KR20140146701A - System and method for electronic commerce based on group using social network service - Google Patents

Abstract

Disclosed is a method of transacting a group-based electronic commerce using a social network service. The method of transacting a group-based electronic commerce is performed through the steps of: forming an expanded trust group formed of a user group recommended by a number of users forming a trust group with a first user and other users of the trust group; and providing information about sales and purchases between the trust groups to the users of the trust groups. Thus, the vitalization of commercial transaction may be promoted through the active promotion of product information and in addition, trust-based safe transaction may be achieved.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD [0001] The present invention relates to a group-based electronic commerce system and method using a social network service,

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a group-based electronic commerce system and method using a social network service (SNS), and more particularly, to a system and a method for promoting trust-based transactions using a conventional user's personal network.

In the past, if a desktop-based social network service has become mainstream, social network services are widely used among a large number of people as mobile networks are expanded. For example, mobile and web based social network services such as facebook, twitter, kakao talk, line, and cyworld are widely used. As social network services become commonplace in many people's lives, many people have the advantage of multi-party communication. However, most of the communication on social network services is merely a manifestation of user's loneliness. There is a problem in that it can not provide help.

In other words, the daily life of most users is closely related to economic activities, and these economic activities are based on various production, consumption, and distribution. Despite the need to expand the scope of these economic activities, It is not possible to reflect the results.

In addition, there are cases where the publicity of the company is performed by using the existing social network service. However, there is a possibility that the unwanted privacy is exposed (for example, by pressing the favorite button of Facebook, There is a problem in the case that the user's own profile can be exposed to an unspecified number of persons), and there is a problem that the publicity from a person who has no trust relationship has the same reliability and utility as the existing publicity method.

In order to overcome this problem, the present invention proposes a group-based e-commerce system and method using a social network service based on a user's trust relationship.

The present invention provides a method of increasing the area of economic activity of a user while securing reliability by using a human network of a user established in an existing social network service.

The present invention also overcomes the legal obstacles of the conventional big-data market through the disclosure of voluntary information and the disclosure of information by utilizing the information stored in the social network service, To solve the problems of conventional social network services.

In order to solve the conventional problems described above, the present invention proposes a group-based electronic commerce system using a social network service, which is a preferred embodiment of the present invention. An embodiment of the present invention is a group server including a plurality of group information corresponding to a plurality of users, wherein each group information is defined for each user, group information of the Nth user is defined as a direct association A second group of N-th users defined as first groups of other users included in the first group of N-th users, a second group of N-th users defined as the first groups of other users included in the first group of N-th users, Groups extended through a first group of users, where N is a natural number of one or more; A goods information server for receiving and storing sales information or purchase information from a user terminal; Determines whether purchase information or sales information received from the first user terminal matches with sales information or purchase information of other users in the group information of the first user, and if matching sales information or purchase information exists A matching server for transmitting a matching result to a first user terminal; And a user terminal that receives purchase intention information or sales intention information from the first user terminal in response to the matching result and transmits sales information or purchase information related to purchase intention information or sales intention information to the user terminal, And an intermediary server for transmitting information.

Another embodiment of the present invention is a group server that includes a plurality of group information corresponding to a plurality of users, wherein each group information is defined for each user, and the group information of the Nth user is directly A second group of N-th users defined as first groups of other users included in the first group of N-th user, a second group of N-th users included in the first group of N-th users, Groups extended through a first group of other users, wherein N is a natural number greater than or equal to one; A goods information server for receiving and storing sales information or purchase information from a user terminal; Determines whether purchase information or sales information received from the first user terminal matches with sales information or purchase information of other users in the group information of the first user, and if matching sales information or purchase information exists A matching server for transmitting a matching result to a first user terminal; And a user terminal that receives purchase intention information or sales intention information from the first user terminal in response to the matching result and transmits sales information or purchase information related to purchase intention information or sales intention information to the user terminal, The first user's group information includes a second user, and the first user's purchase intention information or sales information for sales information or purchase information matched through the group information of the second user, In the case of transmitting the pseudo information to the mediation server, compensation is provided for the second user.

The present invention has the effect of satisfying the needs of the user's economic activity that does not satisfactorily satisfy the existing simple social networking service by using the information of the user stored in the existing social network service to facilitate transactions of goods and services .

In addition, according to the present invention, it is possible not only to enable e-commerce based on trust by positively utilizing the user's personal network, but also to create a profit model through escrow settlement .

1 is a block diagram of an electronic commerce system according to an embodiment of the present invention.
2 is a block diagram of an electronic commerce system according to another embodiment of the present invention.
3 is a schematic diagram of a human network of a user according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. The following description and accompanying drawings are for understanding the operation according to the present invention, and those parts that can be easily implemented by those skilled in the art may be omitted for the sake of understanding the patentability of the present invention.

It should be understood that the detailed description and specific examples, while indicating preferred embodiments of the invention, are given by way of illustration only, and are not limitative of the present invention, and the scope of the present invention should be determined by the claims. The terms used in the present specification should be construed to mean the meanings and concepts consistent with the technical idea of the present invention so as to best express the present invention.

The conventional social network service has developed into a media having a great influence on people as it has expanded its area as a mobile web and an application, And the lack of motivation to actively tended to be used only as a means of communication between individuals. In addition, in the conventional web-based public relations method, a publicity is performed for an unspecified number of persons or a person who has no trust relationship, and many users can not trust such publicity, many.

Therefore, a person who wants to sell or purchase a product can easily inform his / her product information to people in his / her personal network, and informs many people of his or her product information in a reliable manner. At the same time, You need a way.

In the present invention, a method for preventing exposure of personal information of a user while promoting a transaction of goods through reliable publicity using user information is proposed in order to overcome the limit of the conventional social network service.

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an electronic commerce system according to an embodiment of the present invention. In order to facilitate understanding of the patentability of the present invention, portions excluding the user terminal 105 and the server unit 100 are omitted.

The user terminal 105 of the present invention is a terminal connectable to the server unit 100 and includes a television, a computer, a mobile phone, a PCS, a notebook, a smart phone, a handheld device, and the like having a wired or wireless Internet connection function. The user terminal 105 may be connected to the server unit 100 through an arbitrary communication network that can be connected to the server unit 100 such as the Internet or an intranet.

The server unit 100 includes a group server 110, a goods information server 120, a matching server 130 and a mediating server 140, It will be appreciated that the servers may be implemented in a single server or may be implemented across multiple distributed servers.

The group server 110 includes a user information input unit 111 for receiving user information from a user, a group information extracting unit for extracting user information included in the user's personal network from a user's social network service account, 112), and a group data storage unit 113 for storing group information data.

The user registers information on himself / herself (e.g., the ID of the contact and the social network service) in the group server 110 through the user information input unit 111, and the group information extraction unit 112 extracts the group information Based on the information, information on a user included in the personal network of the social network service to which the user is subscribed (for example, a user in a social network relationship of Cyworld, a user in a friend relationship of Facebook or KakaoTalk) Data is extracted. At this time, it is desirable to extract only the minimum amount of user information that can be identified by each user. In addition, the group data storage unit 113 stores the group information data extracted by the group information extraction unit 112. The group information data can be stored not only by the group information extracting unit 112 but also by other users who have accumulated information input by the user and other users such as the address book stored in the user terminal 105. [ At this time, a plurality of users included in the user's personal network received from one source may be referred to as a group or a trust group, the classification of the group may be arbitrarily modified by the user, Or may add / delete members of the trust group arbitrarily.

On the other hand, the group information data may include reliability information for each group input by the user or for other users in the group, which prevents exposure of unnecessary personal information, . Such reliability information may be implemented in the form of a flag.

The merchandise information server 120 is for receiving and storing sales information / purchase information from a user. The merchandise information server 120 includes a sales information storage unit 121 for receiving and storing information of the sales merchandise from the user, A purchase information storing unit 122 for receiving and storing the goods information, and a category information storing unit 123 including information for dividing the product category.

The user can register a product he wants to sell or a product he wants to purchase in the product information server 120 using the user terminal 105. The user can use the sales information storage unit 121 or the purchase information storage unit 122). In addition, the product information server 120 may be configured to classify products registered according to a category for classifying products stored in advance in the category information storage unit 123. [

On the other hand, the sales information or the purchase information of the goods information server 120 may include sales price information, but this may not be included when the user desires a transaction in which the price is not disclosed. In addition, the user can set his / her own goods as an auction system and set only the lowest price and the sales period, or set up to receive the price from the people who desire to purchase the reverse auction system. Information related to these sales or purchasing methods may also be included in the sales information or purchase information.

 In addition, the matching server 130 may be configured to match sales information or purchase information of other users included in the user's group among sales information or purchase information stored in the product information server 120 based on the sales or purchase information received from the user And transmits the matching result to the corresponding user when matching sales information or purchase information exists. In this case, the matching may be performed immediately when the user transmits the sales or purchase information to the product information server 120, but if there is no matching information, the matching information may be transmitted to the goods information server 120 ≪ / RTI > may not be matched until it is transmitted.

The matching result may include sales information or purchase information, and further may include information on a user who has registered such sales information or purchase information. The matching server 130 may store the goods information, And may be configured to include it in the matching result. The shortest distance on the human network means the shortest distance among the distances between a salesperson or a purchaser of a corresponding product matched with a purchaser or a salesperson of the product, which will be described below with reference to FIG.

3 is a schematic diagram of a human network of a user according to an embodiment of the present invention, which includes a first trust group 310, a second trust group 320, and a third trust group 320 that are directly or indirectly related to a first user, (330) is shown, but this is exemplary and there may be a third or more trust group.

The first trust group 310 may be a group of users who are directly associated with the first user and may be included in the user's address book or have a relationship in social network services. However, a user whose reliability is estimated to be low by the first user may be excluded from the first trust group 310. [ The second trust group 320 may be a group recommended by a user other than the first user belonging to the first trust group, for example, a group to which the second user 321 belongs (however, May be excluded). The third trust group 330 or more trust groups may be created in the same manner as the second trust group 320 is created. By extending the trust group in this manner, the range of the first user's human network can be extended to facilitate transactions with trusted users.

The shortest distance on the human network means the number of users on the human network that are connected from the user through the least number of users existing between the other users. For example, the shortest distance of the human network between the third user and the first user in FIG. 3 is formed through the second user, and the shortest distance human network includes the first user, the second user, and the third user do.

3, the third group of users, for example, the third user recommended by the second user may be a user belonging to the first trust group 310. [ In this case, it is appropriate that the human network having the shortest distance is composed of a first user and a third user. This is for the purpose of explanation, and the shortest distance may be described in any unit capable of expressing the above-mentioned concept.

Referring again to FIG. 1, the matching server 130 may be configured to filter some matching results according to trust information stored in the group server 110. That is, the matching efficiency can be increased by not including the merchandise information of the seller having low reliability or the buyer's choice in the matching result. Further, when another user attempts to match a product registered by the user himself / herself and the user sets a low reliability for the other user, the user is not exposed to the registered product or only part of the user's product information is disclosed, It is possible to minimize the exposure of information.

The matching server 130 may also be further configured to automatically update price information included in the sales information or purchase information based on the shortest distance of the determined human network. This is because the user (for example, the first user in FIG. 3) is different from the user (for example, the third user in FIG. 3) other than the user directly in the trust relationship 2 users), in order to guarantee the commission of the broker. Generally, it is possible to increase the price of goods through intermediaries, or rather to provide a discount to provide a promotional effect to a certain user. Thus, by providing the compensation for the intermediary, the intermediary provides the motive for actively promoting the product, so that the user who purchases the product can easily obtain the desired information, and the seller can easily promote the product It is effective.

On the other hand, compensation may be provided to the broker without updating the price information according to the shortest distance of the human network. This may be provided from a fee for escrow settlement, or may be provided in the form of a fixed point or coupon that may be used at a later time.

In addition, the matching server 130 may be configured to sort the matching results based on the trust information and the shortest distance on the determined human network. This is to assist the selection of the user, and the matching result may be sorted based on the sales information or the price information included in the purchase information.

The user who receives the matching result from the matching server 130 may select one item from the matching result to indicate the intention of selling or purchasing. The purchasing intention information or the sales intention information of the user is received by the mediation server 140 and the mediation server 140 transmits the notification to the registrant of the commodity in response to the reception of the purchase intention information or the sales intention information. This transmission is performed based on the user information of the registrant of the corresponding product, and may be performed through, for example, e-mail, text message, push notification, or publication of a web page. The registrant of the commodity does not have to worry about the sale or purchase of the commodity until after the notification of the commodity once the commodity is registered, thereby increasing the convenience of the registrant of the commodity.

Although not shown in FIG. 1, the server unit 100 may be further configured to provide an escrow settlement service. Escrow settlement service refers to a service in which a third party deposits the payment amount, but not the transaction party, and delivers the payment to the seller only when the transaction is normally completed. Through the escrow settlement service, the transaction parties can trust each other and deal with each other , The server operator has the advantage of earning money through escrow fees. In addition, some of these escrow fees may be provided as compensation to users included in the shortest distance of the human network.

The electronic commerce system of the present invention may be configured to delete sales information or purchase information of a corresponding commodity upon completion of a transaction between the parties, that is, when a transaction party informs the server of receipt of payment and a corresponding commodity.

Further, the electronic commerce system of the present invention may receive sales information or purchase information from a plurality of users, but it may receive sales information or purchase information from a company that desires to sell the product, Advertising of the goods is possible.

Meanwhile, although not shown in FIG. 1, the electronic commerce system of the present invention may further include a search server. Some users may want to search for information about products that other users in their group would like to sell or purchase without specifying the products they want to purchase or sell. In this case, the user transmits a search query to the search server, and the search server may search for sales information or purchase information of other users in the user's group information based on the search query, and transmit the search result to the user.

The search server may search only the information matching the search query inputted by the user, but it may perform the similar search including words similar to the search query inputted by the user. Such similar search may be performed using a known technique . ≪ / RTI >

In addition, the search query may be input by a user directly through a search window or the like, but may be replaced with a user simply clicking or touching a category on a screen provided to the user. In addition, when the user clicks a category to replace the search query, a product in the category may be included in the search result. In addition, those skilled in the art will understand that operations similar to the above-described "matching results" for the "search results"

Meanwhile, the electronic commerce system of the present invention may be used to provide a discount. For example, if a first user initiates a new business (e.g., a food and beverage business, a cosmetics business, or a variety of services businesses), the first user needs to promote the new business extensively. In such a case, it may be possible to ask a second user who has a direct trust relationship with himself or herself, but the person who is requested to publicize often does not publicize widely to the acquaintances because they are not motivated for active publicity .

Accordingly, when the first user is registered in the goods information server 120 by limiting the goods, services and specific conditions (for example, goods, money, and discounts) sold by the first user, The user may view the information of the first user and decide to purchase the product. In particular, when a first user provides a discount, a coupon for a discount (e.g., a 10% discount on the amount of usage) may be provided to the third user. Such coupons may be provided in electronic form or in printed form.

In addition, the third user may be offered a discount by presenting the coupon to the first user, in which case the compensation may be provided to the second user, including points as a broker, so that the second user may be motivated to actively promote have. Also, the name, ID, and / or phone number of the second user are described in the coupon, and the first user can know that the third user has found himself / herself by the intermediation / introduction of the second user, Increasing trust, and more easily promoting your business.

2 is a block diagram of an electronic commerce system according to another embodiment of the present invention. In order to facilitate understanding of the patentability of the present invention, portions except for the user terminal unit 205 and the server unit 200 are omitted.

2 is the same as that of the embodiment shown in FIG. 1, and for the convenience of description, the same parts as those of FIG. 1 are not described here, .

The embodiment shown in FIG. 1 enables a user to deal with a user who is not directly related to a user through merely matching. However, the embodiment shown in FIG. 2 is a system in which a user's product, This is a case where a related user actively promotes.

More specifically, the second user may belong to the first trust group of the first user, and may directly provide the first user with sales information of the third user belonging to the trust group of the second user. This means that the sales information or the purchase information of the second user including the hyper-link to the sales information or the purchase information registered by the third user, the shortcut, or the arbitrary detour connection, 220). ≪ / RTI > In this case, the second user can positively determine his / her intermediary fee and register it in the product information server 220, and the first user can decide to purchase the product of the third user in consideration of such intermediation fee. As such, by allowing the second user to promote, the sales of the third user can be promoted and the first user can be helped to purchase the product, and the second user can also benefit from the transaction, thereby enabling the transaction to be activated.

The term 'commodity' referred to in the specification of the present invention includes types of commodities and intangible commodities, including the provision of discounts, goods and services, and even if not listed in the description of the present invention, Quot; can be included in " goods ".

It is also to be clearly understood by those skilled in the art that electronic commerce methods performed in the same manner as the method performed in the system described in the present invention are also included within the scope of the present invention.

The present invention may be implemented through an independent web site, but may be implemented in combination with an existing social network service, or may be implemented in parallel with a mobile application, or may be implemented in a mobile application itself.

Alternatively, the invention may be embodied by computer-executable instructions stored on a computer-readable storage medium. The computer-readable storage medium of the present disclosure includes any kind of storage device in which data that can be read by a computer system is stored.

Examples of computer-readable storage media include ROM, RAM, CD-ROM, magnetic tape, floppy disk, optical data storage, etc., and also implementations in the form of carrier waves (e.g., transmission over the Internet) . In addition, the computer-readable storage medium may be distributed over a networked computer system so that computer readable code in a distributed manner may be stored and executed.

The embodiments of the present invention have been described above. It will be understood by those skilled in the art that the present invention may be embodied in various other forms without departing from the spirit or essential characteristics thereof. Therefore, the above-described embodiments should be considered from an illustrative point of view, not from a limiting viewpoint. The scope of the present invention is defined by the appended claims rather than by the foregoing description, and the inventions claimed by the claims and the inventions equivalent to the claimed invention are to be construed as being included in the present invention.

Claims (13)

A group server comprising a plurality of group information corresponding to a plurality of users, wherein each of the group information is defined for each user, and the group information of the Nth user is defined by users who have a direct association with the Nth user A second group of N-th users defined as first groups of other users included in the first group of N-th users, and a second group of other users included in the second group Groups extending through a first group, wherein N is a natural number greater than or equal to one;
A goods information server for receiving and storing sales information or purchase information from a user terminal;
Determines whether purchase information or sales information received from the first user terminal matches with sales information or purchase information of other users in the group information of the first user, and if matching sales information or purchase information exists A matching server for transmitting a matching result to the first user terminal; And
Receiving the purchase intention information or the sales intention information from the first user terminal in response to the matching result and transmitting sales information or purchase information related to the purchase intention information or the sales intention information to the user terminal, And a mediation server for transmitting the information or the salesperson information. The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the first group of first users comprises a second user,
When the first user transmits the purchase intention information or the sales intention information to the mediation server for the sales information or the purchase information matched through the group information of the second user, Based e-commerce system using social network services. 3. The method of claim 2,
Wherein the first group of N-th users is grouped based on a social network service, which can be extracted from at least one of the address book of the user terminal or the social network service to which the user belongs, Electronic commerce system. 3. The method of claim 2,
Wherein the group server comprises:
Receiving and storing reliability information for each of the other users from the plurality of users, and automatically generating and storing reliability information according to the number of groups connecting the users and other users ≪ / RTI > further comprising:
Wherein the matching server is further configured to filter the matching result based on the reliability information. 5. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 4,
Wherein the sales information or the purchase information includes information received from a user terminal of the second user among the plurality of users,
The sales information or purchase information received from the user terminal of the second user may be hyperlinked to the sales information or purchase information received from the user terminal of the third user of the plurality of users, A group based e-commerce system using social network services, including connections. 5. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 4,
A search server that receives a search query from the first user terminal and searches for sales information or purchase information of other users in the group information of the first user based on the search query and transmits search results to the first user terminal Further included,
Wherein the product information server is further configured to classify the sales information or the purchase information into a plurality of predetermined product categories based on the received sales information or the purchase information,
Wherein the search query further includes selection information of one product category selected from a plurality of product categories received from the first user terminal,
Wherein the search server is further configured to perform a similarity search based on the search query received. 5. The method according to any one of claims 2 to 4,
Wherein the mediation server is further configured to provide an escrow payment function to a user, and wherein the compensation is provided in the form of a portion or point of the escrow settlement. 5. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 4,
The sales information includes discounts on the goods or services provided,
Wherein the discount is provided as a coupon. Receiving and storing a plurality of pieces of group information data corresponding to a plurality of users, wherein each of the group information is defined for each user, and the group information of the Nth user is associated with the Nth user A first group of N-th users including users, a second group of N-th users defined as first groups of other users included in the first group of N-th users, and another Receiving and storing the plurality of group information data, the groups being extended through a first group of users, wherein N is a natural number greater than or equal to one;
Receiving and storing sales information or purchase information from a plurality of user terminals;
Determining whether purchase information or sales information received from the first user terminal is matched with sales information or purchase information of other users in the group information of the first user;
Transmitting a matching result to the first user terminal if matching sales information or purchase information exists;
Receiving the purchase intention information or the sales intention information from the first user terminal in response to the matching result and transmitting sales information or purchase information related to the purchase intention information or the sales intention information to the user terminal, And sending said information about said salesperson information to said salesperson. 10. The method of claim 9,
Wherein the group information of the first user includes a second user,
When the first user transmits the purchase intention information or the sales intention information to the mediation server with respect to the sales information or the purchase information matched through the group information of the second user, Wherein the group-based e-commerce method comprises the steps of: 11. The method of claim 10,
Wherein the plurality of group information data is extracted from at least one of an address book of a user terminal or a social network service to which the user belongs and can be modified by the user, Way. The method according to any one of claims 9 to 11,
Filtering the matching result based on the reliability information,
Wherein the reliability information is at least one of reliability information for other users input from each user in the plurality of users and reliability information automatically generated according to the number of groups connecting the respective users with other users , Group - based e - commerce method using social network services. The method according to claim 10 or 11,
Further comprising the step of providing an escrow payment function to the user,
Wherein said compensation is provided in the form of a portion or point of said escrow settlement.

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