CA2655342A1 - Ownership-based distribution - Google Patents
Ownership-based distribution Download PDFInfo
- Publication number
- CA2655342A1 CA2655342A1 CA 2655342 CA2655342A CA2655342A1 CA 2655342 A1 CA2655342 A1 CA 2655342A1 CA 2655342 CA2655342 CA 2655342 CA 2655342 A CA2655342 A CA 2655342A CA 2655342 A1 CA2655342 A1 CA 2655342A1
- Authority
- CA
- Canada
- Prior art keywords
- product
- ownership
- store
- authentic
- products
- Prior art date
- Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
- Abandoned
Links
Classifications
-
- G—PHYSICS
- G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
- G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
- G06Q30/00—Commerce
- G06Q30/02—Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
Abstract
A method of equating product ownerships with product distributorships comprising providing a storage means for storing authentic ownership data, associating stored authentic ownerships with distributors' store listings and affirming ownerships into ownership data storage upon ownership acquiring activities.
Description
OWNERSHIP-BASED DISTRIBUTION
1. FIELD OF INVENTION
The present invention relates to distribution, and more particularly, ownership-based distribution.
1. FIELD OF INVENTION
The present invention relates to distribution, and more particularly, ownership-based distribution.
2. BACKGROUND
Conventionally, ownership rights and distribution rights are two separate matters without inherent connections. The ownership right of a product is the right to own and use the product, the distribution right of a product is the right to distribute the product for earning commissions.
Therefore, purchasing a product only deems the buyer the ownership right of the purchased product, but does not automatically grant the buyer the distribution right of the purchased product. Thus far, none of the existing e-commerce systems automatically grants the buyer the distribution right of a purchased product.
Affiliate programs used by various e-commerce systems are popular means for partners to participate in distributions. But existing affiliate programs fall into the category of subscription based distribution in which a partner subscribes a set of products for distribution to earn affiliate fees without requiring product ownerships.
Social e-commerce recommendation systems allow a member to declare what he/she likes, owns or wishes to own without authentic proofs of what are declared or recommended. A
member may declare the ownership of a product that he never owned or recommend a product that he never used.
Thus the trustworthiness and authenticity of self-declaration and user-generated recommendation systems are questionable and subject to abuse.
Conventional multi-level marketing or networked marketing systems do not support direct commission payment. Instead, a commission earned from a distribution transaction is shared among members in multi-tiers. Such multi-tiered commission sharing is not suitable for social e-commerce because social distribution networks can be so dynamic and cross-connected that multi-tiered commission calculations may lead to near-zero or un-deterministic values when distribution network levels increase or distribution network dynamic structures change.
In comparison therewith, this invention provides many features that are contrary to the prior arts:
(1) Unlike conventional e-commerce systems which do not connect ownerships with distributorships, this invention equates ownerships with distributorships, such that the distribution right of a product is automatically acquired upon authentic acquisition of the product ownership via purchasing or gifting.
(2) In addition, unlike conventional affiliate distribution programs which do not require ownerships of the products being distributed, this invention introduces a new type of distribution which allows members to distribute authentically owned products for making commissions.
Conventionally, ownership rights and distribution rights are two separate matters without inherent connections. The ownership right of a product is the right to own and use the product, the distribution right of a product is the right to distribute the product for earning commissions.
Therefore, purchasing a product only deems the buyer the ownership right of the purchased product, but does not automatically grant the buyer the distribution right of the purchased product. Thus far, none of the existing e-commerce systems automatically grants the buyer the distribution right of a purchased product.
Affiliate programs used by various e-commerce systems are popular means for partners to participate in distributions. But existing affiliate programs fall into the category of subscription based distribution in which a partner subscribes a set of products for distribution to earn affiliate fees without requiring product ownerships.
Social e-commerce recommendation systems allow a member to declare what he/she likes, owns or wishes to own without authentic proofs of what are declared or recommended. A
member may declare the ownership of a product that he never owned or recommend a product that he never used.
Thus the trustworthiness and authenticity of self-declaration and user-generated recommendation systems are questionable and subject to abuse.
Conventional multi-level marketing or networked marketing systems do not support direct commission payment. Instead, a commission earned from a distribution transaction is shared among members in multi-tiers. Such multi-tiered commission sharing is not suitable for social e-commerce because social distribution networks can be so dynamic and cross-connected that multi-tiered commission calculations may lead to near-zero or un-deterministic values when distribution network levels increase or distribution network dynamic structures change.
In comparison therewith, this invention provides many features that are contrary to the prior arts:
(1) Unlike conventional e-commerce systems which do not connect ownerships with distributorships, this invention equates ownerships with distributorships, such that the distribution right of a product is automatically acquired upon authentic acquisition of the product ownership via purchasing or gifting.
(2) In addition, unlike conventional affiliate distribution programs which do not require ownerships of the products being distributed, this invention introduces a new type of distribution which allows members to distribute authentically owned products for making commissions.
(3) In addition, unlike known social recommendation applications which rely on user-generated recommendations without proving what are declared or recommended, this invention authenticates ownerships based on actual ownership acquiring activities such as purchasing or gifting.
(4) In addition, unlike conventional multi-level marketing systems which do not support direct commission payment, this invention makes a commission payment only to a direct distributor in a purchasing transaction without commission sharing.
The main object of this invention is to provide a computer-implemented method of equating ownerships with distributorships so that authentic ownerships are affirmed for members upon ownership acquiring activities and authentically owned products are distributable by authentic owners for making commissions. Accordingly, several advantages of this invention are:
(a) Ownership-based distributorships provide authentic owners a moneymaking opportunity for each authentically owned product.
(b) Authentic ownerships provide greater trustworthiness and authenticity than user generated wishy-washy recommendations and declarations of what they like, own or wish to own.
(c) An ownership-based distributorship is permanent during the production life cycle of the associated product. Thus, a product is purchased once and distributed repeatedly.
(d) Social ownership-based distribution provides a new and efficient marketing and distribution framework, in which a member's store is a personalized marketing presentation which presents the products that the member authentically owns and distributes the authentically owned products to social friends and acquaintances. Thus all the buyers of a product are collectively the sales force for the product and all social friends of the product buyers are potential new buyers of the product.
(e) Direct commission payment without sharing significantly simplifies the processing of networked distribution because it deals with one direct distributor in a purchasing transaction instead of dealing with a sub-network or a graph for commission sharing.
Further objects and advantages of this invention will become apparent from a consideration of the drawings and ensuring description.
3. LIST OF FIGURES
Fig 1 illustrates ownership module structure and usages.
Fig 2 illustrates ownership-specific order processing.
Fig 3 illustrates ownership module implementation.
Fig 4 illustrates ownership module access for integration.
Fig 5 illustrates ownership-based store operations.
Fig 6 illustrates an ownership-based e-commerce platform.
Fig 7 illustrates a sample UI of the ownership-based e-commerce platform.
4. SUMMARY
This invention describes a computer-implemented method of equating ownerships with distributorships. The method comprises providing a storage means for storing authentic ownership data, associating the products that members have authentic ownerships with their respective stores, and affirming members' authentic ownerships into ownership data storage upon ownership acquiring activities.
The main object of this invention is to provide a computer-implemented method of equating ownerships with distributorships so that authentic ownerships are affirmed for members upon ownership acquiring activities and authentically owned products are distributable by authentic owners for making commissions. Accordingly, several advantages of this invention are:
(a) Ownership-based distributorships provide authentic owners a moneymaking opportunity for each authentically owned product.
(b) Authentic ownerships provide greater trustworthiness and authenticity than user generated wishy-washy recommendations and declarations of what they like, own or wish to own.
(c) An ownership-based distributorship is permanent during the production life cycle of the associated product. Thus, a product is purchased once and distributed repeatedly.
(d) Social ownership-based distribution provides a new and efficient marketing and distribution framework, in which a member's store is a personalized marketing presentation which presents the products that the member authentically owns and distributes the authentically owned products to social friends and acquaintances. Thus all the buyers of a product are collectively the sales force for the product and all social friends of the product buyers are potential new buyers of the product.
(e) Direct commission payment without sharing significantly simplifies the processing of networked distribution because it deals with one direct distributor in a purchasing transaction instead of dealing with a sub-network or a graph for commission sharing.
Further objects and advantages of this invention will become apparent from a consideration of the drawings and ensuring description.
3. LIST OF FIGURES
Fig 1 illustrates ownership module structure and usages.
Fig 2 illustrates ownership-specific order processing.
Fig 3 illustrates ownership module implementation.
Fig 4 illustrates ownership module access for integration.
Fig 5 illustrates ownership-based store operations.
Fig 6 illustrates an ownership-based e-commerce platform.
Fig 7 illustrates a sample UI of the ownership-based e-commerce platform.
4. SUMMARY
This invention describes a computer-implemented method of equating ownerships with distributorships. The method comprises providing a storage means for storing authentic ownership data, associating the products that members have authentic ownerships with their respective stores, and affirming members' authentic ownerships into ownership data storage upon ownership acquiring activities.
5. DETAILED DESCRIPTIONS
This invention describes a method of equating ownerships with distributorships and an ownership module for carrying out the method to enable ownership-based e-commerce. The ownership module is a computer-implemented sub-system which can be used as a component to construct new ownership-based e-commerce applications or to be integrated with existing Internet applications to enable ownership-based distribution capability. The main functions of the ownership module comprise affirming authentic ownerships for members' ownership acquiring activities and associating members' authentically owned products with their store listings so that members can distribute authentically owned products for making commissions.
An authentic ownership is the ownership being authenticated and managed by an application which uses the ownership module. An authentically owned product by a member is a product that the member has authentic ownership. By using the ownership module functionalities in an e-commerce application, a member automatically acquires a product distributorship upon acquiring the product ownership. A product ownership may be acquired via purchasing or gifting.
Purchasing and gifting activities are sources of ownership acquisitions. Each ownership acquiring activity is processed with an ownership affirmation. Any other types of ownership acquiring activities may be integrated with the ownership module functionalities in the same way.
An application using the ownership module is responsible for member account management and product enrollments. The environment in which the ownership module is used comprises a plurality of managed members to participate in the ownership-based distribution and a plurality of managed products to be distributed by the managed members in the distribution marketplace which comprises a plurality of members' stores, in which each member is provisioned with a store. Each member is identified by a unique user identifier (uid) and is provisioned with a payment account for accepting payments. Each managed product is identified by a unique product identifier (pid) and is provisioned with an associated commission structure which may be a percentage of product price or a fixed value. A product supplier defines a commission structure which may be applicable to all of its supplied products or applicable to a particular supplied product, or the combination of both in which the per-product commission takes the precedence.
Each member may enroll products for others to distribute or to distribute the products enrolled by others. Each member's store contains the listing of the products that the member has authentic ownerships or the products that the member enrolled or the combination of both. A buyer can be any user, either managed or unmanaged. Only managed members can acquire authentic ownerships upon ownership acquiring activities and distribute authentically owned products for making commissions.
Fig 1 illustrates the ownership module structure, its operations and usages.
The ownership module 101 is a core component for enabling an ownership-based e-commerce. It comprises an ownership database 102 for storing authentic ownership data and module interface 103 for creating or retrieving ownership data stored in the ownership database 102. The ownership database 102 stores a plurality of ownership data records, each record comprising a uid and a pid representing an ownership relationship between a member identified by the uid and a product identified by the pid.
The ownership data may be explicitly stored in the ownership database, or implied in other data and induced dynamically from those other data such as purchasing transaction records. The ownership module interface 103 comprises ownership query functionality 104 and ownership affirmation functionality 105. The ownership query functionality 104 queries the ownership database 102 for retrieving the stored ownership data. The ownership affirmation functionality 105 affirms an ownership relationship between a member identified by a given uid and a product identified by a given pid which creates and inserts the ownership record to the ownership database 102 if said ownership is not already existent in said ownership database.
The invocation of the ownership query functionality 104 is triggered upon a store listing activity 112 originated from an application 110 that uses the ownership module functionalities. The store listing processing 111 comprises the invocation of the ownership query functionality 104 to query the ownership database 102 for retrieving a list of products that the member has authentic ownerships and including the retrieved list of products in the member's store so that the member can distribute those authentically owned products for making commissions. Products enrolled by a member may also be included in the member's store, wherein the enrolled products are retrieved from the product database 106 via product query 107. Detailed product data used in formatting product listings are queried from the product database 106 via product query 107. By associating an application's store listing processing 111 with ownership query 104, ownerships are automatically used as distributorships.
The invocation of the ownership affirmation functionality 105 is triggered upon an ownership acquiring activity. Ownership acquiring activities comprise gifting 114 activities, or purchasing 116 activities or the combination of both activities originated from in one or more applications 110 which are integrated with the ownership module 101. Thus each member is automatically a distributor of the products that the member authentically owns. By associating ownership-acquiring activities (gifting 114, purchasing 116) and their processing (gifting 113, purchasing 115) with ownership affirmation 105, the acquired ownerships are affirmed for use as distributorships. For a gifting activity 114, the gift processing 113 affirms the gift recipient's authentic ownership of the gifted product. For a purchasing activity 116, the purchasing order processing 115 affirms the buyer's authentic ownership of the purchased product. The buyer or the gift recipient in an ownership acquiring activity must be a managed member in order for the acquired ownership to be affirmed for distributorship and the product being purchased or gifted in an ownership acquiring activity must be a managed product. As a result, ownership acquiring activities lead to authentic ownerships for the owners and authentic ownerships are automatically used for distributorships, thus each member is automatically an authorized commissioned distributor of the products that the member authentically owns.
Purchasing activities 116 are initiated from members' stores or from a central store which contains the access to all the managed products enrolled by all suppliers. Each purchasing activity 116 is processed by purchasing order processing 115 which comprises conventional order processing and ownership-specific order processing. The conventional order processing comprises accepting a buyer's payment for a purchasing order and delivering the purchased product to the buyer. The ownership-specific order processing comprises the compensation for the direct buyer, the direct distributor and the direct supplier involved in a purchasing transaction. As illustrated in Fig 2, the ownership-specific order processing comprises the steps of:
1) Buyer's Distributorship Processing (201) - This step enrolls the buyer as a distributor of the product being purchased by invoking ownership affirmation 105 in the ownership module 101. A member buyer is affirmed the ownership of the purchased product into the ownership database 102, a non-member buyer may be asked to register for the membership in order to obtain subsequent affirmations of authentic ownerships.
2) Distributor's Commission Processing (202) - This step makes a commission payment to the seller if the seller is a distributor of the product being purchased, that is, the seller has the authentic ownership of the product being purchased. The seller of a purchasing order initiated from a member's store is the owner of the store where the purchasing order is initiated. The seller of a purchasing order initiated from a central store is the supplier of the product being purchased. If the seller has authentic ownership of the product being purchased, the step calculates the commission of the product and pays the full commission to the seller without sharing with anyone else. The commission is credited to the seller's payment account stored in the account database 108 via payment processing 109.
3) Supplier's Profit Processing (203) - This step makes a profit payment to the supplier of the product being purchased. It determines the supplier of the product being purchased and calculates the supplier's profit for the purchasing order and makes the profit payment to the supplier's payment account stored in the account database 108 via payment processing 109.
The supplier's profit is calculated by deducting the order's transactional costs from the purchasing price of the product. The transactional costs of an order comprise a commission to be paid to the seller if the seller has the authentic ownership of the product being purchased. Beside the commission cost, the transactional costs may also comprise a transaction fee charged by the service provider. The transaction fee may be a percentage of the product price or a fixed value. The transaction fee may be zero if the service is free.
When a product being purchased in a member's store was enrolled by the store owner, the store owner makes the profit without commission cost. When a product being purchased in a member's store is the product that the store owner has authentic ownership, the store owner is paid a commission and the supplier of the product is paid a profit. A commission is paid to the direct distributor without sharing which significantly simplifies the processing of networked distribution because it deals with one direct distributor in a purchasing transaction instead of dealing with a sub-network or a graph used in commission sharing.
A product purchasing order initiated from a central store is processed by the same order processing taking the supplier of the product being purchased as the seller, which is equivalent to the processing of the same order initiated from the supplier's store.
Fig 3 illustrates an ownership module implementation with the parameters comprising (uid, pid). In this implementation, the ownership record of the ownership database 301 comprises the data fields (uid, pid), wherein uid is a unique member identifier and pid is a unique product identifier representing an ownership relationship between a member identified by the uid and a product identified by the pid. The module interface functionalities comprise the ownership query 302 and the ownership affirmation 303. The functions in the module interface are implemented as follow:
(1) Query] (uid) 302 - The function takes uid as input parameter and returns a list of pids of all the products that the member associated with the given uid authentically owns.
(2) Query2(uid) 302 - The function takes uid as input parameter and returns a list of authentic ownerships that the member associated with the given uid has.
(3) Query3(uid, pid) 302 - The function takes uid and pid as input parameters and validates the existence of the ownership between the member associated with the given uid and the product associated with the given pid.
(4) Affirm(uid, pid) 303 - The function takes uid and pid as input parameters and affirms an ownership relationship between a member identified by the given uid and a product identified by the given pid.
This invention describes a method of equating ownerships with distributorships and an ownership module for carrying out the method to enable ownership-based e-commerce. The ownership module is a computer-implemented sub-system which can be used as a component to construct new ownership-based e-commerce applications or to be integrated with existing Internet applications to enable ownership-based distribution capability. The main functions of the ownership module comprise affirming authentic ownerships for members' ownership acquiring activities and associating members' authentically owned products with their store listings so that members can distribute authentically owned products for making commissions.
An authentic ownership is the ownership being authenticated and managed by an application which uses the ownership module. An authentically owned product by a member is a product that the member has authentic ownership. By using the ownership module functionalities in an e-commerce application, a member automatically acquires a product distributorship upon acquiring the product ownership. A product ownership may be acquired via purchasing or gifting.
Purchasing and gifting activities are sources of ownership acquisitions. Each ownership acquiring activity is processed with an ownership affirmation. Any other types of ownership acquiring activities may be integrated with the ownership module functionalities in the same way.
An application using the ownership module is responsible for member account management and product enrollments. The environment in which the ownership module is used comprises a plurality of managed members to participate in the ownership-based distribution and a plurality of managed products to be distributed by the managed members in the distribution marketplace which comprises a plurality of members' stores, in which each member is provisioned with a store. Each member is identified by a unique user identifier (uid) and is provisioned with a payment account for accepting payments. Each managed product is identified by a unique product identifier (pid) and is provisioned with an associated commission structure which may be a percentage of product price or a fixed value. A product supplier defines a commission structure which may be applicable to all of its supplied products or applicable to a particular supplied product, or the combination of both in which the per-product commission takes the precedence.
Each member may enroll products for others to distribute or to distribute the products enrolled by others. Each member's store contains the listing of the products that the member has authentic ownerships or the products that the member enrolled or the combination of both. A buyer can be any user, either managed or unmanaged. Only managed members can acquire authentic ownerships upon ownership acquiring activities and distribute authentically owned products for making commissions.
Fig 1 illustrates the ownership module structure, its operations and usages.
The ownership module 101 is a core component for enabling an ownership-based e-commerce. It comprises an ownership database 102 for storing authentic ownership data and module interface 103 for creating or retrieving ownership data stored in the ownership database 102. The ownership database 102 stores a plurality of ownership data records, each record comprising a uid and a pid representing an ownership relationship between a member identified by the uid and a product identified by the pid.
The ownership data may be explicitly stored in the ownership database, or implied in other data and induced dynamically from those other data such as purchasing transaction records. The ownership module interface 103 comprises ownership query functionality 104 and ownership affirmation functionality 105. The ownership query functionality 104 queries the ownership database 102 for retrieving the stored ownership data. The ownership affirmation functionality 105 affirms an ownership relationship between a member identified by a given uid and a product identified by a given pid which creates and inserts the ownership record to the ownership database 102 if said ownership is not already existent in said ownership database.
The invocation of the ownership query functionality 104 is triggered upon a store listing activity 112 originated from an application 110 that uses the ownership module functionalities. The store listing processing 111 comprises the invocation of the ownership query functionality 104 to query the ownership database 102 for retrieving a list of products that the member has authentic ownerships and including the retrieved list of products in the member's store so that the member can distribute those authentically owned products for making commissions. Products enrolled by a member may also be included in the member's store, wherein the enrolled products are retrieved from the product database 106 via product query 107. Detailed product data used in formatting product listings are queried from the product database 106 via product query 107. By associating an application's store listing processing 111 with ownership query 104, ownerships are automatically used as distributorships.
The invocation of the ownership affirmation functionality 105 is triggered upon an ownership acquiring activity. Ownership acquiring activities comprise gifting 114 activities, or purchasing 116 activities or the combination of both activities originated from in one or more applications 110 which are integrated with the ownership module 101. Thus each member is automatically a distributor of the products that the member authentically owns. By associating ownership-acquiring activities (gifting 114, purchasing 116) and their processing (gifting 113, purchasing 115) with ownership affirmation 105, the acquired ownerships are affirmed for use as distributorships. For a gifting activity 114, the gift processing 113 affirms the gift recipient's authentic ownership of the gifted product. For a purchasing activity 116, the purchasing order processing 115 affirms the buyer's authentic ownership of the purchased product. The buyer or the gift recipient in an ownership acquiring activity must be a managed member in order for the acquired ownership to be affirmed for distributorship and the product being purchased or gifted in an ownership acquiring activity must be a managed product. As a result, ownership acquiring activities lead to authentic ownerships for the owners and authentic ownerships are automatically used for distributorships, thus each member is automatically an authorized commissioned distributor of the products that the member authentically owns.
Purchasing activities 116 are initiated from members' stores or from a central store which contains the access to all the managed products enrolled by all suppliers. Each purchasing activity 116 is processed by purchasing order processing 115 which comprises conventional order processing and ownership-specific order processing. The conventional order processing comprises accepting a buyer's payment for a purchasing order and delivering the purchased product to the buyer. The ownership-specific order processing comprises the compensation for the direct buyer, the direct distributor and the direct supplier involved in a purchasing transaction. As illustrated in Fig 2, the ownership-specific order processing comprises the steps of:
1) Buyer's Distributorship Processing (201) - This step enrolls the buyer as a distributor of the product being purchased by invoking ownership affirmation 105 in the ownership module 101. A member buyer is affirmed the ownership of the purchased product into the ownership database 102, a non-member buyer may be asked to register for the membership in order to obtain subsequent affirmations of authentic ownerships.
2) Distributor's Commission Processing (202) - This step makes a commission payment to the seller if the seller is a distributor of the product being purchased, that is, the seller has the authentic ownership of the product being purchased. The seller of a purchasing order initiated from a member's store is the owner of the store where the purchasing order is initiated. The seller of a purchasing order initiated from a central store is the supplier of the product being purchased. If the seller has authentic ownership of the product being purchased, the step calculates the commission of the product and pays the full commission to the seller without sharing with anyone else. The commission is credited to the seller's payment account stored in the account database 108 via payment processing 109.
3) Supplier's Profit Processing (203) - This step makes a profit payment to the supplier of the product being purchased. It determines the supplier of the product being purchased and calculates the supplier's profit for the purchasing order and makes the profit payment to the supplier's payment account stored in the account database 108 via payment processing 109.
The supplier's profit is calculated by deducting the order's transactional costs from the purchasing price of the product. The transactional costs of an order comprise a commission to be paid to the seller if the seller has the authentic ownership of the product being purchased. Beside the commission cost, the transactional costs may also comprise a transaction fee charged by the service provider. The transaction fee may be a percentage of the product price or a fixed value. The transaction fee may be zero if the service is free.
When a product being purchased in a member's store was enrolled by the store owner, the store owner makes the profit without commission cost. When a product being purchased in a member's store is the product that the store owner has authentic ownership, the store owner is paid a commission and the supplier of the product is paid a profit. A commission is paid to the direct distributor without sharing which significantly simplifies the processing of networked distribution because it deals with one direct distributor in a purchasing transaction instead of dealing with a sub-network or a graph used in commission sharing.
A product purchasing order initiated from a central store is processed by the same order processing taking the supplier of the product being purchased as the seller, which is equivalent to the processing of the same order initiated from the supplier's store.
Fig 3 illustrates an ownership module implementation with the parameters comprising (uid, pid). In this implementation, the ownership record of the ownership database 301 comprises the data fields (uid, pid), wherein uid is a unique member identifier and pid is a unique product identifier representing an ownership relationship between a member identified by the uid and a product identified by the pid. The module interface functionalities comprise the ownership query 302 and the ownership affirmation 303. The functions in the module interface are implemented as follow:
(1) Query] (uid) 302 - The function takes uid as input parameter and returns a list of pids of all the products that the member associated with the given uid authentically owns.
(2) Query2(uid) 302 - The function takes uid as input parameter and returns a list of authentic ownerships that the member associated with the given uid has.
(3) Query3(uid, pid) 302 - The function takes uid and pid as input parameters and validates the existence of the ownership between the member associated with the given uid and the product associated with the given pid.
(4) Affirm(uid, pid) 303 - The function takes uid and pid as input parameters and affirms an ownership relationship between a member identified by the given uid and a product identified by the given pid.
Fig 4 illustrates the access of ownership module 101. The module interface 103 implementation internally accesses to the ownership database 102. The ownership module interface 103 functions may be invoked by local access 401 or remote access 402. With local access 401, the ownership module implementation and the application are located on a same machine. With remote access 402, the ownership module implementation and the application are located on different machines separated across intranet/internet 403. The remote access may be implemented using one or more of the communication protocols comprising TCP/IP, RPC, and HTTP. For example, an e-commerce application or a social networking application may integrate the ownership module functionalities at the application's server side and support the access to the ownership-based e-commerce service enabled by the ownership module functionalities from client side of the user interface, such that the members' stores are displayed on the client side and the store listing contents are generated from the server side and when a buy button of a product in a store is pressed, the order processing request is sent to the server and the server uses the ownership affirmation functionality to affirm the buyer's ownership of the purchased product.
Fig 5 illustrates ownership-based store operations. The ownership database 102 in the ownership module 101 is accessed by the ownership module interface 103 which further comprises the ownership query functionality 104 and the ownership affirmation functionality 105. An ownership-based marketplace 501 comprises a plurality of member stores and a central store. Suppose store S[x] represents the store for member x. The store S[x] contains the listing of the products that the member x has authentic ownerships and that the member x enrolled. A member's authentically owned products are retrieved by invoking the ownership query functionality 104 which queries the ownership database 102. A product purchasing activity occurred in store S[x]
triggers the invocation of the ownership affirmation functionality 105 to affirm the ownership between the buyer and the purchased product which internally inserts a new ownership record into the ownership database 102 if said ownership is new, the commission payment to the distributor and the profit payment to the supplier of the product being purchased. For example, when member i visits member i's store SU], the application invokes the ownership query functionality 104 to retrieve a list of products that the member j has authentic ownerships and queries the product database to retrieve a list of products that the member j enrolled and display the retrieved list of products in the member j's store SU].
Purchased products 502 are used for affirming ownerships. If member i purchases a product P in memberj's store SD], the order processing triggers the invocation of the ownership affirmation functionality 105 to register the ownership relationship between the buying member i and the purchased product P. For the purchasing order involving the buying member i and the product P, a distribution commission is paid to the store owner j if the store owner is the distributor of the product P and the profit of the order is paid to the supplier of the purchased product. When the next time member i's store S[i] is visited, the product P will appear in store S[i]
for further distribution. A
member's authentic ownerships may also be acquired via gifting activities 114 and are affirmed by gift processing 113 via invoking the ownership affirmation 105, in which an ownership between the gift recipient and the gifted product in each gifting activity is affirmed.
Fig 6 illustrates the architecture of an ownership-based e-commerce platform.
The platform is an online service system comprising a server 601 side of the software for providing the platform services and a client user interface software 606 for users 607 to access the platform services from users' local machines, such as making purchases of products listed in members' stores or a central store, setting up or updating accounts, enrolling products for distribution, etc. The user interface software 606 interacts with the platform server software 601 over the Internet connection 605 to carry out user requests by executing server operations and returning results back to the user interface 606. The platform server 601 provides the implementations of the platform service functionalities.
The platform service functionalities are classified into a set of functional modules comprising: (1) account module 602 for member account data storage and management, (2) product module 603 for product data storage and management, and (3) commerce module 604 for store listing and order processing. There are two types of users 607. They are un-managed users and managed members.
All users can make purchases of any products in any stores including members' stores and a central store. Only managed members can distribute managed products for making commissions. A
managed member can enroll products for distribution or distribute authentically owned products for making commissions.
The account module 602 (Fig 6) comprises a storage means for storing member account data in a computer-readable storage medium and a set of account data processing functions for creating and managing the stored account data. A member's account data comprise the member's uid, contact data and account balance. A uid is a unique user identifier automatically generated by the platform at the time of an account creation. The account balance is the representation of the member's payment account, wherein a payment made from the account causes the amount of the payment to be deducted from the account balance and a payment made to the account causes the amount of the payment to be added to the account balance. An account balance is zero at the time of the account creation prior to any payment transactions. The account data may further comprise the setup of payment method for indicating how to transfer money in the payment account to the member's chosen destination. The payment method is either an online payment service or check mailing. The online payment services comprise PayPal and other similar services. Both payment options are presented to a user and let the user to make a selection. Beside the uid which is automatically generated by the platform at the time of an account creation, the contact data are provided by the user at the time of account registration and can be updated at any time by the account owner thereafter. The account operations comprise registering a new account for a user which internally creates a new account data record in the account database, updating a member's account data based on the revisions provided by the member, and authenticating a member's login or service access in order for the member to access to the platform services. A member's account data may further comprise the member's friend list. A member's public profile contains the access to the member's store. Thus, a member's friend's store may be located by navigating to the friend's public profile.
Every user who wants to participate in the ownership-based distribution must be a managed member. A user can become a managed member by registering a member account. A
managed member can access to the platform services after logging into his/her member account.
The product module 603 (Fig 6) comprises a storage means for storing managed product data in a computer readable storage medium and a set of processing functions for managing the stored product data. The stored product data for each product comprise both platform generated data and supplier provided data. The platform generated data for a product comprise a pid and a supplier's uid. The supplier provided data comprise: title, description, price, commission, available quantity for non-digital product, manufacturer, supplier, delivery type (digital or non-digital), category, listing image file, and content files in case of a digital product. The set of functions for managing the product data comprise: enrolling a new product based on the product data provided by its supplier, updating a product's data based on the updates provided by its supplier, and activating/de-activating a product listing. The platform uses a fix-priced model instead of an auction model. A commission value is either a percentage of a product price or a fixed amount. A supplier may set one commission value for all of its products or set commission values on per product basis or the combination of both with per product commissions taking precedence. Each product enrolled with the platform is ready for distribution by members when its quantity remains. A product quantity is dynamically tracked and updated by the platform upon each purchasing activity. When the quantity of a product is sold out, the product will be automatically de-activated in all distribution stores and its distributors cannot distribute the product till a new quantity is supplied by the product supplier. The available quantity of a digital-delivery product is unlimited, thus there is no need to explicitly specify it.
The commerce module 604 (Fig 6) is responsible for processing commerce related activities including store listing and purchasing order processing. The commerce module embeds the ownership module functionality. Thus the store listing and the purchasing order processing are integrated with the ownership module. (1) Store listing - Each member has a store which lists the products that the member authentically owned or enrolled or the combination of both. When a member's store is visited, the platform invokes the ownership query functionality in the ownership module to retrieve a list of products that the member has authentic ownerships and include the retrieved owned products in the member's store, and queries the product database to retrieve the list of products enrolled by the member and include the enrolled product list in the member's store. A
product listing may display many pieces of information, such as product title, price, commission, etc, which are available by querying the product detailed information in the product database. Each listed product in a member's store or in the central store has a purchasing means which may be a single purchase means or a shopping cart purchasing means. The purchasing means in a member's store is selected by the member at the time of account setup and may be switched any time thereafter. (2) Purchasing order processing - A user may make a purchase of any product in any store, either a member's store or a central store. When a product in a store is purchased by a user, the store interface sends a purchasing transaction request to the server for processing. Each purchasing transaction may include one or more product purchasing orders. A
purchasing transaction initiated by a single product purchasing UI component such as a "buy" button comprises one product purchasing order. A purchasing transaction initiated by a shopping cart checkout UI
component comprises one or more product purchasing orders. The commerce module processes each product purchasing order in each purchasing transaction request in the steps of. (a) Conventional Order Processing which handles the buyer's payment processing and delivery processing, and (b) Ownership-Specific Order Processing which handles the tasks specific to the ownership-based commerce as shown in Fig 2.
In the conventional order processing, the buyer's payment processing verifies the payment amount made by the buyer and accepts the payment for the ordered quantity. For a non-digital delivery product, the platform checks the available quantity of the ordered product, and updates the available quantity of the purchased product by deducting the number of purchased units.
The delivery processing is responsible for delivering a purchased product to its buyer. A
product being purchased by a buyer is delivered to the buyer via either digital-delivery or non-digital-delivery. Digital-delivery comprises downloading and online rendering, non-digital-delivery comprises shipment.
Digital-delivery may be carried out by using one or more of the protocols comprising HTTP, FTP
and TCP/IP. Downloading delivery type delivers a purchased digital product by file transfer. A
buyer may download a purchased digital product at the time of purchasing or at any time after purchasing. Online rendering delivery type renders a purchased digital product for online consumption, such as listening to a music, reading a book, viewing a photo image, playing a video, etc. Shipment delivery type ships a purchased product to the buyer's postal address. A product shipment is handled by the supplier of the product being purchased after receiving a shipment request from the platform.
The user interface 606 (Fig 6) of the platform service may be either accessed directly from the web server of the platform or from inside a third party application which integrated with the platform.
For each managed member, the user interface is accessible from the member's public profile in the platform or in a third party application integrated with the platform.
Fig 7 illustrates a user interface, which comprises a command area 700 and a display area 705. The command area 700 contains "Store" 701, "Account" 702, "Products" 703 and "Central" 704. The "Store" 701 tab and the "Central" 704 tab are public to all users, the "Account" 702 tab and the "Products" 703 tab are private to each member. When the command tab "Store"
701 is selected by a user, a store listing request is sent to the platform server and the store listing function in the commerce module 604 (Fig 6) handles the construction of the store listing contents by determining the list of products to be included in the store and for each product in the list, querying the product detailed information to be displayed and compiling the product data into proper displayable format and returning the formatted listing to the user interface to display the product list in the display area 705 to show all the products that the member is eligible to sell or to distribute. When "Central" 704 is clicked, the central store is shown in a separate window or in the display area 705. The "Buy"
button 706 is a single purchasing means for initiating the purchasing of the associated product and the "More" button 707 is for displaying detailed product information. When a "Buy" button of a listed product is pressed, a purchasing transaction request is sent to the platform server which is processed by the order processing in the commerce module 604 (Fig 6) which internally affirms the buyer's ownership of the purchased product and handles the commission payment to the distributor and the profit payment to the supplier of the product being purchased. Upon the completion of the order processing, the buyer becomes the distributor of the purchased product, the seller is paid the product commission if the seller is a distributor of the product being purchased and the supplier of the product being purchased is paid a profit for the purchasing transaction.
When the command tab "Account" 702 is selected, the account related user interface is shown in the display area 705. The account user interface shows the member's account balance and earning information, and allows the member to update user data such as contact data and payment method setup. When the command tab "Products" 703 is selected, the product related user interface is shown in the display area 705. The product user interface allows the member to enroll a product for distribution, to update the product information of an enrolled product, or to activate/de-activate a product listing.
For a store using shopping cart purchasing means, "Add to Cart" user interface component is used for adding a product order to the cart, "Cart Checkout" user interface component is used for sending the multiple orders to the platform server for processing in which each order is processed separately.
While the above description contains many specificities, these should not be construed as limitations on the scope of the invention. Many other variations are possible.
Accordingly, the scope of the invention should be determined not by the embodiments illustrated, but by the appended claims and their legal equivalents.
Fig 5 illustrates ownership-based store operations. The ownership database 102 in the ownership module 101 is accessed by the ownership module interface 103 which further comprises the ownership query functionality 104 and the ownership affirmation functionality 105. An ownership-based marketplace 501 comprises a plurality of member stores and a central store. Suppose store S[x] represents the store for member x. The store S[x] contains the listing of the products that the member x has authentic ownerships and that the member x enrolled. A member's authentically owned products are retrieved by invoking the ownership query functionality 104 which queries the ownership database 102. A product purchasing activity occurred in store S[x]
triggers the invocation of the ownership affirmation functionality 105 to affirm the ownership between the buyer and the purchased product which internally inserts a new ownership record into the ownership database 102 if said ownership is new, the commission payment to the distributor and the profit payment to the supplier of the product being purchased. For example, when member i visits member i's store SU], the application invokes the ownership query functionality 104 to retrieve a list of products that the member j has authentic ownerships and queries the product database to retrieve a list of products that the member j enrolled and display the retrieved list of products in the member j's store SU].
Purchased products 502 are used for affirming ownerships. If member i purchases a product P in memberj's store SD], the order processing triggers the invocation of the ownership affirmation functionality 105 to register the ownership relationship between the buying member i and the purchased product P. For the purchasing order involving the buying member i and the product P, a distribution commission is paid to the store owner j if the store owner is the distributor of the product P and the profit of the order is paid to the supplier of the purchased product. When the next time member i's store S[i] is visited, the product P will appear in store S[i]
for further distribution. A
member's authentic ownerships may also be acquired via gifting activities 114 and are affirmed by gift processing 113 via invoking the ownership affirmation 105, in which an ownership between the gift recipient and the gifted product in each gifting activity is affirmed.
Fig 6 illustrates the architecture of an ownership-based e-commerce platform.
The platform is an online service system comprising a server 601 side of the software for providing the platform services and a client user interface software 606 for users 607 to access the platform services from users' local machines, such as making purchases of products listed in members' stores or a central store, setting up or updating accounts, enrolling products for distribution, etc. The user interface software 606 interacts with the platform server software 601 over the Internet connection 605 to carry out user requests by executing server operations and returning results back to the user interface 606. The platform server 601 provides the implementations of the platform service functionalities.
The platform service functionalities are classified into a set of functional modules comprising: (1) account module 602 for member account data storage and management, (2) product module 603 for product data storage and management, and (3) commerce module 604 for store listing and order processing. There are two types of users 607. They are un-managed users and managed members.
All users can make purchases of any products in any stores including members' stores and a central store. Only managed members can distribute managed products for making commissions. A
managed member can enroll products for distribution or distribute authentically owned products for making commissions.
The account module 602 (Fig 6) comprises a storage means for storing member account data in a computer-readable storage medium and a set of account data processing functions for creating and managing the stored account data. A member's account data comprise the member's uid, contact data and account balance. A uid is a unique user identifier automatically generated by the platform at the time of an account creation. The account balance is the representation of the member's payment account, wherein a payment made from the account causes the amount of the payment to be deducted from the account balance and a payment made to the account causes the amount of the payment to be added to the account balance. An account balance is zero at the time of the account creation prior to any payment transactions. The account data may further comprise the setup of payment method for indicating how to transfer money in the payment account to the member's chosen destination. The payment method is either an online payment service or check mailing. The online payment services comprise PayPal and other similar services. Both payment options are presented to a user and let the user to make a selection. Beside the uid which is automatically generated by the platform at the time of an account creation, the contact data are provided by the user at the time of account registration and can be updated at any time by the account owner thereafter. The account operations comprise registering a new account for a user which internally creates a new account data record in the account database, updating a member's account data based on the revisions provided by the member, and authenticating a member's login or service access in order for the member to access to the platform services. A member's account data may further comprise the member's friend list. A member's public profile contains the access to the member's store. Thus, a member's friend's store may be located by navigating to the friend's public profile.
Every user who wants to participate in the ownership-based distribution must be a managed member. A user can become a managed member by registering a member account. A
managed member can access to the platform services after logging into his/her member account.
The product module 603 (Fig 6) comprises a storage means for storing managed product data in a computer readable storage medium and a set of processing functions for managing the stored product data. The stored product data for each product comprise both platform generated data and supplier provided data. The platform generated data for a product comprise a pid and a supplier's uid. The supplier provided data comprise: title, description, price, commission, available quantity for non-digital product, manufacturer, supplier, delivery type (digital or non-digital), category, listing image file, and content files in case of a digital product. The set of functions for managing the product data comprise: enrolling a new product based on the product data provided by its supplier, updating a product's data based on the updates provided by its supplier, and activating/de-activating a product listing. The platform uses a fix-priced model instead of an auction model. A commission value is either a percentage of a product price or a fixed amount. A supplier may set one commission value for all of its products or set commission values on per product basis or the combination of both with per product commissions taking precedence. Each product enrolled with the platform is ready for distribution by members when its quantity remains. A product quantity is dynamically tracked and updated by the platform upon each purchasing activity. When the quantity of a product is sold out, the product will be automatically de-activated in all distribution stores and its distributors cannot distribute the product till a new quantity is supplied by the product supplier. The available quantity of a digital-delivery product is unlimited, thus there is no need to explicitly specify it.
The commerce module 604 (Fig 6) is responsible for processing commerce related activities including store listing and purchasing order processing. The commerce module embeds the ownership module functionality. Thus the store listing and the purchasing order processing are integrated with the ownership module. (1) Store listing - Each member has a store which lists the products that the member authentically owned or enrolled or the combination of both. When a member's store is visited, the platform invokes the ownership query functionality in the ownership module to retrieve a list of products that the member has authentic ownerships and include the retrieved owned products in the member's store, and queries the product database to retrieve the list of products enrolled by the member and include the enrolled product list in the member's store. A
product listing may display many pieces of information, such as product title, price, commission, etc, which are available by querying the product detailed information in the product database. Each listed product in a member's store or in the central store has a purchasing means which may be a single purchase means or a shopping cart purchasing means. The purchasing means in a member's store is selected by the member at the time of account setup and may be switched any time thereafter. (2) Purchasing order processing - A user may make a purchase of any product in any store, either a member's store or a central store. When a product in a store is purchased by a user, the store interface sends a purchasing transaction request to the server for processing. Each purchasing transaction may include one or more product purchasing orders. A
purchasing transaction initiated by a single product purchasing UI component such as a "buy" button comprises one product purchasing order. A purchasing transaction initiated by a shopping cart checkout UI
component comprises one or more product purchasing orders. The commerce module processes each product purchasing order in each purchasing transaction request in the steps of. (a) Conventional Order Processing which handles the buyer's payment processing and delivery processing, and (b) Ownership-Specific Order Processing which handles the tasks specific to the ownership-based commerce as shown in Fig 2.
In the conventional order processing, the buyer's payment processing verifies the payment amount made by the buyer and accepts the payment for the ordered quantity. For a non-digital delivery product, the platform checks the available quantity of the ordered product, and updates the available quantity of the purchased product by deducting the number of purchased units.
The delivery processing is responsible for delivering a purchased product to its buyer. A
product being purchased by a buyer is delivered to the buyer via either digital-delivery or non-digital-delivery. Digital-delivery comprises downloading and online rendering, non-digital-delivery comprises shipment.
Digital-delivery may be carried out by using one or more of the protocols comprising HTTP, FTP
and TCP/IP. Downloading delivery type delivers a purchased digital product by file transfer. A
buyer may download a purchased digital product at the time of purchasing or at any time after purchasing. Online rendering delivery type renders a purchased digital product for online consumption, such as listening to a music, reading a book, viewing a photo image, playing a video, etc. Shipment delivery type ships a purchased product to the buyer's postal address. A product shipment is handled by the supplier of the product being purchased after receiving a shipment request from the platform.
The user interface 606 (Fig 6) of the platform service may be either accessed directly from the web server of the platform or from inside a third party application which integrated with the platform.
For each managed member, the user interface is accessible from the member's public profile in the platform or in a third party application integrated with the platform.
Fig 7 illustrates a user interface, which comprises a command area 700 and a display area 705. The command area 700 contains "Store" 701, "Account" 702, "Products" 703 and "Central" 704. The "Store" 701 tab and the "Central" 704 tab are public to all users, the "Account" 702 tab and the "Products" 703 tab are private to each member. When the command tab "Store"
701 is selected by a user, a store listing request is sent to the platform server and the store listing function in the commerce module 604 (Fig 6) handles the construction of the store listing contents by determining the list of products to be included in the store and for each product in the list, querying the product detailed information to be displayed and compiling the product data into proper displayable format and returning the formatted listing to the user interface to display the product list in the display area 705 to show all the products that the member is eligible to sell or to distribute. When "Central" 704 is clicked, the central store is shown in a separate window or in the display area 705. The "Buy"
button 706 is a single purchasing means for initiating the purchasing of the associated product and the "More" button 707 is for displaying detailed product information. When a "Buy" button of a listed product is pressed, a purchasing transaction request is sent to the platform server which is processed by the order processing in the commerce module 604 (Fig 6) which internally affirms the buyer's ownership of the purchased product and handles the commission payment to the distributor and the profit payment to the supplier of the product being purchased. Upon the completion of the order processing, the buyer becomes the distributor of the purchased product, the seller is paid the product commission if the seller is a distributor of the product being purchased and the supplier of the product being purchased is paid a profit for the purchasing transaction.
When the command tab "Account" 702 is selected, the account related user interface is shown in the display area 705. The account user interface shows the member's account balance and earning information, and allows the member to update user data such as contact data and payment method setup. When the command tab "Products" 703 is selected, the product related user interface is shown in the display area 705. The product user interface allows the member to enroll a product for distribution, to update the product information of an enrolled product, or to activate/de-activate a product listing.
For a store using shopping cart purchasing means, "Add to Cart" user interface component is used for adding a product order to the cart, "Cart Checkout" user interface component is used for sending the multiple orders to the platform server for processing in which each order is processed separately.
While the above description contains many specificities, these should not be construed as limitations on the scope of the invention. Many other variations are possible.
Accordingly, the scope of the invention should be determined not by the embodiments illustrated, but by the appended claims and their legal equivalents.
Claims (38)
1. A computer-implemented method of distribution, operated in the environment comprising a plurality of members to participate in distribution and a plurality of products to be distributed by said members, wherein each member is provisioned with a store for said member to present the products that said member is eligible to distribute and a payment account for said member to accept payments, the computer-implemented method comprising the steps of:
(a) providing computer readable storage means for storing authentic ownership data, said ownership data storage comprising a plurality of ownership records, wherein each record comprising a unique member identifier and a unique product identifier representing the ownership relationship between the associated member and the associated product;
(b) presenting in each member's store one or more products that said member has authentic ownerships stored in said ownership data storage or that said member enrolled or that of the combination of both;
(c) for each ownership acquiring activity involving a member acquiring a product, affirming said member's authentic ownership of said product into said ownership data storage if said ownership is new;
whereby each member's authentic ownerships acquired upon that member's ownership acquiring activities are equated with said member's corresponding distributorships so that said member is eligible to distribute said member's authentically owned products for making commissions.
(a) providing computer readable storage means for storing authentic ownership data, said ownership data storage comprising a plurality of ownership records, wherein each record comprising a unique member identifier and a unique product identifier representing the ownership relationship between the associated member and the associated product;
(b) presenting in each member's store one or more products that said member has authentic ownerships stored in said ownership data storage or that said member enrolled or that of the combination of both;
(c) for each ownership acquiring activity involving a member acquiring a product, affirming said member's authentic ownership of said product into said ownership data storage if said ownership is new;
whereby each member's authentic ownerships acquired upon that member's ownership acquiring activities are equated with said member's corresponding distributorships so that said member is eligible to distribute said member's authentically owned products for making commissions.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the ownership acquiring activity is a product purchasing activity initiated by a buyer from a member's store, wherein said affirmation affirms the buyer's authentic ownership of the product being purchased.
3. The method of claim 2, wherein the product purchasing activity is further processed by making a commission payment to the store owner if the store owner has the authentic ownership of the product being purchased.
4. The method of claim 3, wherein the commission payment is made in full to said store owner without sharing.
5. The method of claim 2, wherein the product purchasing activity is further processed by making a profit payment to the supplier of the product being purchased.
6. The method of claim 2, wherein the product purchasing activity is further processed with conventional order processing.
7. The method of claim 1, wherein the ownership acquiring activity is a product purchasing activity initiated by a buyer from a central store which contains a plurality of products enrolled by a plurality of suppliers, wherein the processing of said activity is equivalent to the processing of the same activity initiated from the store of the supplier of the product being purchased.
8. The method of claim 1, wherein the ownership acquiring activity is a product gifting activity, wherein said affirmation affirms the gift recipient's authentic ownership of the gifted product.
9. The method of claim 1, wherein the ownership acquiring activity is initiated from one of the one or more applications integrated with said distribution environment.
10. A computer readable storage medium having a computer program embodied therein for execution by a processor to carry out the method of claim 1.
11. A carrier wave embodying a computer data signal representing sequences of statements and instructions which, when executed by a processor causes the processor to carry out the method of claim 1.
12. A computer-implemented system of distribution, operated in the environment comprising a plurality of members to participate in distribution and a plurality of products to be distributed by said members, wherein each member is provisioned with a store for distributing products and a payment account for accepting payments, the system comprising:
(a) a computer readable storage medium for storing authentic ownership data, said ownership data storage comprising a plurality of ownership records, wherein each record comprising a unique member identifier and a unique product identifier representing the ownership relationship between the associated member and the associated product;
(b) store listing means for each member to present in that member's store one or more products that said member has authentic ownerships or that said member enrolled or that of the combination of both;
(c) affirmation means for affirming authentic ownerships, wherein for each ownership acquiring activity involving a member acquiring a product, said member's ownership of said product is added to said ownership data storage if said ownership is new;
whereby each member's authentic ownerships acquired upon that member's ownership acquiring activities are equated with that member's corresponding distributorships so that said member is eligible to distribute said member's authentically owned products for making commissions.
(a) a computer readable storage medium for storing authentic ownership data, said ownership data storage comprising a plurality of ownership records, wherein each record comprising a unique member identifier and a unique product identifier representing the ownership relationship between the associated member and the associated product;
(b) store listing means for each member to present in that member's store one or more products that said member has authentic ownerships or that said member enrolled or that of the combination of both;
(c) affirmation means for affirming authentic ownerships, wherein for each ownership acquiring activity involving a member acquiring a product, said member's ownership of said product is added to said ownership data storage if said ownership is new;
whereby each member's authentic ownerships acquired upon that member's ownership acquiring activities are equated with that member's corresponding distributorships so that said member is eligible to distribute said member's authentically owned products for making commissions.
13. A computer-implemented method for use in distribution, operated in the environment comprising a plurality of members to participate in distribution and a plurality of products to be distributed by said members, wherein each member is provisioned with a store for said member to present the products that said member is eligible to distribute and a payment account for said member to accept payments, the computer-implemented method comprising the steps of:
(a) storing authentic ownership data in a computer readable medium, said ownership data storage comprising a plurality of ownership records, wherein each record comprising a unique member identifier and a unique product identifier representing the ownership relationship between the associated member and the associated product;
(b) presenting in each member's store one or more products that said member has authentic ownerships or that said member enrolled or that of the combination of both;
(c) processing each product purchasing order initiated by a buyer from a member's store, wherein the order processing further comprising the steps of:
1) affirming said buyer's ownership of the product being purchased into said ownership data storage if said ownership is new;
2) making a commission payment to the store owner if the store owner has the authentic ownership of the product being purchased;
whereby for each purchasing order initiated by a buyer from a store, both the buyer and the distributor are compensated.
(a) storing authentic ownership data in a computer readable medium, said ownership data storage comprising a plurality of ownership records, wherein each record comprising a unique member identifier and a unique product identifier representing the ownership relationship between the associated member and the associated product;
(b) presenting in each member's store one or more products that said member has authentic ownerships or that said member enrolled or that of the combination of both;
(c) processing each product purchasing order initiated by a buyer from a member's store, wherein the order processing further comprising the steps of:
1) affirming said buyer's ownership of the product being purchased into said ownership data storage if said ownership is new;
2) making a commission payment to the store owner if the store owner has the authentic ownership of the product being purchased;
whereby for each purchasing order initiated by a buyer from a store, both the buyer and the distributor are compensated.
14. The method of claim 13, wherein a member's store is accessible from said member's public profile.
15. The method of claim 14, wherein the member's public profile comprises the access to the public profiles of said member's friends.
16. The method of claim 13, wherein the purchasing order is further processed by making a profit payment to the supplier of the product being purchased.
17. A computer readable storage medium having a computer program embodied therein for execution by a processor to carry out the method of claim 13.
18. A carrier wave embodying a computer data signal representing sequences of statements and instructions which, when executed by a processor causes the processor to carry out the method in claim 13.
19. A computer-implemented system for use in distribution, operated in the environment comprising a plurality of members to participate in distribution and a plurality of products to be distributed by said members, wherein each member is provisioned with a store for said member to present the products that said member is eligible to distribute and a payment account for said member to accept payments, the system comprising:
(a) a computer readable storage medium for storing authentic ownership data, said ownership data storage comprising a plurality of ownership records, wherein each record comprising a unique member identifier and a unique product identifier representing the ownership relationship between the associated member and the associated product;
(b) store listing means for each member to present in that member's store one or more products that said member has authentic ownerships or that said member enrolled or that of the combination of both;
(c) order processing means for processing a product purchasing order initiated by a buyer from a member's store, being effective to the acts of:
1) affirming said buyer's ownership of the product being purchased into said ownership data storage if said ownership is new;
2) making a commission payment to the store owner if the store owner has the authentic ownership of the product being purchased;
whereby for each purchasing order initiated by a buyer from a member's store, both the buyer and the distributor are compensated.
(a) a computer readable storage medium for storing authentic ownership data, said ownership data storage comprising a plurality of ownership records, wherein each record comprising a unique member identifier and a unique product identifier representing the ownership relationship between the associated member and the associated product;
(b) store listing means for each member to present in that member's store one or more products that said member has authentic ownerships or that said member enrolled or that of the combination of both;
(c) order processing means for processing a product purchasing order initiated by a buyer from a member's store, being effective to the acts of:
1) affirming said buyer's ownership of the product being purchased into said ownership data storage if said ownership is new;
2) making a commission payment to the store owner if the store owner has the authentic ownership of the product being purchased;
whereby for each purchasing order initiated by a buyer from a member's store, both the buyer and the distributor are compensated.
20. The system of claim 19, wherein the order processing means is further effective to the act of making a profit payment to the supplier of the product being purchased.
21. A computer-implemented method of distribution, operated in the environment comprising a plurality of members to participate in distribution and a plurality of products to be distributed by said members, wherein each member is provisioned with a store for said member to present the products that said member is eligible to distribute and a payment account for said member to accept payments, the computer-implemented method comprising the steps of:
(a) providing distribution server for processing ownership-based distributions, said distribution server further comprising storage means for storing authentic ownership data and order processing means for processing each product purchasing order initiated by a buyer from a member's store, said order processing means is effective to the acts of:
1) affirming the buyer's authentic ownership of the product being purchased;
2) making a commission payment to the store owner if the store owner has the authentic ownership of the product being purchased;
3) making a profit payment to the supplier of the product being purchased;
(b) providing client interface for users to access to the distribution marketplace which comprising a plurality of members' stores, each store comprising one or more products that the store owner has authentic ownerships or that the store owner enrolled or that of the combination of both, wherein each store further providing purchasing means for initiating the purchasing of a product in that store, wherein the client interface is executed on a user's local machine interacting with said distribution server;
whereby a purchasing order initiated from a member's store via the use of a purchasing means causes said client interface to send a purchasing order request to said distribution server for processing by said order processing means.
(a) providing distribution server for processing ownership-based distributions, said distribution server further comprising storage means for storing authentic ownership data and order processing means for processing each product purchasing order initiated by a buyer from a member's store, said order processing means is effective to the acts of:
1) affirming the buyer's authentic ownership of the product being purchased;
2) making a commission payment to the store owner if the store owner has the authentic ownership of the product being purchased;
3) making a profit payment to the supplier of the product being purchased;
(b) providing client interface for users to access to the distribution marketplace which comprising a plurality of members' stores, each store comprising one or more products that the store owner has authentic ownerships or that the store owner enrolled or that of the combination of both, wherein each store further providing purchasing means for initiating the purchasing of a product in that store, wherein the client interface is executed on a user's local machine interacting with said distribution server;
whereby a purchasing order initiated from a member's store via the use of a purchasing means causes said client interface to send a purchasing order request to said distribution server for processing by said order processing means.
22. A computer readable storage medium having a computer program embodied therein for execution by a processor to carry out the method of claim 21.
23. A carrier wave embodying a computer data signal representing sequences of statements and instructions which, when executed by a processor causes the processor to carry out the method of claim 21.
24. A computer-implemented distribution system, participated by a plurality of members for distributing a plurality of products enrolled by one or more suppliers, the system comprising:
(a) distribution server which further comprising:
1) account means for creating, storing, updating and authenticating member account data, wherein each member's account data comprising said member's uid and said member's account balance;
2) product means for creating, storing, updating and querying product data, wherein product data for each product comprising product identifier, price, commission and descriptive data;
3) commerce means which further comprising storage means for storing authentic ownership data and order processing means for processing each purchasing order;
(b) distribution client interface for users to access to the distribution marketplace and the distribution server services, wherein said distribution marketplace comprising a plurality of members' stores, each store comprising the products that the store owner has authentic ownerships or that the store owner enrolled or that of the combination of both, wherein each store providing a purchasing means for a buyer to make a purchase of a product in that store;
whereby a user registers a member account via the account means in order to be a commissioned distributor for distributing authentically owned products; a supplier enrolls products via the product means to make products available for distribution by members, and a member acquires authentic ownerships of products via ownership acquiring activities and is qualified for distributing authentically owned products for making commissions;
whereby a purchasing order initiated from a member's store via the use of a purchasing means causes a purchasing order request being sent from said client interface to said distribution server to be processed by said order processing.
(a) distribution server which further comprising:
1) account means for creating, storing, updating and authenticating member account data, wherein each member's account data comprising said member's uid and said member's account balance;
2) product means for creating, storing, updating and querying product data, wherein product data for each product comprising product identifier, price, commission and descriptive data;
3) commerce means which further comprising storage means for storing authentic ownership data and order processing means for processing each purchasing order;
(b) distribution client interface for users to access to the distribution marketplace and the distribution server services, wherein said distribution marketplace comprising a plurality of members' stores, each store comprising the products that the store owner has authentic ownerships or that the store owner enrolled or that of the combination of both, wherein each store providing a purchasing means for a buyer to make a purchase of a product in that store;
whereby a user registers a member account via the account means in order to be a commissioned distributor for distributing authentically owned products; a supplier enrolls products via the product means to make products available for distribution by members, and a member acquires authentic ownerships of products via ownership acquiring activities and is qualified for distributing authentically owned products for making commissions;
whereby a purchasing order initiated from a member's store via the use of a purchasing means causes a purchasing order request being sent from said client interface to said distribution server to be processed by said order processing.
25. The system of claim 24, wherein each account record further comprising the setup of payment method, wherein the payment method is an online payment service or check mailing.
26. The system of claim 24, wherein a commission defined by a supplier may be applicable to all the products enrolled by said supplier or to a particular product enrolled by said supplier, when both scopes of commissions coexist, the per product commission takes precedence, wherein a commission structure may be a fixed value or a percentage of product price.
27. The system of claim 24, wherein the product data further comprising available quantity, wherein the quantity of a digital-delivery product is unlimited and the quantity of a non-digital-delivery product is limited which is provided by the supplier of said product and is dynamically tracked by the system.
28. The system of claim 24, wherein the order processing means further comprising order compensation means in conjunction with conventional order processing, wherein said order compensation means is operative to the acts comprising:
(a) affirming the buyer's ownership of the product being purchased;
(b) paying a commission to the store owner if the store owner is the distributor of the product being purchased;
(c) paying a profit to the supplier of the product being purchased.
(a) affirming the buyer's ownership of the product being purchased;
(b) paying a commission to the store owner if the store owner is the distributor of the product being purchased;
(c) paying a profit to the supplier of the product being purchased.
29. The system of claim 28, wherein the supplier's profit is calculated by deducting a commission cost.
30. The system of claim 29, wherein the supplier's profit is calculated by further deducting a transaction fee charged by the service provider, wherein a transaction fee may be a percentage of product price or a fixed value.
31. The system of claim 24, wherein the commerce means further comprising a delivery means for product delivery, wherein the delivery type is one selected from the group consisting of downloading, online rendering and shipment, wherein downloading and online rendering are for digital delivery which are handled by the system, shipment is for non-digital delivery which is handled by the supplier of the product being purchased after receiving a shipment request from the system.
32. The system of claim 24, wherein a member's store is accessible from the member's social profile.
33. The system of claim 32, a member's public profile further comprising the access to the profiles of the member's friends.
34. The system of claim 24, wherein the purchasing means for buyers to initiate commerce transactions may be a graphic user interface component for a single-purchase operation or a graphic user interface component for a multi-purchase operation.
35. The method or system of claim 13, 19, 21 and 24, wherein a product purchasing order may be initiated by a buyer from a central store which contains a plurality of products enrolled by a plurality of suppliers, wherein the processing of said order is equivalent to the processing of the same order initiated from the store of the supplier of the product being purchased.
36. A carrier wave embodying a computer data signal representing sequences of authentic ownership data records for use by an application program, wherein each authentic ownership comprising a member identifier and a product identifier indicating the ownership relationship between the associated member and the associated product, wherein said authentic ownership originally being affirmed upon an actual ownership acquiring activity involving the acquisition of said product by said member and being equated with said member's distributorship of said product for commissioned distributions.
37. A computer-implemented module comprising a computer readable storage medium for storing authentic ownership data and module interface for managing said authentic ownership data, wherein the stored authentic ownerships are equated with commissioned distributorships, the module interface comprising:
(a) affirmation means to affirm into said ownership data storage an authentic ownership between a member and a product upon an ownership acquiring activity causing said member to own said product;
(b) product query means for querying said ownership data storage for products that a given member has authentic ownerships stored in said ownership data storage;
(c) ownership query means for querying a member's authentic ownerships stored in said ownership data storage;
(d) validation means to validate the existence of an authentic ownership between a given member and a given product in said ownership data storage.
(a) affirmation means to affirm into said ownership data storage an authentic ownership between a member and a product upon an ownership acquiring activity causing said member to own said product;
(b) product query means for querying said ownership data storage for products that a given member has authentic ownerships stored in said ownership data storage;
(c) ownership query means for querying a member's authentic ownerships stored in said ownership data storage;
(d) validation means to validate the existence of an authentic ownership between a given member and a given product in said ownership data storage.
38. The module of claim 37, wherein the module interface may be accessed locally or remotely, wherein the remote access may be implemented using one or more of the communication protocols comprising HTTP, TCP/IP, and RPC.
Priority Applications (1)
| Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| CA 2655342 CA2655342A1 (en) | 2009-02-26 | 2009-02-26 | Ownership-based distribution |
Applications Claiming Priority (1)
| Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| CA 2655342 CA2655342A1 (en) | 2009-02-26 | 2009-02-26 | Ownership-based distribution |
Publications (1)
| Publication Number | Publication Date |
|---|---|
| CA2655342A1 true CA2655342A1 (en) | 2010-08-26 |
Family
ID=42663706
Family Applications (1)
| Application Number | Title | Priority Date | Filing Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| CA 2655342 Abandoned CA2655342A1 (en) | 2009-02-26 | 2009-02-26 | Ownership-based distribution |
Country Status (1)
| Country | Link |
|---|---|
| CA (1) | CA2655342A1 (en) |
-
2009
- 2009-02-26 CA CA 2655342 patent/CA2655342A1/en not_active Abandoned
Similar Documents
| Publication | Publication Date | Title |
|---|---|---|
| US7949572B2 (en) | Distributed electronic commerce system with independent third party virtual shopping carts | |
| US7970661B1 (en) | Method, medium, and system for allocating a transaction discount during a collaborative shopping session | |
| KR101160404B1 (en) | Shopping information on a network based social platform | |
| US20130211944A1 (en) | System, method and computer program product for sharing a product/service and its associated purchase price between customers | |
| US7860751B2 (en) | Cross domain customer interface updates | |
| US20120185355A1 (en) | Social shopping apparatus, system and method | |
| US20110238505A1 (en) | System and Method for Pricing and Exchanging Content | |
| US20100042515A1 (en) | Distributed electronic commerce system with centralized virtual shopping carts | |
| JP2002530782A (en) | Universal shopping cart system | |
| JP2013117984A (en) | Method and system for payment fund | |
| KR102103474B1 (en) | Method for providing reward for sharing contents based social network | |
| US20090259524A1 (en) | User-assisted online transactions | |
| US10217155B2 (en) | Product cross-selling method and system | |
| US20110125611A1 (en) | Optimized Electronic Commerce Transactions | |
| KR101984071B1 (en) | Online agency sales method and recording medium storing program for executing the same, and computer program stored in recording medium for executing the same | |
| WO2013019885A1 (en) | Systems and methods for generating marketplace listings | |
| KR20100007694A (en) | A shopping system and method using a wish list | |
| WO2012103463A1 (en) | Systems and methods for shopping in an electronic commerce environment | |
| WO2007002155A2 (en) | Internet-based on-demand digital program delivery system and method | |
| US20140143030A1 (en) | Method for Automatically Updating Content, Status, and Comments on Third Parties | |
| KR100914769B1 (en) | Method for intermediation goods of using digital books | |
| US7720770B1 (en) | System and method for negotiating improved terms for products and services being purchased through the internet | |
| US20090259594A1 (en) | Collaborative Funding System and Methods | |
| US11205209B2 (en) | Methods for searching and obtaining clothing designs while discouraging copying | |
| CA2655342A1 (en) | Ownership-based distribution |
Legal Events
| Date | Code | Title | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| EEER | Examination request | ||
| FZDE | Dead |