Patent ID: 7127418

Claim:
A system of determining customer motivations in an on-line shopping session, comprising: means for associating a respective set of class codes with each of a plurality of product records in a database, each such product record including respective product information; means for retrieving product information for one or more products from the database; means for forwarding the retrieved product information to a remotely-located requestor; means for receiving a purchase selection from the requestor for a particular product; means for determining whether the purchased particular product is related to a current prime motivator product, wherein said current prime motivator product has been identified by the system as the product that caused the requestor to initiate the shopping session; and means for incrementing in the database a derivative count for the purchased particular product or a prime motivator count associated with the purchased particular product and labeling the purchased particular product as the current prime motivator product, wherein the means for incrementing the database increments the derivative count if the purchased particular product is determined to be related to the current prime motivator product, and if not increments the prime motivator count.