Promotion infrastructure supporting multiple sellers

Abstract

A system for online sales with automatic rebate and coupon redemption provides customers making online purchases to automatically retrieve and redeem all applicable rebates and coupons during an online purchase. Purchase orders from customers are selectively fulfilled and products are shipped to the customers either by the system for online sales with automatic rebate and coupon redemption or by other merchant or manufacturer environments. The system makes purchases from merchants or manufacturers using all applicable coupons and rebates and then sells the products to the customers, passing the savings to them. The system automatically retrieves coupons and rebates for items in a shopping cart during the activity of an online purchase at an electronic mall or an online merchant site and to retrieve manufacturer's and merchant's coupons prior to an online purchasing activity for subsequent submission to an online merchant during a subsequent purchasing activity.

We claim: 
     
         1 . A promotion infrastructure comprising:
 a sales environment interface;   a transaction logic engine coupled to the sales environment interface;   a multi-seller remote handler; and   local promotion storage coupled to provide concurrent service to both the transaction logic engine and the multi-seller remote handler.   
     
     
         2 . The promotion infrastructure of  claim 1 , wherein the transaction logic engine communicatively couples to the sales environment interface and is configured to selectively manage promotion based transactions. 
     
     
         3 . The promotion infrastructure of  claim 2 , wherein the promotion based transactions involve promotion data received via the multi-seller remote handler. 
     
     
         4 . The promotion infrastructure of  claim 3 , wherein the promotion data comprises a plurality of seller's data. 
     
     
         5 . The promotion infrastructure of  claim 3 , wherein the sales environment interface is configured to deliver at least portions of the promotion data upon receipt via the multi-seller remote handler. 
     
     
         6 . The promotion infrastructure of  claim 3 , wherein the promotion data comprises a first data portion and a second data portion, the first data portion being received from a first system of a first of the plurality of sellers via a first type of exchange of a first application interface type, and the second portion being received from a second system of a second of the plurality of sellers via a second type of exchange that differs from the first type of exchange. 
     
     
         7 . The promotion infrastructure of  claim 6 , wherein one or both of the first and second types of exchanges involves a bridging element residing on a seller system. 
     
     
         8 . The promotion infrastructure of  claim 1 , further comprising a scheduler that periodically triggers operations to be performed by the transaction logic engine. 
     
     
         9 . The promotion infrastructure of  claim 8 , wherein the operations comprise usage tracking. 
     
     
         10 . The promotion infrastructure of  claim 1 , further comprising a secondary communication interface through which a secondary communication is automatically delivered. 
     
     
         11 . The promotion infrastructure of  claim 10 , wherein the secondary communication is generated based on prior interaction via the sales environment interface. 
     
     
         12 . The promotion infrastructure of  claim 1 , further comprising a secondary communication interface through which content of a secondary communication is generated based upon prior interaction via the sales environment interface. 
     
     
         13 . The promotion infrastructure of  claim 12 , wherein the content of the secondary communication is automatically generated. 
     
     
         14 . The promotion infrastructure of  claim 12 , wherein the secondary communication is automatically generated and comprises data supporting reengagement via the sales environment interface. 
     
     
         15 . The promotion infrastructure of  claim 1 , further comprising a plurality of single seller remote handlers that communicatively couple to the multi-seller remote handler. 
     
     
         16 . The promotion infrastructure of  claim 1 , further comprising a promotion translation system. 
     
     
         17 . The promotion infrastructure of  claim 16 , wherein the promotion translation system translates promotion data for receipt by the local promotion storage. 
     
     
         18 . The promotion infrastructure of  claim 1 , wherein:
 the multi-seller remote handler is coupled to the transaction logic engine; and   the transaction logic engine supports a three-way transaction.   
     
     
         19 . The promotion infrastructure of  claim 18 , wherein the three-way transaction comprises a consummation of a sale involving a customer, a seller, and the transaction logic engine. 
     
     
         20 . The promotion infrastructure of  claim 18 , wherein the three-way transaction comprises multiple stages, wherein a first of the multiple stages comprises on-line interaction and a second of the multiple stages comprises an off-line transaction. 
     
     
         21 . The promotion infrastructure of  claim 18 , wherein the three way transaction involves transfers between three accounts via a multi money account processing interface. 
     
     
         22 . The promotion infrastructure of  claim 21 , wherein the three-way transaction includes transfers between three differing monetary accounts. 
     
     
         23 . The promotion infrastructure of  claim 1 , wherein client data anonymity is supported via the multi seller remote handler. 
     
     
         24 . The promotion infrastructure of  claim 1 , wherein the sales environment interface comprises a customer interface having a query interface and, a web server and server script environment, and a web user interface library. 
     
     
         25 . The promotion infrastructure of  claim 1 , further comprising a query interface configured to bridge both queries and query results. 
     
     
         26 . The promotion infrastructure of  claim 25 , wherein the query interface supports query transactions that include sending a query to multiple seller systems via a remote handler. 
     
     
         27 . The promotion infrastructure of  claim 25 , wherein the query interface supports querying and receiving responses from a plurality of remote seller's systems. 
     
     
         28 . The promotion infrastructure of  claim 25 , further comprising interfacing with a remote handler previously loaded on a seller system that translates a query sent by the query interface. 
     
     
         29 . The promotion management infrastructure of  claim 25 , wherein the query results, based upon a seller's remote database, are delivered back to the query interface via the remote handler. 
     
     
         30 . The promotion infrastructure of  claim 1 , wherein the sales environment interface comprises at least one of:
 a web server;   a server script environment; and   a web user interface library.