AU2013204597A1 - A purchase-transaction-settled online consumer referral and reward service using real-time specific merchant sales information - Google Patents

Abstract

A PURCHASE-TRANSACTION-SETTLED ONLINE CONSUMER REFERRAL AND REWARD SERVICE USING REAL-TIME SPECIFIC MERCHANT SALES INFORMATION A purchase-transaction-settled online consumer referral and reward system and method using real-time specific merchant sales information is provided. The system offers merchants a one-stop place for freely publishing of their real-time and specific sales 10 offers and offers a risk-free service to merchants to use, who will be charged only after a referred purchase occurs and a revenue income is made. The system also allows merchants to determine how much they pay to the service provider for each referred purchase transaction, based on their profit margin and market competitiveness and the system serves all merchants, online or offline, big or small, and regardless of buy, sell, is and payment settlement technologies in use. The system also offers consumers a one-stop place for finding matching sales offers specifically meeting their needs, refers consumers to merchants to buy at existing merchant establishments and rewards consumers with each purchase transaction led from the service provider.

Description

WO t007/1751 PCTVUS207109$8414 APUHAE-TRASACTONSETT ED ONLNE CONUMER REFERRAL AND INFORMATION Lee Wang S ProiyCai/eae Application This application claims priority under 35 USC 119(e) and 120 to U.S. Provisional Application Serial No, 60/788,407, filed on March 31, 2006, entitled "'A Purchase Transaction-Settled Online Consumrnrs Re eat and Reward Service Using Real-Time Specific Meant Sales info rationn, which is incorporated herein by reference, 10 dpendices Appendix A (15 pages) are examples of the merchant Web site flow and merchant Web user interfaces of the purchase-transaction-settled online consumer referral and reward service and AppersdiX A forns parts of this specification, In particular, Appendix A contains (i) a merchant web flow specification; (2) a merchant site start page L; (3) a new merchant 1$ setup wizard step specification; (4-5) merchant commission/reward set usp UI; (6-9) merchant offer publishing UII; (10) business profile setup Ut; (11) sales view Ut; (12) byr view UI; (13) account setup Ul; (14) offline transaction tracking setup UI; and (15) merchant vitual e nwrinal transaction tracking Appendix B (6 pages) are examples of the consumer Web site flow and consumer user 20 interfaces of the purchiase-rrmnsaction-settied online consumer referral and reward service and Appendix B forms part of tis speciion. In particular, Appendix B contains (1) a consumer UT work bw diagrami (2) a consumer start web U (3) a web Ushowing a web Ul on which registered consumers find offers on a digital map; (4) a web U1 displaying details of a merchant offer (5) a web UI allowing a consumer to manually report a purchase he made 25 to eamn a reward' (6) a web U showing consumer account set-up Field oftlmThvetin The invention relates generally to a system and method for purchase transaction settled consumer referral and rewards and in particular to a computeximplnlemented system and method for purchase transaction settled consumer referral and rewards. The invention 30 combines an online consumer destination strategy syndication strategy viral marketing strategy ied into a card-based loyalty component to capture consumer actions and, accordingly, a CPT (Cost Per sales Transacton) advertising model WO 20ts7in17$1 PCTVUS2%710t)$414 Background Ln an efort to extend the market reach and effectiveness of their advertising, merchants today are looking beyond traditional media (ae print ads, TV, Radio) and evaluating emerging interactive communication channel such as provided by the internet, 5 interactive cable television, (for exam ple, Comeast local auto shopping), and a growing array of mobile devices (for example web enabled c Iphones, hand4heId computers, internet connected GPS navigation in autos, etc) Already, a number of systems and business models have been designed to exploit and capitalize on thesechamels, either as disacreet adver4ising services, or as mereharn directory services or a hybrid combination thereof However, the 10 existing systems and methods have not been designed to meet a critical set of needs shared by oflie" andlcal" commerce, especially in the small and medium business (8MB3) market These critical needs recognize that many merchants are unable or unwilling to risk shifting their advertising dollars to an online model that is 1) unproven in terms of producing directly measurable sales revenue in local brick and mortar establishments and service businesses 2) 15 too complex to manage without dedicated and experienced marketing staff(as demonstrated by "search keyword" optimization and bidding sites), and 3) prone to deception, fraud, or manipulation (as demonstrated by so called "pay-per-cick- online advertising and existing online merchant rating systems) It ia desirable to address these c-ritical needs by ) introducing a 'transaction settled," 20 in particular, ofline instore sales transaction settled, online advertising system that only charges merchants for advertising that resuls in sales captured at (or near) the Point of Sale (POS), 2) eliminating the need for memrants to manage complexities of optimizing onine advertising in order to drive online customers to their places of business, and 3) virtually eliminating deceptionfraud and manipulation of click-througi ads and merchant rating 25 systems that are prevalent today by using the POS transactions as a control function Thus, it is desirable to build a proprietary system of brokered advertising, which redirects risk of sales outcome away from merchants and shares this risk with online advertising publishers (such as Google or Yahoo). It is also desirable to build a proprietary commission adding system in which merchants bid up consumer loyalty reward points (as captated on a mnagtnetic card 30 swiped with each pu uhase),to attract more customers, and in turn generate more revenue for the service provider, Xll fMmA WO Z0ti7it7$d13 PCTUS2O070$414 An examination afprior art demonstrates that while many exiating systems ofatr similar finctdonal components such as ad price bidding usuallyy applied to online clicks or other online user actions), directory series (that refer customers to a business for a listing fee or even for fee),and memberloyaltycards for tacking and rwarding sale transactions 5 these systems are fundamentally different frot the desired system in tern of combined functionality specifically designed and packaged to meet the needs of local merchants (as discussed above) There are a number of existing online shopping and consumer referral services that facilitate merchant-consumer interaction, but that differ in key a iras including but not limited It) toI charge model click-ad vs.sales commission based fees, in particular on offline nstore sales), 2) coverage of oft) nc purchases inceding cash transactions, 3) case and near real-time offer publishing using digital map and web based user interface I), 4)advertisement relevance targeting based on geographic proximity and time OinjnvientorvSearch Local Transaction and Pick-up.Oneeisting system 15 provides consumers with online access to product/service availability and slated intbnation and facilitates direct processing of online orders which are then picked up at a local merchant's location. While this system can be described as an online information delivery system that fiilitates offline merchandise transaction and pick up, it is severely constrained in terms of merchant participants due to the need for highly in grated and centralized 2) inventory tracking, expense of required data processing integration and the fact that this system does not support online advertising in retur for a cotunission fee brakes it incompatible with the needs of SMB merchantsand early distinguishesit from the desired system. OnlineBusinesto BginmiZ)iAgitla4m Another existing system 25 enables an individual online merchant to receive referred customers from other online sites in return for a fee. In this system, one merchantznmber is joined with a multitude of associate (online) merchants (usually in complementary line of business)A system of hyperlinks is used to refer customers from affiliate sites back to a merchant that can satisfy the request, and a point system or cash based reward system is used to provide merchant incentives. This 30 system is not designed to faclitate merchant self-publishing of advertising and special offers in near real-time so as to generate local cosumer trffic at a fixed place of business orlocal area. Instead, it is primarily designed to build communities of networked merchants that WO ti007/i17$iJ PCTVUS20t)$044 transact most of their business online and benefit when they refer cuxstoMners to affiliate sites, This system is not designed to reward customers with loyalty points or incentive awards for their purchases. nlinge rrSearch engine ca-n refer connmers to merchants through the 5 publishing of merchant-sponsored (fee based) advertising content or engineindexed content (free to merchant) In general, these systems can be classified in thre distinct categories) Geneic Search (e google, h /wwwole cong 2) Local Search (e, Cgoogle Local, httpr//ocg99e~ogi com and 3) Shopping Search (e g Googl Prxogle, httm:#frooalegooaleom). 1) Generic Search: These sites generaly offer merchant 10 advertisers free ste indexing and generate revenue by placing paid-dor advertising in front of the consumers who search. They are not local merchandising focused, thus they do not provide an efficient system that enables ramerchants to publish their own oftrs with a means of tracking resulting sale transaction from local consumers. Generic search engines charge advertisers by "clicks" or other online actions, and they do not offer a means of capturing and 15 tracking resting offline transaction The compleXity and cost to merchants for optinizing a campaign based on keyword selection and bidding also deters the wide use ofsearch engines by small sandIlocal merchants who lack required skils and resomres 2) Local Search. These sites do provide proximiry-based cuntent retrieval and advertsing However similar to generic search engines, they do not employ a commission based system for online advertising 20 in which revenue is driven by offlie transactions (in particular otfline transactions as POS) 3) Shopping Searh is similar in terms of basic functionality to generic search, except that these sites okr a process for transacting an online sale. Advertising is still an upfront Ast to the merchant, and the results cannot be tracked to an actual sale transaction that takes place offlinse(as in a local store), 25 OnglinDincoij are a prior art category including online yellow pages (such as veriznn shtt/www surernaaes com I and ocal inftonation aggregation sites (sch as CihySearch hggjp:/fw:witarcgam Some of them are online versions of paper yellow pages books and some are syndicated informaton sues about local communities These sites may have two layers of merchant data (I) contact informationsuch as business name, 30 address, and contact information and (2) morspecific infoRmation sdch as profit, review and general merchandising information, ser reviews They either generate their content free of charge to merchants, or merchants pay for a listing fee or pay for a per online action fee to WO 20w7f 1713 PCT!S2%71008414 get advertised Compared to the desired system, these sites do not have a system to link advertising to an actual sales outcome transactions), In addition, beyond submitting contact information, these sites do not have the capability for merchants to publish their own offers, making the display of near reahinme advertising impossible. $ Onlineqj upon Sitsare another existing category of prior art By definition, a coupon is a price reduction for a particular product or servicehese sites systemss) may look similar to the desired system at first glance. However, they are designed in such a way as to restrict the nature of merchant offers to specific items or services for which a typically deep discount is offered as incentive for customer members (who sometimes are charged with a "Club" or 10 ' ember fee to participate in the coupon savings) In contrast, the desired system does not constrain advertising offes to specific items or services, nor does it require or even encourage local merchants to deeply discernt their produts or services, instead, the desired system uses a commission bidding engine to reward customers for each generic transaction with a merchant member's business and prvides the consumer with a host of other important 15 benefits such as reliable merchant rating system. Also of note is the faet that most coupon services require soMre type of specialized bar code scanner at the point of sale to redeem the coupon and track the transaction Some coupon sites, (eg. httow/fVal akcom ), are online versions of offline BtC direct mail services, (eg, ValPak),that simply publish offline coupons online These sites iack the rea-time offer publishing capability Neither do they 20 have the commissionvbased charge structure Intead their revenue comes firo listing fees. While there are certain examples of online coupon sites that are experimenting with commission based fee structure, (i ee (oogle press release, March 20, 2007), these have dhe deficiency ot .) only applying to online sales and not ofline commerce and 2) restricting offers to specific products for which the primary sale motivator is a deep discount, 25 Online Classified Services: These ar generally focused on individual customers wanting to sell a specific item (or service) such as craigsliston, or in the case of sites that pmote merchant business, they require an upfront advertsing fee (much like newspaper classified advertising). There are hyhrd models of this where offine (newspapecassified ads) provide the advertiser with the additional benefit of online ad exposure. None of the 30 services in this category provides POS tracking as part of the commission or revenue model These services also do not provide consumer rewards (Le, cash redeemable loyalty points).

WO 20eiti 7513 PCTAUS2%7108$ Further: they do not enable merchants to prmteote traffic toher store in a generic (non-item or service specific} way such as a Directory Service. cmsuerw a tltPrpgr;s N mnay also appear to have overlapping functionality with the desired system These fall into 2 categories, 1) Open or Semr-Open $ Loop Transaction Model, and 2) CloseLoop Transaction Model These terms indicate the ability by consumVemembers to redeem or otherwise uftize the points they accumulate outside of the merchantestablshment with which they transacted business Systems in this category include airline frequent fier programsrtail store and gas station frequent shopper programs. Among the many distinctions of the desired system when compared to this 1) category of prior art is dte abilty for the merchant to asS seaktime ofer publishingprimity and ime based targeting of advertinmg, and a commission based bidding system for generating and directing consumer tratIc as is used by the system $da~g d are another prior art area that share certain properties with the desired system bat that are quite distint, In this model, online communities of consumers 15 (such as a blogging site eg, MySpace, ttj/w w snypr >oQp or a ruser-.generated content site (., YouTube, htt/wwwxoutube com\ may support the exchange of merchant performance reviews by like-tninded individu als. While this is a key functiona that the systemr employs as an added benefit for its customers (with the distin ton being the added value of relTiabit~y and trust fostered by design of the desired systemn since it restricts input to 29 eastorners that transacted bona fide purchases), these online communities are not designed to deliver proximity and time constrained advertising for local merchants nor do they offer in store sales commission-based charge model to advertisers. Thus, none of the known systems and methods provide a compnterited system based upon a proprietary foundation of transaction settled (POS) advertising, commission bidding 2S and brokered online advertising services, offering 1) online consumer destination stately 2) a syndicadin strategy,3) a viralmatteting strategy tied into a cardbased loyalty component to capture consumer actions and, accordingy, a CPT (cost-pertransaction, in particular for offline) advertising model. Sumnmatyof thenvntion 30 A pturchasetransaction-seed online consumer referral and reward system and method using rea tune specific merchant sales information is provided The system and EM\72>91 WO ti00/i 7$D PCT!US20t)$0414 method provides a common ground online where merchants and consumers engage each other by publishing and locating specificmeaningful and usef! ales offers about products or services The system and method permits merchants to pubhsh and update specific sales offers online in real time and to refer consumers and track transactions in a way that works 5 with merchant's existing business management and communication systems. The system offers a risk-fmee consumer referal servicewhere a service fee is charged after a purchase is made and allows each merchant to determine the service fee that may be based on his profit margin and market competitiveness, The component ftnctions of the system and method may include (.) a Commission M T eking and Billing System a merchant pays a portion of the sales transaction vwhoe ("commission") to the service provideras consideration for delivering the ad driven refenal, (2) a Commnission BiddingSystem; merchants engage in competitive bidding with each other. driving up the commission rate (frn an established sinimgr te), to pay for a greater portion of referrals in competitive market situations); (3) a seal-rime and on-demand Merchan aQffer 15 Publishin $sJ5tem a computer based, self-serve system that works with a plrlity of merchants' businesgcomnication channels including the web, the wireless, phone, and fax, that facilitates the creation and submission by merchants to either ( advertise for a specific product or service, or (b) deliver non-item or non-service specific information intended to promote increased conumer traffic tostores (as opposed to driving a specific sale item or 20 service as in (a)),such as having a visiting chef or musician at a restaurant, special parking space availability, accelerated service response time. Also ar offer published may contain a frame" that is a number of constraints applicable to the oflr including time, location, cosanmer target, etc The Merchant Publishing system results in automated web based publishing in near real-ime and may be using commercial available digitalnap user 25 interface; (5) lg ggigJagtmgiSysbc' whichuses time, physical location and customer provided input (from stored customer interest profiles, user queries or presubscribed needs to sendce provider) to determine advertising relevance which in turn is used to target advertising only at intersted consumer; (6 A computer based System a system for publishing targeted merchant offers to inquiring consumers, using a 30 plurality of personal communication channels,including the internet wireless, cable channels phone, fax and mail'(Q) a UnivsalTaactionTacking system that facilitates the capture andreording of cash, credit or stored value transaction card based purchase either WO T007/1 7M PCTVS200 )$-04 at or near the point of sale time and location; (8) a Conxpmer Rewdoyaty system: which rewards a consumer/purchaser with a portion of the commission fee charged to the seeing Smerchant and also rewards consumers for helping refer new consumer and merchant members The system and method provides consumers with a one-stop online place where consumers locate sales ffers that meet their needs, which refers these influenced consmers to buy from publishing netchants losing any eating means of purchasing payment. The system also profit shares with consumers by rewarding those who report purchases as results of using the referral service. 10) For the service providerthe system and method provides a service that ficilitates merchants and consumers to make purchase engagements based on usefid and meaningful sales offers and accommodates existing technologies and means used in merchant selling, consumer buying, and payment settling. The system and method effectively tracks resulted purchase transactions fn using. the service without requiring technology integration I between the service providerand merchants or requiring upggadi of merhantexisting merchandising systems The system and method provides an online marketplacethat lins consumers, who are seeking specific products or servicesat specific times and locations merchants, who offer needed products or services at specific times and locations. The system and method also 20 universally tracks purchase transactions occurred between publishing merchants and referred consumers, regardless whether they occurred online (at web stores) or offlite (at brick-nd mortar sore), or what types of payment that are used. (cash check, credit/deb't card.etc) Each participating merchant decides a service fee to pay to the service provider for each purchase transaction accomplished through the referral service, and the merchant s only 2$ charged after the transaction is accomplished This invention also does profit shaking with referred consumers, i oe. fo each transaction made by a consumer froM the referral service, the consumer gets a reward in monetary value. Brief Descriptico of the Drawintg Figure illustrates an exemplary implementation of the architecture of a system for a 30 consumer referral and reward system; WO t007fl1M3n PCTVUS2%0t)$-0841 9 figure 2 illustrates an example of a purchase transaction workfow when using the system shown in Figure 1; Figure 3 lustrates an example of a transactionrporting record frw the system shown in Figure 1; 5 Figue 4 illusattes an example of a merchant database schema for the swstm shown in Figure; Figure 5 ilhstratesan example of a consutmier database schema for the system shown in Figure I Eigure 6 illustrates an example of a transaction database schema for te system shown Itt in FigRe N Figure inustraes a service mode of the system shown in Figure 1; and Figure 8 illustrates a syndicationdel ofv he system shown in Figume DetailedDescription of One or More Exemplary mbodiment The invention is implemented, in the e emphuy embodiment, in a web-based 15 client/server architecture consumer referral and reward system and it is in this context that the system. and meth d wil be described; It will be appreciated, however, that the system and method has greater utility since the system and mthod can be implemented in other manners and with other architectures that are within the scope of the system. In the flowing description, certain details are set forth in order to provide a thorough 20 understanding of various embodiments of systems and methods, However, one of skill in the art wil understand that other embodinents may be priced without these details. In other instances, werknown structures and methods associated with computer and communication systems, the communication networks, etc, have not been shown or described, in detail to avoid unnecessarily obscring descriptions of the present invention and embodiments 25 Unless the context requires otherwise, throughout the specification and claims which follow, the word 'komnprise" and variations thereot such as "comprising,- and "comprises" are to be construed in an open, inckluswe sense, that is as "including, but not limited to," Reference throughout this specification to "one embodireintj or "an embodiment* means that a particular feature described in connection with the embodiment is included in at WO Th007/7.13 PCTVUS2%0t)$-0414 least one embodimten Thus, the appearances of the phases "in one embodimentor "in an embodiment" invarious places throughout this specification are not necessarily referdig to the same embodiment, or to all embodinments. Furthermore, the particular features may be combined in any suitable manner in one or more embodiments to obain further embodiment 5 The headings are provided for convenience oJyand do not interpret the scope of this disclosure or the aimed invention The system and its co ponen functions nay incluem (1) a Commission Trackinand 10 Billing Svstent a merchant pays a portion of the sales transaction value ("commission") to the service provideras consideration for delivering the ad driven referral, (2) atomsg Bidding Svsterw merchants engage in competitive bidding with eah other, driving up the commission raat (from an established minimum), to pay for a greater portion of refrras in competitive market situations); (3) a real-time an d on-demand Merchant Offer Pauklshing I5 ygstema computer basedself-serve system that works with a plurality of merchants' business commnuication channels including the web, the wieess, phone, and fax, that facilitates the creation and submission by merchants to either (a) advertise for a specific product or servce, or (b) deliver non-tem or non-service specificinformation intended to promote increased consumer traffic to stors (as opposed to driving a specificsale item or 20 service as in (a)), such as having a visiting chef or musician at a restaurant special parking space availablityaccelerated service response time. Also an offer published my contain a "frame" that is a nmber of constraints appliable to the offer, inclding time, location. consumer target etc. The Merchant Publishing $ystem rests in automated web based publishing in near real-rime using commercially available digital map user interface; (5) A 25 Online Advertisine Targeting System: which uses time, physical location and customer provided input (from stored customer interest profits, ser queries or presubscried needs to sevice provider) to determine advertising relevance which in turn is used to target advertising only at interested consumers ;(6) A computer based Ofe ivD0 Sy3g-a system for publishing targeted merchant others to inquiring consumers using a plurality of penal 30 conmmunication channel, including the inteet wireless cable channels, phonefax, and mail; (7) a Qai e lgl4Qd Tpaing. system that faciltates the capture and mexrding of cash, credit or stored valuc transaction card based purchase either at or near the point of K Nln 7 WO 2007/w 13 PCT!S2%710)8414 sale time and location; (8) a Consume r rdfLo system which rewards a consumer/purchaser with a portion of the commission fee ch arged to the sell ing merchant and also rewards consumrens fr helping rufer new consumnetr a-nd merchant members. These functions of the system are provided by the components and tasks that are described in M ore S detail below with reference to Fignre L A service model of the system shown in Figure I is shown in Figure 7 while a syndication model of the system shown in Figure I is shown in Figure & The system and method involves these parties- a serve provider, a plurality of merchants who sell produetslservces a phuality of consumers who buy prcdacts/services 10 and optionaly a plurality of payment processors who setwes purchase payments The merchant affiliated with the sysem (the -MchNtAffiliates") publish and update their specific Nales offers in real time to the service provider. Consumers find specific sales offers that meet their needs a he time and location when and where they are needed from the service provider The consumer who accepts the merchant offer (the "Referred Consumer") 15 is then referred. o merchants to buy needed products or services. The service provider tracks purchase transactions between merchant affiliates and referred consumers The service provider charges the merchant affiliate selling a prduct/service based on the refera, a cormnission service fee for each settled purchase transaction originated from the referral service, and uses a portion of the commission service fee to reward the referrd conmnmer 20 who buys the productservice through the referral service Fig I illustrates twe componn structure of the transaction-settled consumer eferra and reward service system and method. At the highest leel the system consists of three compo nents:a Service Provi'der Component 01 and two remote componentsza Merchant Component 201 and a Consumer Component 401 Each of these components is described 25 briefy bely and then described in more details. In the exemplary embodiment, the components, units and modules shown in Figure 1 are implemented in softwam in which each module, component or module has a plurality of lines of computer code that when erecated by a processing unit, perform the functions and operations desribed below, In the exemplary embodiment, a service provider component 30 101 (and its unit and modules) is implemented as one or more server computers with one or more processing units, memory and connectivity wherein the computer code of the ele ents of the service provider component 101 are executed by the processing units ofthe one or WO 200775i13 PCT!US2%710$84 more server computers, In the emmplary embodiment, a merchant component 201 is implemented as a computer system (located at the merchant site if the merchant supports this inerface) that e"tec ues computer code of the merchant interface 203 to implement the merchant interface, but may also be a phone line or facsimile line that permits the merchant to 5 interact with the service provider. Similarly, the consumer component 401 may be a computer system that displays a user interface such as by sing a typical browser application that execuna lines of computer code (HTML code in the exemplary embodiment to implement a consumer interface 403, - Service Provider Component 101 10 This is the main functional component of the system The service provider uses this component to interact with both remote components 201 and 401 and accomplishes the objects of the systeM. 2. Merchant Component 201 This componert is a remote component that runs at the merchant side, facilitating 15 needed communications between each of a pIrality of merchants 501 and the Service Provider Component 101. 3. Consumer Component 401 This component is a remote component that mas at the consumer side, facilitatang needed communications between each of a plurality of consumers 502 and the Service 20 Provider Componet t0 L A consumer is an individual human being that is capable of buying and paying for goods and services offered by merchants. To the service provider, a consumer becomes a member consumer after registering with the system Once the system authenticates a -mrember consumer, this consumer becomes a logged in consumer. The logged-in consumer is the one who can perform all supported consumer tasks described below associated with the 25 system. CQponpment Straure 1, Service Provider Component 101 The Service Provider Component contains three services: a Merchant Service111 a Consumer Service 171 and a Transaction Service 151, Each of these services is described 30 below in more detail.

WO 20w7/13 PCTAU2%7100$14 V Merchant Service 111 'This is the module in the ServiceYovider Component 01 that is responsible for serving merchants (denoted by Merchant 50I) through the Merchant Component 201 that is directly ed by Merchant 50 The Merchant Service corm iiates with the remote 5 Merchant Component 201 to accomplish the merchant-serving tas described below, A, Merchant Tasks I Merchant Registration Task iBefore a merchant can publish his offers using the system. the merchant isquired to register using a registration module 121 that is part of a merchant front end 12. Through the 10 registration process the merchant gives the service provider timeinvariable information abct the merchant and the business, including but not limited o business name, location, means of contact, business description, etc. Once registered, he becomes a merchant affiliae, and a merchant account and proNie is created for him. After this oneimne registration, the merchant uses his own credentiaWs (such as a unique merchant 11) and password) to identify I 5 himself to the service providers ii., Sales Offer Authoring Task A merchant affiate publishes or updates his sales oftTers (dhuagh an offer authoring module 122 in the merhant front end I 12) that are specific to particular locations and times. He can do so at any time when necessary. For exampk, a Seattle restaurant affiliate n 20 author an offer in the afrnoon time about a dinner special for the evening of te same day. The offer may include name of th dish' a description an inage, today's special price, and hours this social is offered. The service provider rns automated approval pmcesses and approved offers are published in reamiime to consumers iii. Service Commission Specification Task 25 Before any sales offers can be published to consumers, a merchant is required t specify a service commission on a pertransaction basis through a commission specification module 123 of the merchant front end 112, The service provider charges the merchant affiliate a specified commission for each purchase transactions originated fom the referred consumer to this merchant A merchant affiliate can update (re-specify the service 30 commission at any time, The service provider may publish a lower bound minimn for tach WO Th007/i17.13 PCTVUS2%00)$-084 merchant, or by merchant industry category, merchandising category, sales location, or CTntmined If such a minimum is specified, all merchant-specified commissions must be equal to or higher than the published lower bound. omission Bidding 5 The service commission car be determined, in one embodiment, using a comnissaon bidding process. The bidding prOcess may permit a ser'iCe provider (SP) to spec a plurality of minimum values for sales commission fees By defeat, each qualified sales from a member merchant wil be charged the pre-specified minimum. Each sales commission fee may be specified based on one ar more of the Tfolowing criteria: 1) types of charges that may 10 include at least a) a commission based as a percentage of the tansaction value; or b) a commission as a fxed e per transaction, regadless of the actual transaction value; 2) merchant location that can have a location hierarchy, such as a) CountryVS; b) State Washingto; and ) City Redmond and, for each location, the SP can specify a specific minimum commission merchant business category that can have a caegory hierarchy I5 such as level I Automotive, level 2 =Repair and leve 3 Body Repair;4) a time period so that he SP can change the mininmms at any giving timesuch as weekday % and weekend 2%, and there can he multiple ime dimensions working together such as dimension :Day of Week and dimension 2: Day Part, etc; and 5) type of saks or buyers(targeted commission) wherein the SP supports merchants to select different targeted commissions, such as a 20 Regular Buys commission that pay the sane commission far each buy and a New Buyers commission tti 'pay SP a higher commission for each new customer The system permits each service provider SP to allow and encourage local merchants to bid up their commissions abo the specified and applied minimum values to gainpreferential consumer referrals A portion of these commissions may also be shared as a 25 loyaly incetive by the service with the consumer by crediting their membership cards. As an example,assume that there are two Chinese restaurants A and B in the proximity to each other, offering the same type and quality of food with the satne level of the service. Further assume that restaurants A and B specify to SP that they will pay 2% and % respectively for each sale that mslts from a referred consumer; When a consumer in the neighborhood 30 searches for "unch specials in a Chinese restaant" (assiing that umch specials from A and B are similar),due to the higher commission SP expects to receive fom A, SP elects to promote A to the searching consumer more heavilytesg. higher ranking in display order or EaM\7 mt9 WO T007/17$1 PCTVS2%)$-i41 higher number of ad display impressions) than are offered to P, One of many ways ofthis preferntial referral is to display restrant A's offe more prominently on a digital map based user ii if the searching user is using textual search. SP can rank A higher than B on the returned result list The service may allow a muerchantr to update its commission to the 5 SP at any trme using any of the supported publishing methods (ieweb intrface or call center) The service may also provide commission optmization suppo wherein te SP may pnovde business intelligence data to constantly hep member merchants optimize (select the best commisson structure and values),reflecting current market competition and consumer behavior, for ales maximization The data provided to merchants shall be aggregated and t) only includes anonymous information that protects consumer privacy For instance, Sp may suggest a rnerchant raieits commission to the market average to increase sales iv. Performance and Business Intelligene(B) Reporting Task The service provider (using a report and M nodule 124 in the merchant front end 112) provides merchant affiliates with two leves of reporting: the performance reporting and 15 the BM repoting The performance reporing is the standard level reporting service to merchant affiliates that is focused on the performance of the published sales offers (such as number of transactions from referred cons'amer The 31 reporting is the premium level reporting that includes market intelligence on competitors, consumers, and salesFor example. the BTK report giveseach merchant affiate 20 an effective measure on each offeraive to other offers from the same merchant This report also evaluates the effectiveness of the mnerchanspecified commission rlative to the merchant's competitors in the same market, which helps the merchant affiliate to adjust the service commission if necessary v Billing Task 25 This task (iapemented using a billing module 12$ in the merchant front end 112) enables the service provider to bill merchant affiliates on successful purchase transactions from referred consumers. Once the service provider validates a purchase transaction accomplished between a merchant affihate and a referred consumer, this task is executed to charge this selling merchant affiliate with the pre-deined service commission. 30 Rt. Merchant Service Functional Modules WO w007751 PCT!S20t)$-414 As depicted in Fig. , the Merchant Service III consists of three functional modules that work together to accomplish the above-metioned me hant service tasks. These modules are the Merchant Front End 112, a Merchant Management rodu le 113,and a Merchant Data mobile 14. 5 i. Merchant Front End module 112 This is the modu e through which merchant interacts with the Merchant Service of the service provider to accomplish the abovemenoned merchant tasks It contains one functional unit for each of the merchant tasks, namely, a. Registration unit 121 10 This element allows merchants to self register with the system and become merchant membe-&t(aka merhant affiliates) The registration unit may be implemented in sofhvare and may perform registration steps that include ctreaing a nerchant account with owner credenials. The unit also allows the merchant affiliate to create a plurality of business associates and assign them with credentials. Durng the registration, a merchant signing up 15 also specifieS the transaction tracking options, such as credit card terminal tracking, service provide's own virtual terminal tracking, manual taking, etc In this process the billing procedure is set up so that the service provider ean prperly charge and withdraw funds for commissions eamed The registration process also includes initialization steps in whh the registering 20 merchant creates a business profile, initially sets up commission and consumer reward plan(s) During the registration process, the new merchant may also elect to create andi publish any special offers as well as creating and publishing the entiremerhandizng catalog (tamed as regulars or regular offers in the system). The registration element works with all supported Merchantlnerfces 203, including 25 via intenet on desktop computers and mobil devices In addition to the exemplary software implementation described above memhants can also use other means of business communications (such as telephone faxi, or mail) for assisted registration, in which the service provider completes the actual registratin on behalf of the signing merchant, either in near real time such as over the phone or offline or in near real-time such as upon receiving a paper 30 form filed by the merchant in fax or mail. Thus, the merchant chooses the easiest way to regiser with the service provider limited by the MerchantInterface 203 to which the WO Th007i 7diJ PCTUS207Sf!00844 w17 merchant has access so that the system can be used by merchants with different interfaces inchiding online merchants and offline merchants b, Ofkr Authoring unit 122 This element may be Lmppemented as a component of system software that allows 5 merchants in a self-serve mode o create, update, and publish their offers. An ot er cart be a static bIness profile, senidstatic regular merchandising information, and dynamic (changing wit time or oniy valid in a specified time period) special o'ers The offer authoring software may be implemented in a plurality of formats to accommodate supported MerchantInterface 203including web and mobile publishing, Alternatively, it may be implemented in live 10 assistedfmode, fonexatpe when the service provider through a call-center. assists merchants via telephone call as they complete the publishing of an offer or the constraints associated therewith using Merchant Interface 203. Through the assisted Inode of merchant sefpubiishing, intemet access by the originating merchant is not required, making it possible for offline merchants (brick id motar businesses without any web or intemet presence), to 15 still benefit by using they system. c. Commission Specification unit 123 This is an element in the system thataows merchants, at any time, to specify and update their cornnnission offers (within a given set of constraints), for each subsequent qualifted transaction made by service provider member contaruers. As with other system 20 elements described so fi, the commission specification software may support a plurality of Merchant Interface 202 such as via internet or via mobile I additin to workingin a merchant self-serve rnu*el and being inpleementd as a software based service this system element may also work in a service provider-assisted mode, in whichthe service provider creates or updates the commission on behalf of the 25 oiginating merchant Per example as an alternative to using theservice provider software, the merchant can simply use histelephone (or fax) to contact the service providers callcenter and verbally update his commission offer (which is entered as change to his account in the service provider database), d, Report & BI unit 124 30 This is an element in the system that generates business reports to member merchants, perforns data mining across all logged data, and makensuggestions to merchants on how to WO 2wi7i113 PCTAU20t)$-414 improve their sales based o n an automated analysis of the stoord data. This element covers botdmerchant salestrnsaction bookkeeping and optimization Basic reports may cover transaction nd related emotional offer activities, specifying or suggesting ther causal relationship (which may be based on a statistical 5 approach and/or tine based association). Basic reports cover merchantsales commission charges, consumer rewards offer creationupdating and relationship between the foregoing based on timing, Advanced (premium) report/intelligence may be produced as a result of fudTher mining the logged historical da.. Based upon the analysis (intelligence) the service provider has the abiliy of mang sales optimization suggestions to merthants For example 10 the provider may suggest to a merchant to inease teir commission ofer t drive more consumer traffic as a means of fending off an ecroaching competitor. Both basic (standard) reports and BI (premium reports) may be provided with or without a fee. el Billing unit 125 This is a system element responsible for calcuating, charging and collecting 15 commission fee from member merchants It may include realtime charging (charge at transaction tme) and delayedIbatch charging (recurring monthly bilIing, for example)In a reabdime charging scenario, the system collects the proper fec directly at the point of time when a qualified trnsaction occurs' In an oftine charging scenario, the system bills the sling merchant the co mission fees payable and collects fees from the merchant on a 20 regular basis To each member merchantuch capabilities of the Billing unit depend on the3$ party Payment Processor) tIhis merChant uses The B lling works with a plurality of Payment Processor 504 nplementations hi reaktime killing, it may work with (without limilstion to) credit card processor, debitd pro processorprepaid charge card processor, electronic check 23 processor party membership processor, networked PointofSale (PO3) systems, etc In offline billing, it may work (without limitation to) cash paper check non networked POS systems, etc. iL. Merchant Data module 114 This module contains persistent databases that store data for the Merchant Service. In 30 particular, this sub-module contains a collection of data sets for serving merchants The stored data is managed by a Merchant Managenent sab odle 11 and meet' the data needs WO w0077$.1 PCTVS209$-i41 for system esments in the Merchant Front Ends 112 subimodulo, An example of the schema for an exemplary merchant database is shown in Figure 4. The meber database of the merchant datamodule may include: a. Profile database 141 5 This database stores the time-invariant merchant data obtained through the registration process. In more detail, this is the data set that stores merchant account and profile information, including but not limited to owner account and credentials, associate accounts and credentials Business profile data contains least frequenty changing business descriptions, such as business name, location, logo, business hours, contact information, etc. 10 This data set also stors merchant set-up configurations for transaction tracking and billing, This data set may also store a merchant rating and/or a merchant "rcommendation These may be issued by consumers that have completed valid sales transactions with a particular merChant (to minimize erroneous or fudulent rating entries). Merchant ratings (or "recommendations")may be shared in a plurality of ways between consumers, either within 1$ the service provider site, or in established 3 party social networks such as b, Authored Offer database 142 This database stores all sales offers authored by merchant affiliates, Merchants also write to this database when updating their offrrs. This data set stores descriptions and the 20 status of at least two types of offers: regular offers and special offers. A regular offer is a data item that describes less frequntly changing product or service items) with less frequently changing pricing (if any). A collection of regular items may be, for example, a menu in food and drinking service industries, a catalog in retail, etc, The Authored Offer data set may also contain special offers, Which are short-term 25 offerings from merchants with a limited valid time period. A temporary price reduction in milk for today before the store is cioscd is one example of special ofrA. It should be noted that offers may or may not be tied to pricing or pricing changes (discownting etc), An offhr can be any message for attracting consumer to a place of business, It may contain generic, non item or discount slated information (seh as free hot 30 dogs), which the merchant uses to increase customer traffic, Another example of a generic rmM M",.

WO h007/7513 PCT!US2%0t)$-04i4 promotion is a restaurant owner who may wish to pubI an offerof free parking or about a ~special guest chef e (7CrmisOn database 143 This database stores seice commissions specified by merchant afliates. The data 5 set contains a &ollection of ecrnmission specifications authored by member merchants. A commission specification sets a monetary amount which maybe a percentage ofa qnalified saes transaction or a fixed value per transaction, to be charged by the service provider to the selling memberrerchart also includes set of transaction qualification criteria, such as time period, target sales, target buys, etc. One instantiaton may be a 1% commission for 10 each Sales trasacton, andanother may be $5,00 for each transaction whicn may also be time 'Onstamine4 to a etain period such as applying only to tansactions occurring between specifed cakndar dates. There my be other ernbodiments of commission specificationsas long as service provider receives payment as a resul of bringing sales to thesseing merchant, In all cases the service provider may require a minimum vate for each type of 15 commsion specifications For example, the provider may require that the minimum commission be no less than the greater of 1% or $0.50 The system allows nrihants to id up their commission specifications for preferential consumer refterr. In essence, the provider will promote merchant A more heavily to consumers than merchant FI when merchant A specifies a higher commission to the provider, and provided that all other 20 conditions are the same d' Performance database 144 The Merchant Service continuously tracks all aspects of performance of the published ofers and storesthe performance dat in this database. This data set contains merchant business performance data, including but not limited to the following transaction records 25 (processed data from Transaction 162.) buyer data offer delivery data, causal relationship (along time and other dimensions) of sales and olering events. In addition to raw records, it may also contain derived bigherdevel B1 data and conehsion&s e Billing database 145 This is the database that stores billing related data for each merchant affiliate, 30 iiii Merchant Management meodule la3 WO 200~7/i17513 PCTVUS2%)$-1814 This is the centralfntional nodule of the Merchant Service 111. where all needed logic and processes are implemented to accomplish the merchant tasks. This module takes merchant inputs front and sends merchant bound information to the Merchant Front End modu e . Also, this module reads from and writes persistent menhant data to the databases in 5 the Merchant Data module 114 This sub-module controls work flow of tasks performed by different elements in the Merchant Front End when necessary. t also centrally manages the dats operations for data safety and security for the Merchant Service z11 module. Another fumcdonaity of this sub module is to communicate with peer management sub-ruodules in other modules of the 10 Service Provider Component 101, namely, the Transaction Management Module 159 and the Consumer Management Module 173, for data transport and task synchronization when necessary. One easy authentication example that demonstrates the flow control of this sub module is to prohibit mercbanrenber-nly tasks,such as Offer Authoring 122, 15 Commission Spefication 123, Report & BlI4and Biling 12$ from being execdd by nonregistered users that may be attempting to use the Merchant bnterface, Service Provider administrators also use this sub-module to centrally manage the Merchant Service I Iin addion, the Service Provider's merchant support team works through this management sub-module to help merchants and to complete merchantrelated 20 tasks in provider-assisted mode. Numerous examples of the merchant flow and the merchant user interfaces of the service described above and below ae provided in Appendix A that forms parts of this description. 2. Consumer Service 17 2S The Consumer Service helps consumers to locate needed otTers and refers consumers to purchase the service/product from a merchant afiUate who made the offer. It also rewards consumers based on purchase transactions they completed. TheConsumer Service performs three consumer-related tasks namely, Registation, Referral, and Reward The service provider serves consmners (denoted as Consumer 502) with this module through Consumer 30 Component 401 that runs at the consumer side. A. Consumer Tasks WO w007/17$1 PCTVS200 )$-841 22 i Consumer Registation Task Consumers who would like to eam rewards self register using registration module 18 1 that is part of a consumer front end 172. By executing this task, the service provider creates a secure account fox each registered consumer A consumer uses his account credentials to S identify himself with the service provider once registered A registered consumer is entitled to receive rewards from the service provider, During the registration, a consumer may have an option to request that the service povider directly forward the reward to a 3'-party deposit account (such as a bank account he/she designates a authorized chart oro some other legitinate contribution which may even include purbasing equity participation in the service 10 ptrider business. Typically, the consumer wil elect (by system defaudO o spend his rewards as discounts on future purcases from in-nctworkmerchant affiliates. iit Consumer Refeal Task Thiis task (implemented using a referral module 82 in the consumer front end 172) accepts and processes consumer inputs describing a need (or item search request) including t5 the product or service category of the need, time and location constraints, etc. It then searches published others and returms to the consumer the best matching offerss. The service provider then provides a plMity of methods (via user interface) to direct the consumer to the merchant's physical location, or in the ease ofa service provider, (iie. a plumbing service), the system may direct he mercbant uo the consumer. 20 iii, Consumer Reward Task Once the service provider validates (substantiates that a valid sales transaction has occurred between a merchant affiliate and a referred consumer, the Consumer Reward Task is executed to reward te buying consumer with a monetary value. K Consumer Functional Modules 2$ The Consumer Service consists of four functional modules: the Consumer Front End 172. a Consumer Management rodde 173, a Merchant Data module 174 and a Consumer Data modIle 175, i. CnsumrFront End module 172 565m5s1 WO ti{7/0M3 PC~IUS2%71t!0084i4 23 Thisis the module that the Consmer Service uses to interact with Consumers It contains three functional units, each serving one of the above-nentioned Consumer Service tasks. a. Registration unit 181 Thi is the front-end component that consumers interact with to register their unique identification and account information. This function also keys the unique identification number on their ember card to their account and serves to track the source of their card so that the service can track the source that referred them into the network (a key part of the incentive rwardsystem that promotes merchant and consumer membership referrals) An 10 example of the data flow in this process is: Account creation, Member cratien, Reward Distribution Set-up. and Membership Exchange. In this implementation, a new user fist creates a consumer account Be may then add one or n individual members to the account Members share the account but are assigned with different member ILs. Being in the same account, they may colectively pool their 1$ rewards together. A this step, consumers can set up their ID aliasessuch as using their phone numbers or email addresses as ahlises tothe official member ID The next step is to let the service provider know the way to distribute reward for this account. There is a plurality of ways that the service provider supports reward distribution, including but not limited to using reward for next purchase There may also he multiple su-options; fmr example: a, closed 20 lop transactionrestrictioni-e. using reward as future discounts onlyat the issuing merchant b. opend'oop transaction, le., using reward as feature discounts at other inonetwork merchants as welldistributing reward as Cash, distributing rewad as direc deposis into specified financial institution, directing rewards to Y" panics such as authorized charitiesesignated savings account 3 lottery pools investments (including but not limited to equity purchases in 25 the service provider etc 1te ast step in ths tlertaio is tntnbersip exchange. By Completingths member consumer's membership is associated with memberships in other consumer networks (eg, credit cards, grocery carsa etc Wen making a qualified purchase registered crdit cards or groceryctrs can be reognized and used as proof of consumer membership, 30 b, Referral unit 182 WO 200MU/ND751 PCIVUS20t)$-814 w24 This is the f wtnd componenthat consumers interact with for the purpose of tracking and validating the identity of the person (consumer or merchant member) that referred them to join the system This element utilizes merchant data, consumer requirements issued (drough Consumer Interface 403 for example)consumer profile data sets a stored in S the consumer data module 175, to find matching merchants and offers, and deliver the resuhiag inafornation to the consumerIf consumer is interested in the Otfer he may go to the merchansphysical location to transact a purchase. Merchant data used by the referrAl unit182 may include profile data, reward levels (reward being a portion of specified commission), offers (regulars and specials), as well as 10 other merchant demographics and shopping behavioral data, Consamer needs requirements) data acquired by the system may include item description (as expressed as keywords o concepts), location proniity (either maially input or detected on computing device am ing the Consumer Interface 403), when (a timea constraint indicating when the item is required) price range (of the product or service IS seeking>review/ratings (of the selling merchant andorproducts/services being offered) a. Users may be permitted to customize or to set preferences for the user interface that tailor it to the way they like to enter data (i~e. may set default field values, reorder the input firm, etc,). A consumer need may be given or captured. A need submitted to the service provider by consumer is said to be "given"; whereas a need detected by the service provider is said to 20 be captured" A number of data mining (DM) and information retrieval (1M) algorithms may be applied to rank offers and offering merhants by the given need.n the systems one factor considered by such an algorithm is the merchantscommissif specifications. The service provider more heavily prootes consner traffic (or features with greater frequency or more 25 prominence the merchants display ad) as compared to merchant offers for a similar item or service that offer a lower commission level. Theeferml unit 182 may support both "soft referrals" and "hard referrals." A soft referral is considered successful and valid when a sates transaction is completed between a member merchant and a member con~sumsrser, regardless of whether this transaction is directly 30 the result of a specifically advertsed item or service A hard referral in contrast, requires a proof of a specific offering from the merchant before a transaction can be made. Merchants WO 200~7/i175.D PCy7U52%0t)$-84 25 may determine which means of referrals to use; and this information may be published to the conmners c_ Reward unit 184 This is the front-end component interacting with consumers for the reward task This component is also capable of wiring (electronically transferring or ddivering) consumer rewards with a consumer-specified Reward Depositary SO5 (wch a bank accounts) In partieular, thi system element executes the consumer rewarding progmrmbased on each consumer's qualified purchases. in one implementation the provider specifies a fixed ratio between reward and commission. That is, the provider always returns a fixed portion of the 10 received commission fee from the member seeing merchant to the buying member consumer For illustration's sakewe assumed this ratio is13 in this application In this implementation, the reward steps go as fOttnows: 1. A meenber consumer makes a qualified purchase from a member merchant 2. The service provider charges the selling merchant a commission fee at the pre 15 specified evel or ratio, 3. The selling merchant pays the commission fee 4, The service provider forward 1/3 of the received fe ts the baying consumer as the reward for this purchase he made in step 1, The Reward 184 element also distributes rewards carted by consumers to specified 20 Reward Depository 505, as specified in the consumer Registration I81 element ii Merchant Data Module 174 The Merchant Data Module in Consumer Service stores the data from merchant published otters I 91 that are used to respond to consumer requests resulting in referrals to qualifying merchants, This module may contain a cache of merchant data that is used by 25 consumer-related tasks. An example of the database schema for a consumer database is show inFigre . Tis odue contains the Published Offer database 191 Which is a copy. either physical or logical, of the Authored Offer Database 142 in Merchant Data modaleM 14 of the Merchant Service 11 It contains offers that are proved by the service provider, whih are available to consumers, 30 i Constmer Data Module 175 WO 2w57i 1713 PCTVUS2%7100)414 26 This is another data sub-module under Consumer Service 171, containing consumer profile and behavioral data It may also store persistent consumer data, including two logical data bases: a consumer database 192 and a Reward database 193, a. Consumer database 192 5 This database contains information for registemd consunmea including a profile, account credentials, reward depository designation, etc. It may also contain behavioral data over timeas well as derived business intelligence data and findings. b, Reward database 193 This database contains reward history for registered consumers who received rewants 10 fron the service provider The data set contains reward records in lieu of transaction data stored in Transaction 162 data setThis data set provides the basisfor consumer rewarding iv Consumer Management Module 173 This module is the central management uodule for the Consumer Service 171 where all consumer-related logic and algorithms are implemented. t communicates with the 15 Consumer Front End module to get from and send data to consumers alo centrally manages the data ope rations for data safety and scurity for its parnt the Consumer Service 151 module and thus writes to and reads fom the Merchant Data module 174 and the Consumer Data 175 module The Consumer Management Module also communicates with other member services of the system in the Service Provider Component 101 namely, the 20 Merchant Managemet Module 113 and the Transaction Management Module 173, for data transport and task synchronization when necessary. For example, this mod ie connects with the Merchant Management module 113 in Merchant Service ill for synchronizing the Published OfTer database 191 with the Authored Offer database 142, as well as passing information from the Consmer Data module 17$ to Metbant Service for miehiant reporting 25 and billing purposes. The Consumer Management module also has a direct connection to the Transaction Management module 159 of the Transaction Service IS for transaction'consumer-reiated data exchanges. Service Provider administrators also use this sub-module to centrally manage the Consumer Service 17U1 In addition, the Service Prvider' consumer support team works 30 through this management sub-module to helpconsm ers ad to complete consumer-related tasks in provider-assisted mode, WO 20It$D~f 751 PCIVUS2%710t)84iM Numerous examples Of the consunel flow and the consuMer user interfaces of the service described above and below are provided in Appendi-K that forms pars of this description. 3. Transaction Service 15 i 5 In the prefered embodint of this invention tbe service provider does not control or own the actual purchase transaction; and this system module under the Service Provider Component 101 deals with purchase tansactions between merchants and consumers A selling merchant and a buying consrner can complete a pwrlasa transactoca anywhere (online or ofiinel by any means of payment (cash, checkeredi card debit cardetc 10 However, the system tacks, validates, and records those qualifying transactions that occurred between merchant affiliates and registoed consumers in order fr e service provider to correctly charge the selling merchant with a commission fee and pass on a portion of the fee to the buying consumer as a reward incentive. The Tranmaction Service consists of the following tasks to track, validate and record qualifying transaction: 15 A. Transaction Tasks i. Transaction. Integration Task This task (implemented using an integration module 153 that is part of a transaction front end module 152) integrates transaction tracking wit eetronic means of payment settlement through a plurality of$Paymnents Processors 504. A payment processor can be owned 20 by the merchant or by a 3Apany payment clearing house, or is an online or mobile payment service provider. With the consent of a merchant affiiate, the service provikr executes the Transaction Itegration Task to integrate the Transaction Service wih anyall of the electronic payMent processors the merchant uses, Once integrated, the service provider instantly tracks occurred transactions settled by any of the integrated setters, 25 Note the system also tracks transactions through payment systems not integrated with the service provider, An integrated tacking captures a transaction in real time at the point when the transaction occurred, whereas in a nonintegrated tracking scenario the buying constuner may report the occauned transaction after it has occured, ii. Transaction Tracking Task WO w001/1751 PCTVS200)$-841 This task (implemented using a tmcking module 154 of the transaction front end module 152) tracks ptrchase transactions that ocmed between a merchant affiliate and a referred consumer. When a payment processor is integrated with the Transaction Service, the processor transmits information of a qualifying transaction to the Transaction Service in an $ automated fashion For example, suppose this task is integrated with a credit card payment Clearing house. In this case, the service provider tracks all transactions instantly when they are settled by this clearing house. This task also tracks those purchase transactions, whose means of payment are either not electronic or not integrated with the service provider:The system facilitate consumer 10 initiated tracking methods, in which the buying consumer (or the seeing merchant on behalf of the consumer) reports the occurred transaction to the service provider after it the payment is settled. By supporting both integrated and manual transaction tracking, the system can provide its services to al mercants and consumers regardless of the specific means of payment 5 settlement iii, Transaction Valkasaion Tas-k Once a purchase transaction is reported by the Transactic a Tracking Task, it is forwarded to the Transaction Validation Task (implemented using a validation module 155 in the transaction front end 152) to validate the transactionThis task is necessary to minimize 20 fraudulent transaction reporting In this task, the service provider of the system tests the truthfulness of a tracked transaction based on the transaction information reported ivn Transaction Recording Task This task (implemented using a recording module 156 in the transaction front end 152) receives information of validated transactions fra the Transaction Validation Task, and 2S records the information about this transaction into the prsstent Transaction database. After a transaction is recorded by the service provider the sewice provider bills the seing merchant for a service fee and rewards the buying consumer with a monetary value. M Transaction Functional Modules WO tl007/i 17g13 PCTVUS207109$8414 The Transaction Service Component consists of these modules for executing above mentioned tnsaction tasks the Transaction Front-End module 152, a Transaction Management module 159, and a Transacton Data module 161, . Transaction Front-End Module 132 5 This modile interacts with merchant, consumer, and payment processor for tnsaction tracking, This is a system sub-modue obtaining a set of system elements that communicates with the Merchant Component 201, Consumer Component 401, and Payment Processor 504 for tracking, validating and rcoiding sals transactions, it contains functional units. one for each corresponding transaction task: 10 a integration unit 153 This unit mtegrates with the Payment Processor 504 for automated transaction reporting and conains a plurality of software modAues, each works with a different Payment Processor 504, for tracking qualified transactions made thmr the Paymen Processo 504. For example, the toegration element may work with and track transactions ocurred on 3tparty 15 credit card terminals, provide's own tracking tenmina, and mual cash transactions. Pieces of the software may be embedded in payment processor hardware. This element works to ensure that the Payment Processor in use works correcdy with the Tracking 154 element b Tracking unit 154 This unit works with Payment Processor 504 for automated transaction tracking or 20 works with consumers via the Consumer interface 403 and with merchants via the Merchant Interface 203 for manual tansaction/sales tracking. It has three categories of implementation: direct tracking from merchant via Merchant Interface 203, indirect tracking fIom 3" party Payment Processor 504, and direct tracking from Consumer interface 403. A merchant muay use provider finished Merchant interface 203 track sales 25 transactions In this scenarioThe Tracking element154 directy receives authenticated transaction data from Merchant IntIerface 203 The Tracking ekeent 154 may also work with a plurality of 3#-party Payment processors. In this scenario it receives transaction data from supported Payment Pressor(s) 504, after the Payment Processoris integrated with the Integration 153 element The Tracking EWM2 99.

WO 2007/i i713 PCTMU2%00$-0414 element pumps data through the Validation element 155. Through the Integation 153 Tracking works with a pknality of Payment Processos 504, The Tracking element , $4 may also work with Consmer Interface 403 for transaction tracking. An example will he covered later in this section $ The Tracking software supports two types of ansaction tracking eal-time or offline, In real-time tracking, the software aning on Payment Prcessor 504 passes necessary data to the Tracking element 154 at the time a transaction occurs. AN subsequent options (Validation 55, Recording 156) a0so occarred in ral time The end effet s that this transaction as tacked, validated and recorded as it happens. Real-time transaction tiaking requires 10 software integration. Another type of Trackinag 154 is offne tracking, which may or may not require software or integration. For example, in case of a cash transaction between hands of a selling merchant and a buying consumer, the service provide r may implement a set of user interface in Consumer Interface 403 to work on internet or mobile devices, so that the buyer can report 15 the occurred transaction aner it has happened to the provider via a Web page, an email, or a short message on mobile devices, . Validation unit155 'This unit tests the truthfulness of tracked transaction based on the reported transaction data forwarded front the Tracking unit by performing necessary validations 20 against t to minimize possible fraudst performs cross Checks on data received against known and tested saved data. As one possible boditentthe following illustrates the validation algorithm for manual transactionsI 1. Provider issues to merchants a set of stickers, each printed with a unique ticket 25 numberand conIes with a vaid time period 2. When the merchant made a sell to a member consumer' he gives such a sticker to the buye 3 The buyer consumer later logs onto the system on Consumer Interface 403 and reports this purchase by fdirug up a form online with the obtained ticket number, together 30 possibly with the name of the selling merchant and approximate purchase date and time, WO 2007/w13 PCTVUS2%7/00$414 4, The Consumer Interface 403 passes the reported transaction data (from buyer) to the Tracking element 154 5, The. Tracking element 154 passes the data to Validation 155, 6, The Validatior element 155 cros checks the received data ticketnumber, 5 selected merchant and approximate purchase tme) agnst the Transaction data set tha contains the original record of the ticket number the issuing merchant, and the valid time period of this ticket number. 7. The Validation element 155 will invalidate this reported transaction when any of the cross checks faia 10 Note in thPs embodiment, the merchant can only specify commissions by a fxed monetary value, since the transaction value is not reported nor validated, When the transaction data is originated from a party Payment Processor 504, the payment processing software passes along necessary identificatioderedenil data (for example, processor device IDassociate/owner account used when processing the transaction. 15 consumer mremberchip, etc.) for Validation 155 Merchant may specify commission by percentage of sales value in scenarios where sales value may be trackedand authenticated. d Recording tnit 156 This unit records validated transactions in the Reward database 193 to enabling merchant billing and consumer rewarding, particular, this element writes the transaction 20 record into the Transaction data set 162, along with other necessary environmental values such as record time,reported by, validation results, etc. ii, Transaction Data Module 161 This is the data sb-module nder Transaction Service IS Imoduleg storing transaction-re1ated data in the following database: 25 a. Transaction database 162 Th'le sAted transaction records a=~ used by both dhe Merchant Servicekx III and the, Consumer Service 71, An example of the transaction database schema is shown in Figure 6, The Merchant Service uses the transaction records for merchant reporting and biing, whereas the Consumer Service uses these records to reward referred consumers In particular, WO Th007/7513 PCTVUS2%009$-084 32 this data set contains transaction records received fiom Tracking 154 and processed by Validation 155 and Recoring 15 ii. Transacton Management Module 159 This module is the central management module where al transactionprocessing logic 5 and prcesses are implemented. The Management module manages and communcates with the Front-End modules to receive, validate and record transaction information. It also centrally manages the data operations for data safety and seCuity for the Tansaction Service 1B1 module and thus reads from and writes to the Trasaction Data Module to access transaction records. Another fiunctionality of this s'ub-module is to communicate with fellow 10 management sub-modules in other modules of the Service Provider Component 101 namely, the Merchant Management Module 11 and the Consumer Management Module 13for data transport and task shronization when necessary Service Provider administrators also use this sub-module to centrally manage the Transaction Service Il. 5 II, Merchant Component 201 The merchant component is a remote component running at the merchant side that factions as an interaction bridge between the merhant $01 and the service povider. It consists of a Merchant interface module 203. A merchant herein is defined as is either the owner of a business or a business associate of the owner. A business owner, after logging in, 20 can perform all the tasks as supported in the Merchant Service 111 Business associates can only perform transaction tracking, after authentic e themselves with the Merchant Service 111 To the service provider, a merchant becomes a member merchant after registered. Once the system authenticates a member merchant, this memhant is said to have logged in, A logged-in mnezhant is the one who tan perform all supported merchant tasks 25 1. Merchant interface Module 203 This module directly interacts with the merchant and merchant's business system It also communicaues wih the Merchant Front End 112 to accomplish merchantasks A merchant may use one ormultiple implementations of the module that ae suited with him and/or his business management system A module implementation can be either 30 tangible (such as a Web UI) that is installed at the merchant end computer or intangible (such rsen bs WO 2007/171 PCT01S2%7100$814 33 as a phone number to the service provider) that the merchant remembers Another impiementation of'this merchant interface may be a mterhantside program that works with merchant's computerized business management system and communicates with the service prowider. 5 This component also provides programnab and manual implementations to work with the Traking unit 154 enabling merchants to manually report transactions This element contains a plurality of user interface for merchants to interact with Merchant Service I 11, This is the user interface that works with the Merchant Front End 112 to perform merchant registration offer authorings commission specifkctiOA report sales 10 reporting and billing. This element is used by Merchant 501 and commicates with Merchant Service I I on existing business communications channels used by Mechant 501Thiselement can be implemented as software or provided as hardware. For merchants using internet for business coNmnicationsthis element may bte 15 implemented as a set of Web Pages or a web site. For merchants do not have intemet access fio business (or personal use as wel) phone and fax may be used in this element as the mnerchant interface. 1M. Consumer Component 401. The coansmer component is a remote component nmning at the consumer side, 20 facilitating communications between consumer 52 and the service provider. It consists of a Consumer Interface module IConsumer hnterface module 40I This module ecdt y inteacts with the consumer and communicates with the Consumer Front End 12 at the service provider site for acco mpishing consumer tasks of the 25 system, This module has multiple implementations, tailored to different communication technologies consumers use, ranging from those tangibe, either a piece of software installed at consumed compute/devces (such as Web Ut, Mobile U) or a piece of hardware issued to consumes with necessary software embedded (such as a dedicated device), or intangible (such as a phone number to call the service provider). A consumer chooses one or more WO 20i7i113 PCTAS2%71908414 implementations of this module that work best for him. Consumers also use this interface to interactwith he Transaction Tracking unit 154 to report transactions by themselves in more detail, this element contains a pluty of user interface fa individuAl consners to interact with the Consumer ServIce 1 This is the user interface that works 5 with the Consumer Front End 172 to perform tasks such as consumer registration referral (liding needed yroducts/servicest rapo rt purchases; and getting reward for quauitied purchases The multiple user interfaces of this element may be used with a plurality of personal communcation channels, in which consumes can be connected with the service provider. These channels include, but are not limited to, the imtemet, the wireless network, 10 and the telephony network, Wh~g~n thenem Cahhe M aens _ap py The service and system may generate mobile advertising, cable television advertising or map displays with advertisements that are displayed to consumers ofthe system and present the offers to the consumers The mobile advertising may occur over he web to a 5 mobile device (a commercial enxaple of this at located at h //air2webqom) A commercial example of cable television advertising is the Comczast Cassifneds ON DEMAND in which cable viewers use their rmotes to view local auto listings on Concass ON DEMAND Service. The service described above may use both mobile and cable televisionadvertsing that may be provided by third parties as advertisement deeivey 20 channels for getting merchants offers to consumers The service may also use digitalrmap disp lys with advertisements to present the offers to the consumers A number of commercial digital map service providers (notably Microsoft Virtual Earth hitt://loealivecom and Google Earth htt/ocahgoogk com) allow Merchants to post their information on the ap these typical systems 4 the merchant 25 information shown on map stay at the contact information level, but some map provider allows linkageTon the map to a merchan s web site. The service described above can use these existing map display systems with the advertisements of the service. In one embodiment of he system, the service provider may host the map application and using the map API to overlay the offer data on the map (self hosted model) b another embodiment 30 the provider can deliver offers to a 3kpartyswned digital map (such as Google's own map site) and have the 3-party to prent offes to consumers (syndication model).In te service, map advertisements may by shown for local shopping specific searCh (the service supports WO 2007/1 flM PCTVUS2%0t)$-841 :15 more and specific parameters, such as time period and price range) and supports rendering reailime and specific offers on the map (see UTscreenshots in Appendix B), larghasing 503 As shown in Figure 1, the system/service permits a purchasing transaction 503 to 5 occur between the merchant 501 and the consumer 502, Purchasing is an action occurred between a merchant fad aconsunmery involving (I) transferring ownership or eating a lease of a product from or performing a service by the seeing merchant to the buying consumer and (2) buying consumer pays a monetary vahue in exchange of ownership or lease of the product or rendered service by the merchantThe entire process is called a transaction, and the l0 monetary value changing hands is called the transaction value, sales value (from seeing merchant's perspective), or purchase price (from buying consumer's perspective), A purchasing action may be settled and recorded by a Payment Processor 504 kgyir,-p rQegwr 504 A payment processor, far the purpose of this appeation is a tracking device or 15 method that tracks the occumnce of a qualified transaction (that is, a transaction occurred between a member merchant ane member consumer) It may be implemented by the service provider or by a 3 ~party as a piece f softwarea piece of hardware or a combination of both. This application may support a phmality of Payment Processors, including those 20 unmng in credit card terminals, those inning on the intemet, etc. Work Flow Fig. 2 illustrates the work flow of the transaction-settled referral and reward service in the preferred embodiment. The work fow specifka interactions among a merchant affiliate, a registered consumer, the servi' provider, and optionally a payment processor. 25 The work flow begins at stp 2000 First, a merchant affiliate specifies an offer to the service provi by either authoring a new sales offer or updating an existing offer 2001 Then the service provider publishes this offer to consumers 2002 once proved A consumer goes online and uses the reerral service to find an offer that matches his needs 2003. He then becomes a referredconsumer and the service provider refers him to the selling merchant 30 2004. EMWntsSS WO 2007/7M3 PCTVS2%71908414 The purchase happens in the nechants establishment between this registered consumer and the selling merchant who published offers 2005, The actad pumhase can occur either online in a Web store or offline in a brickand-nurtar store and can use any means of payment. hi the preferred embodimem, the system does not own the purchase payment 5 setlementThe payment and settlement can be done though he se hog merchant or a 3 party payment processor 2006 ANer the payment is settled, the consumer, the merchant (asked by and on behalf of the consumer) or the payment processor reports this transaction to the service provider 207) When the provider receives the information about this transactonit validates it 2008 10 to ensure that what it received is not a fraudulent transaction Suppose this transaction reported is a valid one the service provider records it 2009, Once this transaction gets recorded, the service provider charges the merchant a service t ie fothe service endered leading to this transaction 2010, The service provider also remwards the buying consumer with a portion of the fee it receives from the selling merchant 15 201t1. Merchant Service Preferred Embodiment I, Merchant Interface Means The system provides a plurality of merchant interface to enable merchants to interact with the service provider for execung merchant-reated tasks and to report occnrred 20 transactions, The merchant selects and uses the interface suited with his business communication means (Web, phone, etc) and his business management means (computerized, manual, combined). I the preferred embodiment of the syst the following merchant interface means are oered, a Web-based user Interface (Web U)) and a telephone based user interface (Phone). 25 A merchantih an internet accesscan use the Web UT to interact with the service provider. A merchantwithout an internet access, can pick up a phone and cal the service provider to accomplish the same merchant-reIated tasks in the system The service provider also provides means of programming interface for merchants' computerized management systems to communicate with the service provider's computer 30 system without any human intervention. This is the integrated option.

WO Th007i f7MJ PCT/US2%7/Ot)$-4u H. Merchant AiTliation To use the series provided by the service provider, a merchant needs to register with the service prvider Once vegisted tids merchant becomes a merchant affiliate to the service provider. and can publish his sales otrts to consumers.After the registration, a $ merchant affliate uses his account credentials to identify himself with the service providers L. Merchant Offer Authoring The service provider of the system provides multiple neans (as part of the Merbant Interface) for merchant affiliates to author and update sales offers n thepreferred embodiment the system supports both manal and automated means of offMr authoring and 10 updating 1. Manual If a merchant ha ternet access, he can use the merchant Web interface to author and update his oIers. The service provider also provides a telephone service so that merchants do not have amet access or do not use Web can make phone calls to author or make updates of 15 his otters, A phone-in merchant may input data using keypad or utilizing voice recognition technology, or he may talk. to a support person if needed. Manual authong work best for merchants who have a limited number of offers and/oronly need to update offeS no more than severAtimes a day, It also works for merchanmis who do not have computerized management systems 20 2, Automated For merchants who use computerized business management systems, have large mmmbers of products or services to offin, and need to frequently updates, their systems can be programmed to use a set of provided Application Programming interfaceNAPI) to communicate with the Merchant Front End at the service provider side for automated offer 25 authoring and updating without mexcharst human intervention IV, Merchant Offer Specification in the preferred embodiment of the system, a merchant offer that is publishable contains at least descmptions in textual atndor multimedia format of these aspects: body and frame (aka constraints). 66", 1 WO 20l7/i 13 PCTAU2007/9)8414 An offer body describes the nature of the offer, including but not limited to the ofFer's purposeftrnionality, design. features, and benefits The body of an oler is less likely to vary. compared to the frame of an offer The frame of an offer describes te sales scope of the body. including but not limited to the ispecficatiota of quanty, ricetime eriod and S geosraphical location that the price is to be honored. A frame of an offer normally varies more frequently than the offer body itself Note that an offer Can have one body and multiple fames, each of latter with different specifications. Updating an offer may mean updating the body, the fame or both. V. Offer Publishing 10 Once an otTer is authored or updated, the service provider immediately runs an automated process to prove it or reject it by the required offer specifications and certain business miles, Once approved, the offer is published to consumers in realtie A merchant may also bave delayed publishing, in which for an offer of his he can select a point in time at which this offer wile published to consumers, 15 VI. Merchant Servie Fee (Commission) The service provider charges a merchant affiliate a service fee ("commissiorf after be makes a purchase transaction with a referred consumer The service fee is pre-specified by the merchant. General each merchant should determine his service e to the service provider hased on the following fsctor;(}the service fee cannot be lower than a minimum 20 value published by the service provider and (2) the service fee should be competitive in the market where the merchant is located, online or offline The service provider may define a minimmn service fee for each merchatw, for each category of merc hants 5 for each geogra~phical -market, and/ar for cetain periods, intime. 'No offers shall be published when the specified service fee is not specified or is specified by 25 lower than provider's minirntnm value from a merchant, The service provider let merchants know that when there ar e two offers both meeting a consumer's needsan oer 01 from a merhant A wit a higher service feewill be referred to this consumer more promptly over an offer 02 from another merchant B3 with a lower service fee. Therefore, a merchant pays a higher service fee has an advantage of getting more 30 referrals fm the servicepovider.

WO T007513 pcTU2OS19084 AlsoIthe system provides merchantaffiates with a plurality of service fee models to use, each with its own consequences in terms of implementation and transaction tracking complexity, Inthe preferred embodinteat, the service provider may offer these fee models to merchant affiliates. 5 1. Member-qualified and fiedtvalued 2. Member-qualified and ficd-percentage 3. Offer-qualified and fixed-valuedand 4. Offer-ualified and fixed-percentage. Different transaction qualification criteria exist for member-qualified and offer 10 qualified models, Undera roeber-qualified modelIthe service& provider charges the selling mchant affiliate a commission fee for each transaction, regardless what is sold, as long as the buyer is a consumer member of the service providers In order to charge the merchant under arn offer-qualified model, in addition to the reward membership proofste transaction record must aso show that the consumer bought a product or service that is advertised by a S published offer while the offer is vaid. A mnenber.-qualified model simplifies the purchase trasaction and purchase tracking, since the only proof for equaling such a purchase is award membership. On the other band an offer-quaified model is more targeted since it attracts consumers to buy only the advertised uffers.But to qualify for such a transaction, the proof of the offer is also needed at 20 purchase. A fixcdpercentage model and a fixed-valued model differ in how the commnxiss ion fee is calculaed Under a fixed-value model, a sAllg merchant specifies a service fee in monetary value (such as S0 T)h is given monetary value is charged by the service provider per purchase regardless of the actual seeing price of the purchase On the other hand, under a 25 ixed-percentage modu leta seeing merchant specifies a percentage number (such as 5%) as the service fee rate The service provider charges tids petentage of the actsal selling pice when a qualifying transaction is made. Comparingto a fixedpercentage model, a fixed-value model is easier to implement in transaction tracking since the transaction reporting does not need the actual sales price, nor 30 does the service provider need to validate the phase price.

WO 7l173 PCTwS200)$0414 In the system, each merchant may choose the charge model to use, and this knowledge is published to consumer as part of merchant offering The set of available fee models to each individual merchant may be limited due to the transaction tracking options this merchant has. For example, to minimize transaction reporting faud, the service provider may only 5 allow a merchant to use a fixed-pementage fee model when this merchant can only work with manual tracking in which his customers manually report occurred transactions to the service provider. Merchants may also select and/r customize their reward plan tailored for different business needs. A mature business may want to have repeat buys from its exiting customer 10 base. In this case the merchant may choose a universal reward plan, where the same reward is given to allp1 hases, regardless whether these purchases are fnom new customers or from existing customers. In contrast, a new business may need new customers In this case, the merchant may choose a New Buyers' plan, where he can lift up the reward level for purchases frem new customers. is In the preferred embodiment, the service provider may also incrementally rewards merchant affiliate with high saes volumes The ward may be given as a discount on the service fee The system provider defines multiple levels of feedsounts Higher a level a merchant is athigher the discount wl be applied to this merchant's service fee, When a merchant affdiate reaches a certain discount leve measured by the volume of sales originated 20 from the service provider over a period of time,his serve fee is reduced by the discount set forth at this level. Consumer Service Preferred Embodiment 1, Consumer Interface The system provides a plrality of consumer interface to enable consumers to rgister 25 themselves to report transactions, to find offers and to receive rewards after purchases. A consumer may select the best means of consumer interface working for higher and may switch at any time. In the preferred embodimnt, the set of provided consumer interfaces include but not limited to a Web-based user intface (eb aer interface running on mobile devices (MobiDe UI) phone calls (Phone), and post mail services (Ma. 30 When a consumer has a laptop or desktop computer with an internet access, the Web UI may be the most convenient way to interact with the service provider, on which all FM\W "%9q.t WO T007751 PCTVUS20t)$-841 41 consurmer-elated tasks can be excited, When a consumer is on the go, theM bie 1UI may be his best choice Aernatively, a consumer car also iakle phone caUls to the service provider for executing consumerrelated tasks, The Mail interface is mainly used as one means for consumers to report transactions to the service provider 5 U. Reward Program Membership A registered consumer entitles rewards in monetary value from the service provider for making purhase transaction as a Result of using the referral service A secure account is created for each registered consumer with proper credentials (such as a consumer ID and password), The credentials establish the identification of a registered consumer; 10 Each registered consumer is a member of the reward program sponsored by the service provder, A reward proie is created thatthe consumer can access with his registration credentialsThe service provider also issues a reward member card the consumer can use to identify $im/herself as a reward member when necessary .1 Finding Offers 15 A consumer may start to use the referraI service by querying the service tr finding published offers that meet hisher needs Hie can use any means of the interactive consumer interface to query (excluding Mail). For example, he can use the consumer Web UI to query, ase the mobile U1 when on the wad o he can make a phone call to query instead, Similar to offer specifications frm a merchant, a valid query from a consumer also 20 contains two aspec's body and ftame (aka constraints) The boy of a query describes the nature of a need, whie the frame of a query describes the situation of the need, such as when and where the need should beu filed. In addition to having consumers to input queries themselves, some/afl of the query specifications may also be formed by the remote Consumer Component (Fig. 1,403) and be 25 transmitted to the service provider automatically, along wIth the rest of the query (if any) the consumer fills manually. One example of this type of automated query formation is when a user is using the mobile UI on his/her mobile device, n this case, the device location may he captured and ransmitted to the refrral service of the service provider, without having to ask the consumer to manually input his location. 30 W, Referring Consumers to Merchants WO 0tii/i13 PCTVUS2%0t)$-0414 42 The preferred embodiment of the system uses a pluality of methods to refer a consumer to the publishing merchait to make a "referred purchase A referred purchase entitles the buying consmertot get the offered price from the merchant and to receive a reward from the service provider The referral methods range from those fully technically 5 integrated with merchants' business systems to those support manal referrals. Depending on the fee model the selling merchant adopts, the method of referring and proof needed fom the buying cons n vary 1t Under a member quatified fee model Under this model, there is no need to brng proots ofparticular offers published by the 10 selling merchant In fact, as long as a consumer car prove to the mecmhant that he is a reward program member (such as by showing to merchant or swiping through the merchant s card reader his reward member card), he is entitled to all published offers automatically All purchases he makes entitle him rewards regardless what he buys from the merchant In this scenaio; the referral proof is the consumer's reward membership. 15 2. Under an offerquaiisfed fee model Under this model i addition to his membership, at the puIhase time a consumer must also prove to the merchant that he accepted a particular offer that is to be honored with the published offer price. Otherwise, the purchase is not quified a referred purchase and the consumer is not entitled for a reward. The format of ofter acceptance proof a nierchant 20 accepts varies depending on how tis merchant is integrated with the service provider on the referral service or the lack of it, For example in case when the merchant's computerized nuagemnent system is integrated with the service providerthe service provider can transmit the offer acceptance to the merchant electronically oncethe consumer accepts an offer online. Togethr he service 25 provider may also transmit the consumer's reward membership to the merchant. At the time of purcasingthe consumer only needs to prove his membership to get the offer price. Alternatively, a consumer may download and print out an oftr then take it with him to the merchant to buy, if the mechant can take the printed copy of his offers and honor them Or the cons amer can simply goes to the merchant, verhally mentions the offer he found from 30 the service provider and buy, when a verbal proof is sufficient for the merchant to horror the offer price.

WO t007/l 1 PCTAU201i0)8414 413 The serve provider nay published the following information to consumers in the referral service regarding the referral methods and proof needed to make qualified parehases: (1) fee model for each merchant and (2) proof method for qualified referred purchases accepted by each nerchat SV. Consumer Rewarding The system discloses a crossmerchant consumer reward program sponsored by the service providerFor each qualified purchase transaction, the buying consumer receives a reward in monetary vaewhich is a portion of the service fee the service provider receives from the selling merchant. Theservice provider may elect to implement the consumer i0 rewarding program in an open loop model (where all reward proceeds are spent out of the network), an sem open loop model (where reward proceeds are aged for future in-network purchases, regardless whib network merchant the consumer buys from) or a elosed-loop model (whereareWard proceed can orly be spent toward future purchases frm the issuing merchant). fn One open-oop reward program the service provider creates ar account for each registered consumer, and adds monetary value of the reward to the account once a reward is issued to this consumer Upon instructions from a registered consumer, the service provider tansfers the amount of monetary value from the consumer's reward account to the consumer himself or to 20 a "Eparty account designated by the consumer.For example, the accumulated reward can be wired to a deposit account of the consumer in a bank at one time or on a regular basis. La addition to pertransactiom rewarding, the system also uses a mechanism to further incrementally reward those registered consumers who have made large numbers of transactions over a period of time, The service provider defines a system of reward levels, 25 each with a different reward percentage that is the percentage of the service fee the service provider passes to buying consumer at that reward level- Higher the level, higher the reward percentage wi be. Thaaction' ServicePreferred Embodiment . Validation Reporting Record WO 200{2fl17513 PCTiUSi2%0)$084M 44 To know about an occurred transaction and to minimize possible transaction reporting fraud, the service provider validates each reported transaction before it can be recorded, and subsequently the selling merchant is charged and the buying consumer is rewarded A transaction reporting record su anitted to the Transaction Tracking unit (Fig I, 154) must $contain validation proofz; ftorn both the elihng mercmat side, and the buying consumer side, The validation proofs needed vary depending on the fee model a transaction is based on. The table in Fig, 3 lists data tets generally needed in a transaction record The record mUst contain the correct authentication information of the selling merchant affiation ard the correct authentication information ofhe buying merchant, In the tansaction area, at the 10 minimanit must contain a Unique Transaction1D(UTID) as well as the time when and location where the tansaction occurred. if the merchant uses an ot>r-qualified model, an offer ID(O1D)must also be included in the record When the merchant uses a price-charged mode, the transaction reporting record must contain a price figue. The following explains these data items: 5 da Merchant Account Authentication The selling merchant provides the correct authentication information to make the service provider trust the seller of the transaction and associate the transaction to the correct ntwtrhant affiliate. 2. Consumer Account Authentication 20 The buying :Oflnsmr provides them corect athentieation information to make the service provider trust the buyer of the transaction and associate the transaction to the conect registered consumer. 3 Uniqe Tasmaction D (UT1D) The service provider may generate UTU) numbers that are unique and non-repeating. 25 UT1D may also be provided by the merchant or the Vtparty transaction tracking provider, provided that they are not conflict with existing and future UTWs. 4 Offer ID (01D) The service provider may assign a unique number to each published offer which is the OMDThe OID may be changed for each offerupdate, The reporting record needs to 30 contain an O) if the selling merchant uses an offer-qualiTied fee mAodel WO w00 713 PCTVS200108414 45 5, 'Time This field records the transaction time, 6. Location This f!ed records0thtransaction hocatin 517 Price This field records the selling price in this transation, The price figure is only required when the merchant uses a pric barged fee model. 11, Transaction Reporting This section elaborates on the transaction reporting step 4ig. 2, 2007) in the work 10 flow, The preferred embodiment supports a number of methods to enable each of involved parties in a reterred transaction (the merchant, the consumer, or the paymentprocessor) to report a transactioencord to the service provider Supported reporting methods can he categorized into: (1) reporting methods that are integrated with electronic payment settlement and (2) those that are not integrated. 15 In an integrated scenario, the payment settlement system takes necessary additional information from the buying cornsumer at the time the purchasing is made, After the payment is settled, the payment settlement processor electronically transmits a record containing necessary information about occarred transaction to the service provider via a provider trusted communication channel. 20 In a nonJiPtegrated scenario, the consumer collects necessary information assembles a transaction record, and sends it to the service provider using one means of the consumer user interface (such as Web Ult Mobile U1, or Mail) under a trust-relationship with the service provider (such as retiring consumer io ) Ahernatively, if the selling merchant agrees to submit the transaction record on be half of the buying consumer the merchant collects 25 assembles, and transmits the transaction record to the service provider: The merchant can use any means of the provider-trusted merchant Ut for reporting transactions. Another way to report that the system supports is to have both the merchant and the consumer co-report via their respective authenticated interfce channels with the service provide with each party may report a partial record. The service provider may then cross checks the validity of the 30 partials and create a complete record if validation is successM WO w007/1761 PCTVS20t)$-414 46 The following specifies supported scenarios for different reporting parties to report a referred transaction 1. With integrated transaction reporting In this scenario, the system of the payment settler(ther the merchant himself or a 5 Ykparty payment processor) settles payment and transmits a transaction record to the service provider electronically The settler creates a trusted connection with the service provider using the selig merchant's accourat credentials Once authenticated data items in the reporting record are trusted by the service provider. In such a tansaction record, the only data item from the consumer is the consumer's 10 reward membership, As part of the payment process the buyer needs to give consumer reward account credentials to the payment system. Several ways exist fbr doing this, including (1) member card swiping and (2) manual input of member W, The payment system writes consumer member credenis as 'part of the transaction reporting record to bxe transmitted to the service provider, 1$ If the merchant adopts an offer-quaiified fee model, the payment system needs to add the (er ID to the transaction record If the merchant adopts a price-charged fee model, the payment system needs to add the selling price to the transaction record Both pieces of information will be trusted by the service provider, when received through a trusted channel. Integrated reporting is the most convenient method to report a transaction, If the 20 reord is valid, the seeing merchant gets bled for the service and the buying consumer gets rewarded instant dy. however, integration reporting require system integration between the settlement system and the service provider's computer systems. Nonidntegrated fansacton reporting -merchant reports on behaffof nsumer In this scenario, the mrchant is responsible for collecting needed information about 25 thetransaction and transmit the data to the service provider on behalf of the consumerThe merchant can use any means of the merchant interface to communicate with the service provider. The merchant authenticates and creates a trusted connection with the service provider to report this transaction. As a rest, the merchant-side data about this transaction is trusted by the service provider. Similar to the integated transaction reportng scenartohe 30 only information the merchant needs ftom the consumer is the merchant's the reward membership, WO ti007/1 17513 PCTVUS2%710)$414 47 The merchant either collects a19 the data electronically using his computerized management system or colects some/all of the data to report manually, Depends on the collection technologies and the trnsmisson technologies used by the merchant, there may be delays of merchant charge and consumer rewarding, 5 For example, when the selling merchant has a computer in the store that is connected to the intemet. he may be able to use service provider's virtual terminal tracking The "virtual wrnninaF refers to a web page on the provider's merchant site. After proper authentication, the selling merchant is tested by the service provider and can input necessary transaction data items on it then submits the record 10 3 Nountegrated trnsaction reporting consumer reports I this scenario the consumer is fally responsible for conducting required transaction reporting information and submits the record to the service provider The consumer uses any means of the consumer interface (including Mail supported to create a trusted access or relationship with the service provider then submit the transaction record, As a result, the $ service provider trsts reported consumer-side data To ensure that the consumer is not making up a transaction to report, the consumer may be required to obtain an UTID number from the selling merchant; The consumer also may need to submit a valid price proof When reporting a price, Depending on the meansof the consumer interface used for reporting the transaction, 20 the delay of merchant charging and consumer rewarding can age fm very little (when the consumer ises Web or Mobile UI to rport once transaction occurred)to much longer(days). The consumer reward incentive is, in fact, one means to encourage consumers to report occurred purhaes promptly. 4. Non-integrated reporting merchant and consumer co-rport 25 nthis scenariothe merchant and the consumer agree to co-rport a transaction record, where the merchant may collect and report merchant and transaction data helds parts in Fig. whereas the consumer may report consumer data plus a UTD. Each party reports to the service provider its side of the data through respective trusted connection. Therefore, both halves of reports are trusted by the service provider, The service provider combines these 30 half records by the UTID WO w007/1 f13 PCTUS207S008414 48 The delay for merchant charging and consuner rewarding depends on bow quickly both parties submit their parts of the tansaction record. hiaarnary the transaction reporting feature provided in this invention universaly tracks occurred transactions, regardless of the purchasing channe used (such as online 5 purchase or offline rtaiin, means of payment used (such as cash, check, credit card, debit card, etc), or the payment settlement used (such as merchant self-settement, 3Mparty settlement). This invention therefore ensures maximum ability for serving merchants by referring consumerist their easing retail establishment. .M. Transaction Validation 10 Requiring the reporting party to transmit data with proper authentication is the first step for validating a reported transaction. The service provider then uses the data reported regarding a transacUtsi to credit the transaction to correct merehaut affiliate and correct registered consumers: Validition also serves a purpose of suppressing transaction reporting hand, 15 I is unlikely to have an authenticated merchant to report non-existent transactions since the service provider charges the reporting merchant for each transaction reported and validated. However, an authenticated consumer may repot fraudulent or non-existing transactions for getting extra rewards The following is one feature that the preferred embodiment may use to suppress consumer transaction repotting fraud When a consumer 20 sports a tranacton, the consumer must obtain a unique tmnsaction ID (UTD) number from the merchant Without a UTID or a nonrecognized UT),D a submitted transaction record is invalidated. The given UITD may be checked by the service provider and to link it to a merchant, An 01TI may also he lnked to a specific point in time or a time range, as to when thernsaction with this Tn should have occurred 25 In the preferred embodiment of the system, once the Transaction Tracking unit (Fig. 1, 154) of the service provider receives a transaction record over an authenticated connection it passes the record to the Transaction Validation unit (Fig71w, 1. The Validation process perforss at least the following tests against the transaction record it received A transaction submission is validated only when all tests below are passed. 30 1. Merchant Validation, The selling merchant must be an existing merchant affiliate.

WO 2007/i 9lM3 PCTVUS20%7108414 49 2, Consumer Validation. The buying consumer must be an existing registered consumer. 3.Tansaction Validation, When reported by a cornsmet the UTID must be ane that has been assigned to the submitted merchant, 5 Additional tests fbr offer-qualified models may include: The Offer ID (010) must be: the ID of one offer published by the submitted merchant. The reported transaction time and location must he within the valid offer fimne. Additional tests for price-eharged models, When the record is submitted from a consumer, a valid sales receipt proof must be 10 given and the price on the receipt must match the prie reported. Operation First the serve provider sets up the Service Provider Component (Fig, 1 101) and publishes the Merchant Component 201 and the Consumer Component 401, is A merchant downloads and instaIs the tangible Merchant Component on his management system or take notes of the how to communicate with the Service Pmvider Component usng intangible merchant interface The merchant can ise any of the support means to comunicate with the service provider. Once the merchant finished installing interfaces to communicate with the service merchant, he uses the preferred merchant interface 20 to execute the merchant registration task. After the successful registration, the merchant becomes a merchant affiiate to the service provider Then he can use the merchant services provided by the service provider, It the merchant owns an electronic payment settlementsystem, he can urse integrated transaction tracking after progrming the settlement system with the provided transaction 25 API If the merchant uses a 3Aparty electronic payment settlement system and the system does integrated transaction tracking, the merchant can set up using the integrated tracking by notifyng the payment settler his merchant at~liate account credentials. The service provider works independently with 3dparty payment processing services for transaction tracking inegration. mnE$S? cv WO ti007i 17d1 PCT7US20t)$-414 Prior to publishing any offers, a merchant affiliate needs to determine and notify the service provider his serce e fhe model and the fee schedule, A conset downloads and installs tangible Consumer Component 401 to proper computers or devices he will use to communicate with the service provider (Web U1, Mobile 5 Ut, etrc.hefl consumer can use any combination of the consumer interface to interact with the service provider. Then the consumer eetes the registration task and beomes aregisterd consumer, One option a registered consumer has is to specit a financial account where the service provider can wire the rewards to. The service provider issUeN a reward mebroership card to the consumer once registered, 10 Use of Service A merchant affiiate can execute any of the nerchant-serving tasks at any time, Maily, te merchant uses the service to publish and updates its sales offers, report ansactions on behalf&of requesting consumers if he agrees to do s, monitor performance of his offers, veris the effectiveness of his fee model and fee schedu!ea, and pay service charges 5S to the provider. The service provider provides nnthiy merchant statements to report and summarize related activities to each merchant A consumer mainly uses the system for searching and obtaining offers that match his needs, ie then goes to the me-han to purchase goods and services by showing needed referral proof The consumer then either has the payment processor or the merchant to report 20 this occurred transaction, or he himself does the reporting. He also has access to his ward accomt. The service provider provides monthly consumer statements to report and summarize related activities to each consumer. Alternative Embodiments Pawnent Processor 25 An alterMative embodiment is for the system to include its own Payment Processor (Fig., 504), which will he tightly integated with the Trasaction Tracking unit 154. n this way, the service provider offers merchant affiliates a default payment settlement option that always tracks referred transactions instantly. Another implication is that with an owned payment processor, the service provider can turn consumer reward accounts into cedit or 30 debit accounts in the way that the rewarded values can be used directly for fute purchases WO 200~7/i17$iJ PCTVUS20t)$-4t4 via the owned payment prcessor. This also implies that issued reward cards can be used as credit or debit cards in retail transactions, U an a temative embodimeat, the service provider can add additional service features 5 to the consumer reerral service Fer example the shipping service can be implemented as one wa'y of consner refermd. in stead of having to have a referred consumer to go to merchant to purchase once the consumer accepts an offer the product or services can be shipped to the consumer directy Another alternative works for consumers who do not want to or do not have time to do 10 product browsing in a brick-and-mortar store. For thOese consumers the referral serve can instruct the merchant to pra products for the store. The consumer can quickly pick up the products priorhselected uough de referral service, pay, and go, In yet another alternative embodiment, a reversed referral can be implemented, Rather 15 thanmoferring consumers to merchants, chants can be 1eferrx to consines as wel In a reversed referral scenario, consumer publishes needs via the servie provider, Merchants search fort needs that they can serve, and publish offers tailored to these needs M ktAht t OefferAgg gs..ad.iribution to Consumer -es-natin The system may also support scenarios where the service provider may conect offers 20 from merchants and may delver them to consumers via a plurality of onlineconsumer destinations or third party content publishers, including but not imited to search engines (Le. Cioogle,YXahoo), content web sites, online directory sites, onlitne community sites. Lu addition, the service provider may also deliver colected merchant offers to other third party consumer destinations through various delivery channels such as Short Message Service 25 (SMS}debvering them for viewing on mnbil devices, and interacdve cable 'letc, Allof these consumer destinations may use a plurality of different fee mode& for dlivering merchant offers to consumers including pay-per-click (CPC) and pay forlisdig fee models I essence, the service provider may become a merchant offer aggregator and broker, who delivers collected offers to affiliated consumer destinations; and these affiliated 30 destinations in twm deliver received offers to individual consumers, When offr deliveries WO 2007/i 7lM3 PCTVUS2%7100$-414 52 oa to consumers result in purchases at POS in store, the service provider may need to disburse a portion of received transaction fees to contributing consumer desdinations. The system thus provides a method (using an proceeds distribution module that is pan 5 of the tramnsaction front end 152 in the exemplary embodiment) for distribung proceeds received from transaction fees from merchants to affiliated consumer deed nations that contributed in driving consumers to the merchant stores to make purchases. The process may include an offer collection process (described above) an offer distribution process, an offer delivery process, a purchase transaction process, a commission charge process, a delivery to 10 purchase casual re ationship determination process and a proceeds distribution process. During offer collection process, the service provider collects offers from participating inrchants~ During the offer distribution process, the service provider delivers the collected offers to pluraity of affiliated consumer destinations. During the offer delivery prcess, at least one afflliated consumer destinadon presents a particular received offer to one or more 15 consumers During the puchase tnsaction process (described above, the cn sumro(s, who are influenced by the otfer presented, go to the physical location(ige. store) of the publishing merchant and make a purchase which is captured or the service membership card. During the commission charge process (described above), the service provider charges the selling merchant a co~nnission fee based on pro-determined rate, such as a percentage of the 20 purchase price or as a fixed monetary value as described above, During the delivery to purchase casual reIationship determinatinthe service provider and the affiiated consumer destination determine the causalrelationshipfom user actions from consumer desdnation (such as e hicks on Search keyword ads or impressions on display ads) to resulted purchase transactions Usage and transacdon integration may be necessary in this step. During the 2$ proceeds distribution processthe service prvider distributes a portion of the received proceeds from selling merchant to each of the affiliated consumer destinations for service during the offer delivery process, based on the causal relationship determined in the delivery to purchase casual relationship determination process In the above method, the offer delivery process aoth er extension from the previously described offer delivery process since there 30 may be a plurality of affiliated consumer destinations in addition to the service providers own consumer destination (if there may be one) WO 2007/i 1i51 PCTVUS2%100$-414 53 In some embodiments of the delivery to purchase casual relationship determination and proceed distributon processesthe causal relaionship from user actions on consumer destinations to resulted purchase are detemined statistically using data ftom both sides in aggregation, For example, a portion of the commission fee (called the disbursable portion of S the fe) may be disbursed to contributing consumers destinations. The conversion denominator may be determined by the aggregated total number of user actions on published merhandising information across all participating consumer destinations The service provider may distribute a portion of the convertible fee to each participating consumer destination propodrionally to the number of online user actions occuamd on this destinations 10 relative to the total user actions aggregated across all affiliated consumer destinations. For instance, if there are 100 clicks that lead to one purchase from all particpating consumer destinations, then each click gets 1% (1 transaction divided by 10 cOlicks) of the disbursable portion of the transaction feessming one coummer destination A contributed 60 licks and another destination B contabuted 40 clicksdestination A and destination B each; 15 respectively, gets 60% and 40% of the disbursabe proceeds from the service provider Obviously, other and possibly more complex statistical algorithms and modeling may be used to determine the proceeds dshursement distribution of the transaction fee acmas efiliated consumer destinations In r embodiments of the deliwey to pmchase casual relationship determination 20 and proceed distribution processes, online users who performed online actions leading to resulted in-store purbases may be identified and linked to physical consumers who boug the product or service n the resulted transactions, In other words, the causal relationship may be determined at individual consumer level Such online user to offliue buyer identification and linkage may be done explicitly; by identify ying users in a common identification system 25 that applies to both online actions and in-store purchases, or create a linkage between an offline consumer identification system and one or more online user identification systems) One explicit identification option is that a consumer destination may require users to log in using the service providers consumer membershipThe online user/in-store buyer linkage may also be created implicitly and/or algorithmicstly for anonymous onlineussers. 30 One may look at other paramers(other than andkrin addition to user identifiation) of online user actions and instore purchases to link a destination user to in-store purchases. CM\721569.

WO T007/1751 PCTVUS200)$-414 54 Useable parameters may mdcade time and locaton reatianship between online consumer destination actions and in-store purchases Another explicit identification option is that a consumer destination may install a specialized "liickwrecording" software detection and Cenvers ion product, either as an S extension to their curnitly used method of consumer tracking, or as a new service that may eiher be provided by the service provider or developed by the consumer destination provider (sabject to the design requirements of the service provider). This extension software will produce a unique identifier code for each cik action by a consumer on the offer displayed by the consumer destination, This extension code (which may maintain anonymity of the 10 coname is then transferred back to the service provider's database, where it is reonciled with the subsequent sale transaction by the specific consumer whose online -'li" action generated the extension code, The online consumer destination will then be apportioned a pementage of the commission fee collected by the service provider. While the foregoing has been with refence to a particular embodiment of the I 5 invention, it will be apprciated by those skilled in the art that changes in this embodiment may be made without departing fiom the principles and spint of the invention, the scope of which is defined by the appended claims, WO T0071u PCTUS27108I'-4A4 APPENDIX "A" WVO Th{P1 .3 PCT!US2.% 08 $-P -6 o e I e t'r~ r 2 2 NA 0 fiilk 'Nk

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Claims (14)

1. 2. The system of claim 1, wherein the method for tracking sales transactions, in particular ofline sales transactions, further comprising providing, by the service provider 20 component a reward to the consumer for the referral sales transaction. I The system of claim I, wherein tracking the plurality of sales transactions, in particular ofmne sales transactions, in the method for tracking sales transactions further comprises capturing sales transactions near the point of sale of the sales transaction and storing the sales transactions in a central database asoxiated with the transaction settled 25 consumer referral and reward system. 4, The system of claim 3, wherein capturing the sales transactions, in particular ofline sales transactions, in the method for tracking sales transactions further comprises using a card or a membership proof at the point of sale to capture each sales transaction wherein the card further comprises a magnetic strip card or a credit card. WO T007/i113 PCTVUS2%71008414
2. 5. The system of claim I further comprising an online advertising system associated with the service provider component the o3nlie advertising system .arther comprising a mobile device ora inteative cable television system. (I. ~ ~ ~ W Th ytmo li Rather omprisingmp a mec antcmponet, atec 5 merchant location that permits a mervhaut to interface with the mtrhant unit of the serve provider component
3. 7. The system of claim I further comprising a consumer componentat each consumer location, thZat permits a consumer to interfere with the merchant unit of the service provider component, 10 & The system of cair I, wherein the merchant unit further comprises a trusted merchant rating stored in the merchant unit that rates each merchant' 9; The system of clim 1. wherein providing a sales offer hirther comprises providing a brokered advertisement the user. 10 Thm system of claim 1, wherein the merchant unit hither comprises a 15 commission bidding unit wherein the merchants bid for a higher commission and the higher commission sales olfer is mom prominently displayed to the user. 1. A method for tracking sales transaction, in particular offline transactions, the method comprisings providing 4 by an online adverting system associated with a transaction settled 20 consumer referral and reward system, a ses offer ton i partiiular merchant to a consumer tracking a plurality of sales transactions, in particular offline transactions& that are submitted to the tansaction settled consumer rekrml and reward system; validating, at the transaction settled consumer referral and reward system, each sales transaction to determine if the sales transaction is a referral sales transaction for the particular 2$ merchant and charging, by the transaction sealed consumer referral and reward system, a commission fee for the refers sales transaction to the particu hr merchant.
4. 12. The method of claim II ftetter comprising providing, by the transaction settled consumer referral and reward system, a reward to the consumer for the referral sales 30 transaction- WO w007/iue13 PCT!S2%71008414
5. 13. The method of claim 1, wherein tracking the pluralky of sales transactions, in particular offine transactions, ttfuer comprises capturing sales transacdons near the point of sale ofthe sales transaction and storing the sales transactions in a central database associated wh the transaction settled ccnsuner real and reward system. 5 14, The method of claim %, wherein capturing the sales transactions in particular olmne transition further comprises using a card or membership proof at the point of sale to capture each sales transaction wherein the card further comprises a magnetic strip card or a credit card 15, The method of claim II wherein the online advertising system further 10 comprises a mobile device or an interactive able television sysem. 16, The system of claim I further comprising establishing a ousted merchant rating stored in the merchant unit that rates each merchant
6. 17- The system of claim i * wherein providing a sales offer father comprises providing a brokered advertisement to the user. is 18 The system ofclaim 1 further comprising establishing a commission bidding. system wherein the merchants bid fbr a bigher commission and the higher commission sales offer is More prominently ditAyed to the user. 9. A computer implemented system for merchant advertising comprising: a service provider component implemented on a computing device wherein the service 20 provider component farther compdses a merchant unit ansaction unit and a consumer unit wherein the merchant transaction and consumer units each father comprise a praiy of lines of computer code executed by a processing unit of the computing device that executed the nerchant, transaction and consumer units, the mnerchanit transaction and consumer units hraplemnenting a method for merchant advertising comprising: 25 providing a merchant interface to each merchant of the merchant advertising system, the merchant interface providing reaktime control of the publication, update and modification of the online advertisements for a particular merchant, each online advertisement having a geographic area associated with the online advertisement and a commission to be paid a service provider upon resulted sales frnn the online advertisement; WO 200{7/i1T7513 PCTVUS2.%70t)$414 electronically displayingon a map, the online advertisements in a particular geCgraphic area for all merchant based on the geographic area associated with each online advertisement and bidding, using a commission bidding system, for a commission associated with each 5 online advertisement wherein the commission payment paid to the service provider and a loyalty reward to a consumer for a particular online advertisement is attenuated based on the bidding; 20 The system of claim 19, wherein the method for merchant advertising Wrther mprises selecting,. based on the commissions for each online advertisement in a geographic 10 area, the online advertisements shown o a consumer in the geographic area.
7. 21. The system of claim 2; wherein selecting he online advertisements rather comprising selecting a parTicular online advertisement based on a highest commission associated with the particular olie advertisement
8. 22. The system of 19, wherein displaying the online advertisements in a particular 15 geogmphic atea further comprises displaying the map on a web browser. 23 The system of claim 19,vherein displaying the online advertisement in a particuar geographic area further comprises using a global positioning system (GPS) navigation system to display the map. 24, The system of claim 19, wherein the online advertisements rther comprises 20 an advertisement generated based on a local shopping eific search.
9. 25. The system ofclaim 19, wherein the online advertisements further comprises rattime offe rendered on the map
10. 26. A method for merchant advertising, the method comprising. providing a merchant interface to each merchant of the merchant advertising system 25 the merchant interface providing realdie control of the publication, update and modification of the online advertisements for a particular mechant, each online advertisement having a geographic area associated with the onlie advertisement and a commission to be paid a service provider upon utilization of the online advertisement; Mk?2Wqqm WO tt00f 17gD PC~IUS2.0$i84 52 electronically displaying, on a map, the online advertisements in a particular geographic area for all merchant based on the geographic area associated wit each online advertisement; and bidding, using a commission bidding systemfor a commission associated with each 5 onlie advertisement whoein the commission payment paA to the service provider and a loyalty reward to a consumer for a particular online advertisement is attenuated based on the bidding, 27 The method claim 26 further comprising selecting, based on the 10 shown to a consumer in 1he geogphic area. 28 The method of claim 27, wherein selecting the online advertisements rather comprising selecAtig a particular online advertisement based on a highest commission associated with the particular online advertisement 29; Themethod of 26 wherein displaying die online advertisements in a particular 15 geographic area further comprises displaying te map on a veb browser
11. 30. 'The method of claim 26, whettin displaying the online advertisements in a particular geogmphic area further comprises using a global positioning system (GPS) navigation system to display the map. 31 The method ofc aim 26 further comprising generating an onhine 20 advertisement, the online advertisements being generated based on a local shopping specific search;
12. 32. The method of claim 26 further cowpsing rendering. n Ieal time, the advertisements to be displayed on the map,
13. 33. A method for distributing proceeds received feesfrom one or 25 more merchants to one or more affiliated consumer destinations that contributed in driving consumers to one or more merchant stores to make pIrchasesthe method composing: collecting one or more offers hm one or more merchant; distributing he one or more offers to a plurality of affiliated consumer destinations; delivering, by at least one affiliated consumer destinationthe one or more offers to 30 one or more consumers: WO Th007fl O13 PCTAUS2%710)08414 33 capturing~W aprhsbsed ion the del iver-ed offer, b)y a consumer of a product fro~m a selling merchant; and distributing a ommision front the captured purchase between the selling rmerchant and the at least one affiliated consumer destination. 34, he etd of c m e 33, Whei distributing the commission fOher comprises detemniin g a causal relationship between the parcnhase and a user action associated with the at least one affiated consumer destination and distributing the commission based on the determined cauaa relationship between the purchase and the at keast one affiliated consumer destination 35, The method of claim 33 further comprising charging a commision fee to the seeing merchant for he captwed purchase.
14. 36. The method of claim 35, wherein charging the coummission fee further comprises charging the commission based on a percentage of a price of the purchase or a fixed monetary value