Online ordering system and method

Abstract

Systems and methods for facilitating an on-line purchase of at least one item on behalf of a consumer are disclosed. A consumer may shop and purchase at least one item on a consolidated shopping (CS) website displaying one or more items available for purchase on one or more different merchant websites. The CS website provides consumers with advanced searching that takes into consideration a personal profile of the consumer, the consumer's previous shopping history, transactional data relating to a group of similar consumers, and the like. A host computer providing the CS website may access a merchant website selling the requested item, and order the requested item on behalf of the consumer, and charging a transaction fee, listing fee, receiving a rebate and/or offering a rebate for performing such. One embodiment allows a consumer to purchase/order multiple items from multiple websites in a single purchase request to the CS website.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method to store item data comprising:
 receiving a normalized item feed;   removing duplicate items from the normalized item feed;   storing new items from the normalized item feed in a database;   updating existing items stored in the database from the normalized item feed;   deleting expired items stored in the database based on the normalized item feed; and   determining a source of the normalized item feed.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising parsing the normalized item feed. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 in response to determining that the source includes a supplier, determining whether a category is associated with an item in the normalized item feed.   
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 3 , further comprising:
 in response to determining that the item is associated with the category, sending the item to an item table.   
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 3 , further comprising:
 in response to determining that the item is uncategorized, sending the item to a buffer table.   
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 3 , further comprising:
 in response to determining that the category of the item fails to match a category in the item table, sending the item to a buffer table.   
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 in response to determining that the source is independent of a supplier, determining whether there is a match of an item in the normalized item feed.   
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 7 , further comprising:
 in response to determining that there is the match, updating the database with item information from the normalized item feed.   
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 7 , further comprising:
 in response to determining that there is not the match, sending the item to a buffer table.   
     
     
         10 . A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing executable instructions that, when executed, cause a computer to perform operations comprising:
 receiving a normalized item feed;   removing duplicate items from the normalized item feed;   storing new items from the normalized item feed in a database;   updating existing items stored in the database from the normalized item feed;   deleting expired items stored in the database based on the normalized item feed; and   determining a source of the normalized item feed.   
     
     
         11 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of  claim 10 , further comprising parsing the normalized item feed. 
     
     
         12 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of  claim 10 , further comprising:
 in response to determining that the source includes a supplier, determining whether a category is associated with an item in the normalized item feed.   
     
     
         13 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of  claim 12 , further comprising:
 in response to determining that the item is associated with the category, sending the item to an item table.   
     
     
         14 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of  claim 12 , further comprising:
 in response to determining that the category of the item fails to match a category in the item table, sending the item to a buffer table.   
     
     
         15 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of  claim 12 , further comprising:
 in response to determining that the item is uncategorized, sending the item to a buffer table.   
     
     
         16 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of  claim 10 , further comprising:
 in response to determining that the source is independent of a supplier, determining whether there is a match of an item in the normalized item feed.   
     
     
         17 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of  claim 16 , further comprising:
 in response to determining that there is the match, updating the database with item information from the normalized item feed.   
     
     
         18 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of  claim 16 , further comprising:
 in response to determining that there is not the match, sending the item to a buffer table.   
     
     
         19 . A database server storing item data, the database server configured to:
 receiving a normalized item feed;   removing duplicate items from the normalized item feed;   storing new items from the normalized item feed in a database;   updating existing items stored in the database from the normalized item feed;   deleting expired items stored in the database based on the normalized item feed; and   determining a source of the normalized item feed.   
     
     
         20 . The database server of  claim 1 , further configured to parse the normalized item feed.