicating an estimated delivery date for the shipment, halting, by the broker computer system, the periodic queries and scheduling the restart of periodic queries of the shipper computer system a day prior to the estimated delivery date; restarting, by the broker computer system, periodic queries of the shipper computer system the day prior to the estimated delivery date to obtain updated status information with each query; responsive to updated status information obtained with a periodic query indicating that the shipment is out for delivery to the customer, halting, by the broker computer system, the periodic queries and calculating an estimated delivery time for the shipment based at least in part on the status information; and sending, by the broker computer system, an electronic message including the estimated delivery time to the customer.