IT202000016243A1 - METHOD FOR MANAGING TRANSACTIONS IN ELECTRONIC COMMERCE SITES - Google Patents

Description

Description of the patent for Industrial Invention entitled:

"Method for managing transactions on electronic commerce sites";

Invention sector

The invention relates to a method for managing transactions in electronic commerce sites, in particular a method for managing and updating transactions by means of data exchange interfaces with networks of intermediaries to electronic commerce sites to ensure the best efficiency in the management of discount coupons.

State of art

In the state of the art inventions are known for the management of transactions in electronic commerce sites, in particular a method for managing and updating transactions through data exchange interfaces with networks of intermediaries towards electronic commerce sites to ensure their best effectiveness in the management of discount coupons.

The problem ? been the subject of a research project at the European level in 2011, DICO(RE)2S funded on the FP7-SME, focused on many aspects including the ability? of real-time interaction both on the user side and on the intermediary side and operator of electronic commerce sites in the management of information in general including discount coupons.

US2002087405 discloses a method for distributing discount coupons to remote personal computers by internet service providers.

In the method it describes how pu? the management of discount coupons in an online architecture, basically limiting itself to direct management or in any case linked to a flow between an e-commerce operator and a remote customer. In US2014379450 an interactive information management system is described following a search query carried out by a potential buyer and a database of statistical information relating to product sales, responding in this case to an application, mediated by a network between the end user and operator of trading sites.

US201314067252 describes a method for the electronic distribution of coupons on remote devices, the coupons, collected in a database, are downloaded to then be used by users.

Once used, the discount coupons are used both for statistical and marketing analysis and to be reprocessed for verification and optimization purposes, such as for example the verification of the existence as coupons already in use. downloaded and used or to re-determine discount percentages.

US2012143666 again describes a method for monitoring, within structures for electronic commerce, the distribution and redemption of discount coupons, focusing on both tracking and reducing the possibility of of fraud or illicit use of the discount voucher and on the validation of the effectiveness of the discount voucher itself, thus describing a more effective method? general management of discount coupons even in architectures less defined in the direct relationship between user and e-commerce operator but characterized by the presence of one or more? brokerage network. US2013332253 instead describes a method of defining the definition of a code to be applied to online discount coupons for their unambiguous identification.

The coupons, distributed widely, once selected by a user, refer to the site of the electronic commerce operator identified by a unique code which refers to information such as the operator of any intermediation, the discount and other information that may be useful, this code is written in a queryable database.

The cited examples of the state of the art show how the theme has developed since the beginning of electronic commerce, first by identifying ways and methods for managing discount coupons in the user?s relationship with the electronic commerce operator and then evolved towards the relationship mediated by networks and intermediaries placed between the user and the operator.

In the evolution of current systems for? does the need arise? to manage, by intermediary operators, pi? intermediary data exchange network towards e-commerce operators, often in different countries of the world, with different interfaces and in multilingual and multicurrency configuration, and the need? to manage international sales campaigns, where the same promotion is repeated in more? countries and through different networks, then collecting in a uniform way and attributable to the same campaign the heterogeneous sales data from different sources.

The current state ? necessary to access and subscribe to the promotional campaigns of e-commerce operators by acquiring all the offers and discount codes made available, in different languages and on different interfaces and platforms, as well as accessing transaction reports to acquire information relating to the products purchased, the value of the purchase and upon confirmation of the transactions, any cancellations and returns, in order to determine and request the commissions due from the e-commerce operator.

This requires, in addition to what is known in the state of the art, to interface at the first level with the interfaces made available by each e-commerce or network operator, interfaces that are often proprietary and do not adhere to univocal standards, except in relation to the methods? of transmission but not at the structure level, which is arbitrarily decided by each single network.

By way of example, the minimum performance requirements may include an update of campaigns at least once a day, an update frequency of offers and codes every 4 hours and an update frequency of transactions every hour.

These update frequencies are necessary, at a minimum, to ensure that the discount codes detected and applied are constantly updated so to be able to operate, in the transaction, with the correct and recent code, and to ensure a timely update of the statistics relating to the sales made.

In contrast to these minimum requirements, the constraints of the system as a whole are the set of data and their quantity, such as the number of campaigns by e-commerce operators managed by a network per country, the number of active offers or discount codes for each operator, the number of new daily transactions for each network, and the average approval and cancellation time.

In addition to this, the constraint linked to the maximum number of API (Application Programming Interface) calls allowed by the individual networks in the unit must be taken into account. of time.

Without an extremely sophisticated logic? therefore impossible to manage the amount of data and update them with the desired frequencies while respecting the constraints imposed.

The systems present at the state of the art as examined therefore do not currently solve the problem of allowing data exchange that allows for the correct and timely management of discount coupons and related codes, and updating of sales transactions, in communication to and from the networks and e-commerce operators.

In particular, the known systems do not identify a solution capable of managing the communication interfaces on different networks and operators in different parts of the world while maintaining the necessary efficiency in the flow of information, in order to keep the transaction status of each individual network aligned and updated with the maximum possible frequency and the least possible effort in terms of number of connections and quantity? of data transferred for each connection.

Purpose of the invention

AND? having therefore felt the need for a method and a system for managing transactions on electronic commerce sites, in particular a method for managing and updating transactions through data exchange interfaces with networks of intermediaries towards electronic commerce sites to ensure the best effectiveness in managing discount coupons.

Summary of the invention

For these purposes, yes? received with a method and a system according to one or more? of the attached claims.

A first advantage consists in the fact that maximum priority is given? to new transactions, thus allowing? the real-time management of promotional campaigns by punctually associating the revenues from transactions with the relative costs.

An additional advantage is that the minimum information of a sale, i.e. e-commerce operator identifier, customer identifier, date and time of sale, transaction value and commissions, is collected where possible using ?push? (also called ?callback?) or downloaded with at least an hourly update frequency, minimizing the time between the conclusion of a sale and the acquisition of the transaction in the system.

A further advantage consists in normalizing the different data exchange formats specific to each network in a common format which allows transactions to be processed in homogeneous blocks regardless of the network of origin and the data exchange format it adopts, also carrying out data conversion operations. values in different currencies towards a single currency making the amounts homogeneous and comparable.

A further advantage is that for transactions already? acquired in a previous update and currently in a state of awaiting confirmation, the download frequency is calculated on the basis of the statistical update curve recorded for the specific network and operator, in order to minimize the number of requests by maximizing again the probability? to intercept the moment of the change of state of the transaction.

These and further advantages will be better understood by any person skilled in the art from the following description and from the annexed drawings, given as a non-limiting example, in which:

- fig.1 shows a general diagram of the transaction import and update system;

- fig.2 shows a detailed diagram of the raw transaction comparator;

- fig.3 shows a detailed diagram of the transaction converter;

Detailed description

With reference to the attached drawings? disclosed a preferred embodiment of a method for managing transactions on electronic commerce sites, in particular a method for managing and updating transactions through data exchange interfaces with networks of intermediaries to electronic commerce sites to ensure their best effectiveness in managing discount coupons.

The method includes an archive of transactions constituting the database destined to contain the transactions standardized in the standard format and therefore processable in an aggregate manner without distinction on the basis of the network of origin.

Within this database the transactions are kept for an indefinite period constituting the main database of the system.

Does the method also include

an archive of raw transactions constituting the specific database for each single network which contains the transactions imported in the proprietary format, and therefore not yet converted into the standard uniform format,

a transaction converter, which has the task of transforming the raw transactions from the original format of each network into the standardized one used by the system,

a process parameter manager, which manages a set of parameters, some general, others specific for each network, which drive the various processes and determine the behavior of various system components,

an archive of parameters and statistics, constituting the database for the persistence of parameters and statistical data,

a raw transaction comparator, which has the task of comparing a raw transaction coming from a network with its possible previous version,

one or more transaction query systems, one for each interfaced network which has the task of recovering transactions and a "scheduler", a system for managing operations at regular intervals.

In a preferred example of implementation of the method, the minimum and maximum requirements considered acceptable for effective updating and management of discount coupons in transactions within the customer, network, intermediary and electronic commerce operator system are:

Performance requirements, minimum requirements

Update frequency of e-commerce operator campaigns, 1 time per day, update frequency of offers and discount codes every 4 hours, update frequency of new transactions every hour,

Data volume requirements, maximum requirements:

number of campaigns of e-commerce operators managed by a network by country, 5000, number of active offers or discount codes for each operator, 100, number of new daily transactions for each network, 10000 awaiting confirmation, 8000 confirmed, 2000 canceled and 250,000 paid monthly transactions.

Average approval time, i.e. from pending to approved ? of 7 - 15 days, while the average cancellation time? of 20 - 40 days and the average number of API calls allowed by the networks? of 5 - 20 every hour.

All transactions are born with a confirmation awaiting status, since in electronic commerce the conclusion of the online purchase is not? other than the first step of the transaction, which must be followed by the phases of payment approval, shipment to the customer, any return, dispute by the customer or exercise of the right of withdrawal.

Only in the following days or weeks do the transactions pass to the approved or canceled status and the average times for approval and cancellation of the transactions are highly variable, being linked both to the type of products sold by each operator and to the specific commercial policies and is subsequently recognized to the intermediary, provided that the identification codes of the coupons are correct, updated and valid, the fee for the activity? of intermediation.

AND? therefore, the correct management of the process up to the receipt of the payment is of fundamental importance, keeping all the information relating to the various transactions and coupons updated almost in real time.

In the method, the raw transaction processor queries the various networks, with times defined and programmed by the scheduler, interfacing with the various proprietary APIs.

The mode? access to network data? almost always of the ?pull? type, i.e. a data request must be made via the interface specifying the type of data requested and any search filters, in particular, access to transaction data ? almost always made through a request filtered by date or by period.

Only for some networks? You can also filter transactions by their status, such as pending, approved, canceled or paid.

Some networks also provide a mode? ?push? with which they can immediately communicate the arrival of a new transaction, without for? send further subsequent updates, which must be requested through the normal API interfaces following the normal flow.

This type of information responds to the need to be informed as soon as possible. short possible time that a particular customer has concluded a purchase to implement re-marketing strategies or other activities? after-sales. This also makes it possible to find timely information on a successful sale and above all on the value of the theoretical commissions, albeit still subject to confirmation, a fundamental value for calculating the performance of promotional campaigns in real time so as to be able to act quickly on costs as they vary of revenues and margins.

The handling of ?push? speeds up and simplifies where possible the acquisition of new transactions without for? replace the normal update through the?interface ?pull?, this why? in most cases the data of the new transaction sent in mode? ?push? may not be fully complete.

Once the raw transactions have been acquired from the single networks, each in the proprietary form of the single network and therefore not in a standardized form, the single transaction is analyzed to understand whether we are dealing with a new transaction or an old transaction in a modified or unmodified state.

The process is carried out by the comparator of the raw transactions, the data collected by the transaction processor and therefore in general the data recovered from the networks is first verified in its existence, i.e. it is defined whether we are dealing with a new transaction or an existing transaction.

If you are dealing with a new transaction, this is archived as a new transaction in the archive of raw transactions, i.e. still non-standardized and still in the proprietary format of the single network.

If you are faced with an existing transaction, the raw data collected from the network is verified, if this ? changed the value of the data is then checked, such as for example the status, pending or approved and the version of the transaction is updated with the changed data, storing it in the raw transaction archive as an updated transaction.

Do new transactions take priority? maximum, as it is of fundamental importance for the real-time management of advertising campaigns. The minimum information of a sale, ie e-commerce operator identifier, customer identifier (anonymous tracking), date and time of the sale, transaction value and commissions, must be collected where possible using ?push? offered by networks.

For networks that do not have ?push? tools, the download of the current day's transactions occurs at each update cycle.

For transactions already? acquired in a previous update and currently in a waiting state, the download frequency must be calculated on the basis of the statistical update curve recorded for the specific network and electronic commerce operator, in order to minimize the number of requests by maximizing the probability to intercept the moment of the change of state of the transaction.

When there is not enough statistical data on transaction update times, it will be? used a frequency inversely proportional to the time elapsed from the date of the transaction, the cio? decreasing the download frequency linearly as the number of days after the sale increases.

The transactions that are already? in an approved or canceled state and which in theory should no longer? undergo variations, are still subject to one or more? additional long-term verification downloads to manage commission payment status.

Within the archive of raw transactions, individual transactions are kept until their life cycle is reached. considered concluded, on the basis of the parameters defined for each individual network, and generally until the transaction is not completed? considered approved and commissions paid, or definitively cancelled. For each transaction, its history of the changes suffered is also maintained, in order to reconstruct the detail of the history of the transaction from its inception to its closure, and for the statistical purposes of calculating parameters such as, for example, the average approval or cancellation times.

In addition to collecting and updating the data ? necessary a phase of normalization of the transaction data arriving from the networks to convert them into a uniform format within the system, it is necessary to minimize and optimize this conversion work so that some processes only process the raw data of the network, while other processes operate on transactions already? converted to the standard format.

The transaction converter works by retrieving the single transactions from the raw transaction archive.

In the event of a new transaction, this is converted into a standardized format from the proprietary format of the single network and saved in the transaction archive.

In the case of an updated transaction, it is updated in the normalized format in the transaction archive.

In both cases the transactions are therefore also updated in the raw transaction archive, resetting the ?new? or ?updated? so that a new change that occurs after the last update can be recorded. The transaction converter also has the task of converting the amounts expressed in different currencies towards a single reference currency, and of relating to each other the transactions that are attributable to the same promotional campaign even if widespread in different countries and through different networks , with the aim of obtaining an overall revenue value for each individual campaign.

The present invention ? been described according to preferred embodiments but equivalent variants can be devised without departing from the scope of protection of the invention.

Claims (8)

1. Method for managing transactions in an electronic commerce site, through a computer system comprising a plurality? of data exchange interfaces with proprietary APIs of a corresponding plurality? of networks of intermediaries in communication with said e-commerce site, a first archive of raw transactions, associated with a new or updated value or zero value, constituting a first specific database for each individual network which contains the transactions received in the proprietary format of the respective network a raw transaction processor configured to periodically query said networks through said interfaces with proprietary APIs, a raw transaction comparator, configured to process transactions originating from said networks and to compare a raw transaction originating from a network with any previous version thereof originating from the same network and storing them in said first archive, a transaction converter, configured to convert the raw transactions received in the proprietary format of each network stored in said first archive into a predetermined common format, a second archive of transactions normalized in the common format constituting a second database intended to contain transactions, new or updated, normalized in the common format, a third archive of parameters and statistics, constituting a database for determining the persistence of clarifying parameters and statistical data relevant for determining the query frequency of each individual network, a process parameter manager, configured to manage a set of operating parameters including general system parameters and specific parameters for each network, , a scheduler configured to enable said raw transaction processor to poll each of said networks with a frequency determined based on said persistence parameters and statistical data of the single network, the method including the following steps: interrogation of each of said networks frequency determined on the basis of said persistence parameters and statistical data of the individual with the frequency determined by the scheduler processing and comparison of each transaction received from individual networks in response to this query, to determine whether it is a new transaction or a transaction already? existing and archiving in said first archive as a new or updated transaction, converting the raw transactions contained in said first archive into said uniform common format normalized transaction processing to determine whether it is a new transaction or an existing transaction exists and is archived in said second archive of normalized transactions, updating of the raw transactions corresponding to said normalized transactions in said first archive of raw transactions, resetting the ?new? or ?updated? so that a new change that occurs after the last update can be recorded. 2. Method according to claim 1, wherein said interrogation of one or more? network happens in mode? ?pull?. 3. A method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein said interrogation of one or more? network happens in mode? ?push?. 4. Method according to one of the preceding claims, wherein the newly received transactions are assigned a priority? maximum processing. 5. Method according to one of the preceding claims, wherein the individual transactions are kept within the raw transaction archive until the transaction is completed? considered approved and commissions paid, or definitively cancelled. 6. Method according to one of the preceding claims, in which for each transaction, its history of the changes undergone is maintained, for the purpose of reconstructing the detail of the history of the transaction from its birth to its closure, and for the statistical purposes of calculating parameters such as for example the average approval or cancellation times. 7. Computer system for managing transactions in an electronic commerce site for implementing the method of one of the preceding claims, provided with a computer apparatus for executing a computer program comprising a plurality of of data exchange interfaces with proprietary APIs of a corresponding plurality? of networks of intermediaries in communication with said e-commerce site, a process parameter manager, configured to manage a set of operating parameters including general system parameters and specific parameters for each network, a raw transaction processor configured to periodically poll said networks through said interfaces with proprietary APIs and to process transactions originating from said networks, a raw transaction comparator, configured to compare a raw transaction coming from a network with a possible previous version of it coming from the same network and contained in said first archive, a transaction converter, configured to convert the raw transactions received in the proprietary format of each network in a predetermined common format, a first archive of raw transactions, new or updated, constituting a first specific database for each individual network which contains the transactions received in the proprietary format of the respective network, a second transaction archive constituting a second database intended to contain transactions, new or updated, standardized in the common format. a third archive of parameters and statistics, constituting a database for determining the persistence of parameters and relevant statistical data for determining the query frequency, a scheduler configured to enable said raw transaction processor to poll each of said networks with a frequency determined on the basis of said persistence parameters and statistical data of the single network. 8. A computer product for managing transactions in an electronic commerce site which, when executed in a computer apparatus, implements the method of one of claims 1-6.