Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
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OWNERSHIP-BASED DISTRIBUTION
1. FIELD OF INVENTION
The present invention relates to distribution, and more particularly,
ownership-based distribution.
2. BACKGROUND
Conventionally, ownership rights and distribution rights are two separate
matters without inherent
connections. The ownership right of a product is the right to own and use the
product, the
distribution right of a product is the right to distribute the product for
earning commissions.
Therefore, purchasing a product only deems the buyer the ownership right of
the purchased product,
but does not automatically grant the buyer the distribution right of the
purchased product. Thus far,
none of the existing e-commerce systems automatically grants the buyer the
distribution right of a
purchased product.
Affiliate programs used by various e-commerce systems are popular means for
partners to
participate in distributions. But existing affiliate programs fall into the
category of subscription
based distribution in which a partner subscribes a set of products for
distribution to earn affiliate
fees without requiring product ownerships.
Social e-commerce recommendation systems allow a member to declare what he/she
likes, owns or
wishes to own without authentic proofs of what are declared or recommended. A
member may
declare the ownership of a product that he never owned or recommend a product
that he never used.
Thus the trustworthiness and authenticity of self-declaration and user-
generated recommendation
systems are questionable and subject to abuse.
Conventional multi-level marketing or networked marketing systems do not
support direct
commission payment. Instead, a commission earned from a distribution
transaction is shared among
members in multi-tiers. Such multi-tiered commission sharing is not suitable
for social e-commerce
because social distribution networks can be so dynamic and cross-connected
that multi-tiered
commission calculations may lead to near-zero or un-deterministic values when
distribution network
levels increase or distribution network dynamic structures change.
In comparison therewith, this invention provides many features that are
contrary to the prior arts:
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(1) Unlike conventional e-commerce systems which do not connect ownerships
with
distributorships, this invention equates ownerships with distributorships,
such that the
distribution right of a product is automatically acquired upon authentic
acquisition of the
product ownership via purchasing or gifting.
(2) In addition, unlike conventional affiliate distribution programs which do
not require
ownerships of the products being distributed, this invention introduces a new
type of
distribution which allows members to distribute authentically owned products
for making
commissions.
(3) In addition, unlike known social recommendation applications which rely on
user-generated
recommendations without proving what are declared or recommended, this
invention
authenticates ownerships based on actual ownership acquiring activities such
as purchasing
or gifting.
(4) In addition, unlike conventional multi-level marketing systems which do
not support direct
commission payment, this invention makes a commission payment only to a direct
distributor in a purchasing transaction without commission sharing.
The main object of this invention is to provide a computer-implemented method
of equating
ownerships with distributorships so that authentic ownerships are affirmed for
members upon
ownership acquiring activities and authentically owned products are
distributable by authentic
owners for making commissions. Accordingly, several advantages of this
invention are:
(a) Ownership-based distributorships provide authentic owners a moneymaking
opportunity for
each authentically owned product.
(b) Authentic ownerships provide greater trustworthiness and authenticity than
user generated
wishy-washy recommendations and declarations of what they like, own or wish to
own.
(c) An ownership-based distributorship is permanent during the production life
cycle of the
associated product. Thus, a product is purchased once and distributed
repeatedly.
(d) Social ownership-based distribution provides a new and efficient marketing
and distribution
framework, in which a member's store is a personalized marketing presentation
which
presents the products that the member authentically owns and distributes the
authentically
owned products to social friends and acquaintances. Thus all the buyers of a
product are
collectively the sales force for the product and all social friends of the
product buyers are
potential new buyers of the product.
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(e) Direct commission payment without sharing significantly simplifies the
processing of
networked distribution because it deals with one direct distributor in a
purchasing transaction
instead of dealing with a sub-network or a graph for commission sharing.
Further objects and advantages of this invention will become apparent from a
consideration of the
drawings and ensuring description.
3. LIST OF FIGURES
Fig 1 illustrates ownership module structure and usages.
Fig 2 illustrates ownership-specific order processing.
Fig 3 illustrates ownership module implementation.
Fig 4 illustrates ownership module access for integration.
Fig 5 illustrates ownership-based store operations.
Fig 6 illustrates an ownership-based e-commerce platform.
Fig 7 illustrates a sample UI of the ownership-based e-commerce platform.
4. SUMMARY
This invention describes a computer-implemented method of equating ownerships
with
distributorships. The method comprises providing a storage means for storing
authentic ownership
data, associating the products that members have authentic ownerships with
their respective stores,
and affirming members' authentic ownerships into ownership data storage upon
ownership
acquiring activities.
5. DETAILED DESCRIPTIONS
This invention describes a method of equating ownerships with distributorships
and an ownership
module for carrying out the method to enable ownership-based e-commerce. The
ownership module
is a computer-implemented sub-system which can be used as a component to
construct new
ownership-based e-commerce applications or to be integrated with existing
Internet applications to
enable ownership-based distribution capability. The main functions of the
ownership module
comprise affirming authentic ownerships for members' ownership acquiring
activities and
associating members' authentically owned products with their store listings so
that members can
distribute authentically owned products for making commissions.
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An authentic ownership is the ownership being authenticated and managed by an
application which
uses the ownership module. An authentically owned product by a member is a
product that the
member has authentic ownership. By using the ownership module functionalities
in an e-commerce
application, a member automatically acquires a product distributorship upon
acquiring the product
ownership. A product ownership may be acquired via purchasing or gifting.
Purchasing and gifting
activities are sources of ownership acquisitions. Each ownership acquiring
activity is processed with
an ownership affirmation. Any other types of ownership acquiring activities
may be integrated with
the ownership module functionalities in the same way.
An application using the ownership module is responsible for member account
management and
product enrollments. The environment in which the ownership module is used
comprises a plurality
of managed members to participate in the ownership-based distribution and a
plurality of managed
products to be distributed by the managed members in the distribution
marketplace which comprises
a plurality of members' stores, in which each member is provisioned with a
store. Each member is
identified by a unique user identifier (uid) and is provisioned with a payment
account for accepting
payments. Each managed product is identified by a unique product identifier
(pid) and is
provisioned with an associated commission structure which may be a percentage
of product price or
a fixed value. A product supplier defines a commission structure which may be
applicable to all of
its supplied products or applicable to a particular supplied product, or the
combination of both in
which the per-product commission takes the precedence.
Each member may enroll products for others to distribute or to distribute the
products enrolled by
others. Each member's store contains the listing of the products that the
member has authentic
ownerships or the products that the member enrolled or the combination of
both. A buyer can be any
user, either managed or unmanaged. Only managed members can acquire authentic
ownerships upon
ownership acquiring activities and distribute authentically owned products for
making commissions.
Fig 1 illustrates the ownership module structure, its operations and usages.
The ownership module
101 is a core component for enabling an ownership-based e-commerce. It
comprises an ownership
database 102 for storing authentic ownership data and module interface 103 for
creating or
retrieving ownership data stored in the ownership database 102. The ownership
database 102 stores
a plurality of ownership data records, each record comprising a uid and a pid
representing an
ownership relationship between a member identified by the uid and a product
identified by the pid.
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The ownership data may be explicitly stored in the ownership database, or
implied in other data and
induced dynamically from those other data such as purchasing transaction
records. The ownership
module interface 103 comprises ownership query functionality 104 and ownership
affirmation
functionality 105. The ownership query functionality 104 queries the ownership
database 102 for
retrieving the stored ownership data. The ownership affirmation functionality
105 affirms an
ownership relationship between a member identified by a given uid and a
product identified by a
given pid which creates and inserts the ownership record to the ownership
database 102 if said
ownership is not already existent in said ownership database.
The invocation of the ownership query functionality 104 is triggered upon a
store listing activity 112
originated from an application 110 that uses the ownership module
functionalities. The store listing
processing 111 comprises the invocation of the ownership query functionality
104 to query the
ownership database 102 for retrieving a list of products that the member has
authentic ownerships
and including the retrieved list of products in the member's store so that the
member can distribute
those authentically owned products for making commissions. Products enrolled
by a member may
also be included in the member's store, wherein the enrolled products are
retrieved from the product
database 106 via product query 107. Detailed product data used in formatting
product listings are
queried from the product database 106 via product query 107. By associating an
application's store
listing processing 111 with ownership query 104, ownerships are automatically
used as
distributorships.
The invocation of the ownership affirmation functionality 105 is triggered
upon an ownership
acquiring activity. Ownership acquiring activities comprise gifting 114
activities, or purchasing 116
activities or the combination of both activities originated from in one or
more applications 110
which are integrated with the ownership module 101. Thus each member is
automatically a
distributor of the products that the member authentically owns. By associating
ownership-acquiring
activities (gifting 114, purchasing 116) and their processing (gifting 113,
purchasing 115) with
ownership affirmation 105, the acquired ownerships are affirmed for use as
distributorships. For a
gifting activity 114, the gift processing 113 affirms the gift recipient's
authentic ownership of the
gifted product. For a purchasing activity 116, the purchasing order processing
115 affirms the
buyer's authentic ownership of the purchased product. The buyer or the gift
recipient in an
ownership acquiring activity must be a managed member in order for the
acquired ownership to be
affirmed for distributorship and the product being purchased or gifted in an
ownership acquiring
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activity must be a managed product. As a result, ownership acquiring
activities lead to authentic
ownerships for the owners and authentic ownerships are automatically used for
distributorships, thus
each member is automatically an authorized commissioned distributor of the
products that the
member authentically owns.
Purchasing activities 116 are initiated from members' stores or from a central
store which contains
the access to all the managed products enrolled by all suppliers. Each
purchasing activity 116 is
processed by purchasing order processing 115 which comprises conventional
order processing and
ownership-specific order processing. The conventional order processing
comprises accepting a
buyer's payment for a purchasing order and delivering the purchased product to
the buyer. The
ownership-specific order processing comprises the compensation for the direct
buyer, the direct
distributor and the direct supplier involved in a purchasing transaction. As
illustrated in Fig 2, the
ownership-specific order processing comprises the steps of:
1) Buyer's Distributorship Processing (201) - This step enrolls the buyer as a
distributor of the
product being purchased by invoking ownership affirmation 105 in the ownership
module
101. A member buyer is affirmed the ownership of the purchased product into
the ownership
database 102, a non-member buyer may be asked to register for the membership
in order to
obtain subsequent affirmations of authentic ownerships.
2) Distributor's Commission Processing (202) - This step makes a commission
payment to the
seller if the seller is a distributor of the product being purchased, that is,
the seller has the
authentic ownership of the product being purchased. The seller of a purchasing
order
initiated from a member's store is the owner of the store where the purchasing
order is
initiated. The seller of a purchasing order initiated from a central store is
the supplier of the
product being purchased. If the seller has authentic ownership of the product
being
purchased, the step calculates the commission of the product and pays the full
commission to
the seller without sharing with anyone else. The commission is credited to the
seller's
payment account stored in the account database 108 via payment processing 109.
3) Supplier's Profit Processing (203) - This step makes a profit payment to
the supplier of the
product being purchased. It determines the supplier of the product being
purchased and
calculates the supplier's profit for the purchasing order and makes the profit
payment to the
supplier's payment account stored in the account database 108 via payment
processing 109.
The supplier's profit is calculated by deducting the order's transactional
costs from the
purchasing price of the product. The transactional costs of an order comprise
a commission
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to be paid to the seller if the seller has the authentic ownership of the
product being
purchased. Beside the commission cost, the transactional costs may also
comprise a
transaction fee charged by the service provider. The transaction fee may be a
percentage of
the product price or a fixed value. The transaction fee may be zero if the
service is free.
When a product being purchased in a member's store was enrolled by the store
owner, the store
owner makes the profit without commission cost. When a product being purchased
in a member's
store is the product that the store owner has authentic ownership, the store
owner is paid a
commission and the supplier of the product is paid a profit. A commission is
paid to the direct
distributor without sharing which significantly simplifies the processing of
networked distribution
because it deals with one direct distributor in a purchasing transaction
instead of dealing with a sub-
network or a graph used in commission sharing.
A product purchasing order initiated from a central store is processed by the
same order processing
taking the supplier of the product being purchased as the seller, which is
equivalent to the processing
of the same order initiated from the supplier's store.
Fig 3 illustrates an ownership module implementation with the parameters
comprising (uid, pid). In
this implementation, the ownership record of the ownership database 301
comprises the data fields
(uid, pid), wherein uid is a unique member identifier and pid is a unique
product identifier
representing an ownership relationship between a member identified by the uid
and a product
identified by the pid. The module interface functionalities comprise the
ownership query 302 and the
ownership affirmation 303. The functions in the module interface are
implemented as follow:
(1) Query] (uid) 302 - The function takes uid as input parameter and returns a
list of pids of all
the products that the member associated with the given uid authentically owns.
(2) Query2(uid) 302 - The function takes uid as input parameter and returns a
list of authentic
ownerships that the member associated with the given uid has.
(3) Query3(uid, pid) 302 - The function takes uid and pid as input parameters
and validates the
existence of the ownership between the member associated with the given uid
and the
product associated with the given pid.
(4) Affirm(uid, pid) 303 - The function takes uid and pid as input parameters
and affirms an
ownership relationship between a member identified by the given uid and a
product
identified by the given pid.
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Fig 4 illustrates the access of ownership module 101. The module interface 103
implementation
internally accesses to the ownership database 102. The ownership module
interface 103 functions
may be invoked by local access 401 or remote access 402. With local access
401, the ownership
module implementation and the application are located on a same machine. With
remote access 402,
the ownership module implementation and the application are located on
different machines
separated across intranet/internet 403. The remote access may be implemented
using one or more of
the communication protocols comprising TCP/IP, RPC, and HTTP. For example, an
e-commerce
application or a social networking application may integrate the ownership
module functionalities at
the application's server side and support the access to the ownership-based e-
commerce service
enabled by the ownership module functionalities from client side of the user
interface, such that the
members' stores are displayed on the client side and the store listing
contents are generated from the
server side and when a buy button of a product in a store is pressed, the
order processing request is
sent to the server and the server uses the ownership affirmation functionality
to affirm the buyer's
ownership of the purchased product.
Fig 5 illustrates ownership-based store operations. The ownership database 102
in the ownership
module 101 is accessed by the ownership module interface 103 which further
comprises the
ownership query functionality 104 and the ownership affirmation functionality
105. An ownership-
based marketplace 501 comprises a plurality of member stores and a central
store. Suppose store
S[x] represents the store for member x. The store S[x] contains the listing of
the products that the
member x has authentic ownerships and that the member x enrolled. A member's
authentically
owned products are retrieved by invoking the ownership query functionality 104
which queries the
ownership database 102. A product purchasing activity occurred in store S[x]
triggers the invocation
of the ownership affirmation functionality 105 to affirm the ownership between
the buyer and the
purchased product which internally inserts a new ownership record into the
ownership database 102
if said ownership is new, the commission payment to the distributor and the
profit payment to the
supplier of the product being purchased. For example, when member i visits
member i's store SU],
the application invokes the ownership query functionality 104 to retrieve a
list of products that the
member j has authentic ownerships and queries the product database to retrieve
a list of products
that the member j enrolled and display the retrieved list of products in the
member j's store SU].
Purchased products 502 are used for affirming ownerships. If member i
purchases a product P in
memberj's store SD], the order processing triggers the invocation of the
ownership affirmation
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functionality 105 to register the ownership relationship between the buying
member i and the
purchased product P. For the purchasing order involving the buying member i
and the product P, a
distribution commission is paid to the store owner j if the store owner is the
distributor of the
product P and the profit of the order is paid to the supplier of the purchased
product. When the next
time member i's store S[i] is visited, the product P will appear in store S[i]
for further distribution. A
member's authentic ownerships may also be acquired via gifting activities 114
and are affirmed by
gift processing 113 via invoking the ownership affirmation 105, in which an
ownership between the
gift recipient and the gifted product in each gifting activity is affirmed.
Fig 6 illustrates the architecture of an ownership-based e-commerce platform.
The platform is an
online service system comprising a server 601 side of the software for
providing the platform
services and a client user interface software 606 for users 607 to access the
platform services from
users' local machines, such as making purchases of products listed in members'
stores or a central
store, setting up or updating accounts, enrolling products for distribution,
etc. The user interface
software 606 interacts with the platform server software 601 over the Internet
connection 605 to
carry out user requests by executing server operations and returning results
back to the user interface
606. The platform server 601 provides the implementations of the platform
service functionalities.
The platform service functionalities are classified into a set of functional
modules comprising: (1)
account module 602 for member account data storage and management, (2) product
module 603 for
product data storage and management, and (3) commerce module 604 for store
listing and order
processing. There are two types of users 607. They are un-managed users and
managed members.
All users can make purchases of any products in any stores including members'
stores and a central
store. Only managed members can distribute managed products for making
commissions. A
managed member can enroll products for distribution or distribute
authentically owned products for
making commissions.
The account module 602 (Fig 6) comprises a storage means for storing member
account data in a
computer-readable storage medium and a set of account data processing
functions for creating and
managing the stored account data. A member's account data comprise the
member's uid, contact
data and account balance. A uid is a unique user identifier automatically
generated by the platform
at the time of an account creation. The account balance is the representation
of the member's
payment account, wherein a payment made from the account causes the amount of
the payment to
be deducted from the account balance and a payment made to the account causes
the amount of the
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payment to be added to the account balance. An account balance is zero at the
time of the account
creation prior to any payment transactions. The account data may further
comprise the setup of
payment method for indicating how to transfer money in the payment account to
the member's
chosen destination. The payment method is either an online payment service or
check mailing. The
online payment services comprise PayPal and other similar services. Both
payment options are
presented to a user and let the user to make a selection. Beside the uid which
is automatically
generated by the platform at the time of an account creation, the contact data
are provided by the
user at the time of account registration and can be updated at any time by the
account owner
thereafter. The account operations comprise registering a new account for a
user which internally
creates a new account data record in the account database, updating a member's
account data based
on the revisions provided by the member, and authenticating a member's login
or service access in
order for the member to access to the platform services. A member's account
data may further
comprise the member's friend list. A member's public profile contains the
access to the member's
store. Thus, a member's friend's store may be located by navigating to the
friend's public profile.
Every user who wants to participate in the ownership-based distribution must
be a managed
member. A user can become a managed member by registering a member account. A
managed
member can access to the platform services after logging into his/her member
account.
The product module 603 (Fig 6) comprises a storage means for storing managed
product data in a
computer readable storage medium and a set of processing functions for
managing the stored
product data. The stored product data for each product comprise both platform
generated data and
supplier provided data. The platform generated data for a product comprise a
pid and a supplier's
uid. The supplier provided data comprise: title, description, price,
commission, available quantity for
non-digital product, manufacturer, supplier, delivery type (digital or non-
digital), category, listing
image file, and content files in case of a digital product. The set of
functions for managing the
product data comprise: enrolling a new product based on the product data
provided by its supplier,
updating a product's data based on the updates provided by its supplier, and
activating/de-activating
a product listing. The platform uses a fix-priced model instead of an auction
model. A commission
value is either a percentage of a product price or a fixed amount. A supplier
may set one commission
value for all of its products or set commission values on per product basis or
the combination of
both with per product commissions taking precedence. Each product enrolled
with the platform is
ready for distribution by members when its quantity remains. A product
quantity is dynamically
tracked and updated by the platform upon each purchasing activity. When the
quantity of a product
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is sold out, the product will be automatically de-activated in all
distribution stores and its
distributors cannot distribute the product till a new quantity is supplied by
the product supplier. The
available quantity of a digital-delivery product is unlimited, thus there is
no need to explicitly
specify it.
The commerce module 604 (Fig 6) is responsible for processing commerce related
activities
including store listing and purchasing order processing. The commerce module
embeds the
ownership module functionality. Thus the store listing and the purchasing
order processing are
integrated with the ownership module. (1) Store listing - Each member has a
store which lists the
products that the member authentically owned or enrolled or the combination of
both. When a
member's store is visited, the platform invokes the ownership query
functionality in the ownership
module to retrieve a list of products that the member has authentic ownerships
and include the
retrieved owned products in the member's store, and queries the product
database to retrieve the list
of products enrolled by the member and include the enrolled product list in
the member's store. A
product listing may display many pieces of information, such as product title,
price, commission,
etc, which are available by querying the product detailed information in the
product database. Each
listed product in a member's store or in the central store has a purchasing
means which may be a
single purchase means or a shopping cart purchasing means. The purchasing
means in a member's
store is selected by the member at the time of account setup and may be
switched any time
thereafter. (2) Purchasing order processing - A user may make a purchase of
any product in any
store, either a member's store or a central store. When a product in a store
is purchased by a user,
the store interface sends a purchasing transaction request to the server for
processing. Each
purchasing transaction may include one or more product purchasing orders. A
purchasing
transaction initiated by a single product purchasing UI component such as a
"buy" button comprises
one product purchasing order. A purchasing transaction initiated by a shopping
cart checkout UI
component comprises one or more product purchasing orders. The commerce module
processes
each product purchasing order in each purchasing transaction request in the
steps of. (a)
Conventional Order Processing which handles the buyer's payment processing and
delivery
processing, and (b) Ownership-Specific Order Processing which handles the
tasks specific to the
ownership-based commerce as shown in Fig 2.
In the conventional order processing, the buyer's payment processing verifies
the payment amount
made by the buyer and accepts the payment for the ordered quantity. For a non-
digital delivery
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product, the platform checks the available quantity of the ordered product,
and updates the available
quantity of the purchased product by deducting the number of purchased units.
The delivery
processing is responsible for delivering a purchased product to its buyer. A
product being purchased
by a buyer is delivered to the buyer via either digital-delivery or non-
digital-delivery. Digital-
delivery comprises downloading and online rendering, non-digital-delivery
comprises shipment.
Digital-delivery may be carried out by using one or more of the protocols
comprising HTTP, FTP
and TCP/IP. Downloading delivery type delivers a purchased digital product by
file transfer. A
buyer may download a purchased digital product at the time of purchasing or at
any time after
purchasing. Online rendering delivery type renders a purchased digital product
for online
consumption, such as listening to a music, reading a book, viewing a photo
image, playing a video,
etc. Shipment delivery type ships a purchased product to the buyer's postal
address. A product
shipment is handled by the supplier of the product being purchased after
receiving a shipment
request from the platform.
The user interface 606 (Fig 6) of the platform service may be either accessed
directly from the web
server of the platform or from inside a third party application which
integrated with the platform.
For each managed member, the user interface is accessible from the member's
public profile in the
platform or in a third party application integrated with the platform.
Fig 7 illustrates a user interface, which comprises a command area 700 and a
display area 705. The
command area 700 contains "Store" 701, "Account" 702, "Products" 703 and
"Central" 704. The
"Store" 701 tab and the "Central" 704 tab are public to all users, the
"Account" 702 tab and the
"Products" 703 tab are private to each member. When the command tab "Store"
701 is selected by a
user, a store listing request is sent to the platform server and the store
listing function in the
commerce module 604 (Fig 6) handles the construction of the store listing
contents by determining
the list of products to be included in the store and for each product in the
list, querying the product
detailed information to be displayed and compiling the product data into
proper displayable format
and returning the formatted listing to the user interface to display the
product list in the display area
705 to show all the products that the member is eligible to sell or to
distribute. When "Central" 704
is clicked, the central store is shown in a separate window or in the display
area 705. The "Buy"
button 706 is a single purchasing means for initiating the purchasing of the
associated product and
the "More" button 707 is for displaying detailed product information. When a
"Buy" button of a
listed product is pressed, a purchasing transaction request is sent to the
platform server which is
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processed by the order processing in the commerce module 604 (Fig 6) which
internally affirms the
buyer's ownership of the purchased product and handles the commission payment
to the distributor
and the profit payment to the supplier of the product being purchased. Upon
the completion of the
order processing, the buyer becomes the distributor of the purchased product,
the seller is paid the
product commission if the seller is a distributor of the product being
purchased and the supplier of
the product being purchased is paid a profit for the purchasing transaction.
When the command tab
"Account" 702 is selected, the account related user interface is shown in the
display area 705. The
account user interface shows the member's account balance and earning
information, and allows the
member to update user data such as contact data and payment method setup. When
the command tab
"Products" 703 is selected, the product related user interface is shown in the
display area 705. The
product user interface allows the member to enroll a product for distribution,
to update the product
information of an enrolled product, or to activate/de-activate a product
listing.
For a store using shopping cart purchasing means, "Add to Cart" user interface
component is used
for adding a product order to the cart, "Cart Checkout" user interface
component is used for sending
the multiple orders to the platform server for processing in which each order
is processed separately.
While the above description contains many specificities, these should not be
construed as limitations
on the scope of the invention. Many other variations are possible.
Accordingly, the scope of the
invention should be determined not by the embodiments illustrated, but by the
appended claims and
their legal equivalents.
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