Patent ID: 7865399

Claim:
A broker in an electronic commerce system, the broker comprising: a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having executable computer program instructions for facilitating electronic commerce transactions between remote customers and remote merchants, the computer program instructions comprising: a communication module configured to receive a description of a virtual shopping cart at the broker from a remote customer device responsive to a purchase module on a remote merchant providing the shopping cart description to the customer device and directing the customer device to send the shopping cart description to the broker, the shopping cart description identifying an item for purchase by a customer from the merchant, the communication module further configured to present the customer with an interface with which the customer can select options associated with the purchase from the merchant; a transaction module configured to calculate at the broker a purchase total responsive to the shopping cart description received from the customer device and the options selected by the customer, and to charge the customer for the purchase total; and a coordination module configured to interface the broker with the merchant to inform the merchant of the purchase; and a processor for executing the computer program instructions.