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WO2002041212A1 - Method of selling goods in an electronic commercial trade - Google Patents

Method of selling goods in an electronic commercial trade Download PDF

Info

Publication number
WO2002041212A1
WO2002041212A1 PCT/KR2001/000540 KR0100540W WO0241212A1 WO 2002041212 A1 WO2002041212 A1 WO 2002041212A1 KR 0100540 W KR0100540 W KR 0100540W WO 0241212 A1 WO0241212 A1 WO 0241212A1
Authority
WO
WIPO (PCT)
Prior art keywords
purchasing
points
price
article
tickets
Prior art date
Application number
PCT/KR2001/000540
Other languages
French (fr)
Inventor
Moon-Su Kim
Byeong-Do Hwang
Original Assignee
49Ok, Inc.
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by 49Ok, Inc. filed Critical 49Ok, Inc.
Priority to AU2001248872A priority Critical patent/AU2001248872A1/en
Publication of WO2002041212A1 publication Critical patent/WO2002041212A1/en

Links

Classifications

    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q30/00—Commerce
    • G06Q30/06—Buying, selling or leasing transactions
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q30/00—Commerce
    • G06Q30/06—Buying, selling or leasing transactions
    • G06Q30/0601—Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q40/00—Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
    • G06Q40/02—Banking, e.g. interest calculation or account maintenance
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
    • G06Q50/00—Information and communication technology [ICT] specially adapted for implementation of business processes of specific business sectors, e.g. utilities or tourism
    • G06Q50/34—Betting or bookmaking, e.g. Internet betting

Definitions

  • the present invention is related to a method of selling goods using internet.
  • CAN cable TV
  • the present invention includes a method for selling goods through
  • the point includes, for example, the point which members of an electronic
  • the lottery service draws numbers for the lottery
  • the present invention is to provide a method of selling articles through
  • the present invention is to provide the said method of selling articles
  • the present invention is also to provide a method of selling articles
  • Another purpose of this present invention is, while utilizing the points in
  • points comprising the steps of: saving the information about number of points
  • Fig. 1 illustrates a system for realizing a method of selling articles using
  • Fig. 2 shows an example screen of the internet shopping mall according to
  • Fig. 3 shows an example of member database according to the present
  • Fig. 4 shows an example of article database according to the present
  • Fig. 5 shows an example of sales database according to the present
  • Fig. 6 shows an example screen for member registration.
  • Fig. 7 shows an example screen for article registration.
  • Fig. 8 shows an example screen for article selection.
  • Fig. 9 shows an example screen for payment method selection which is
  • Fig. 10 is a flowchart illustrating the purchasing process of purchasing
  • Fig. 11 illustrates a system for realizing a method of selling articles using
  • Fig. 12 shows an example of member database according to the present
  • Fig. 13 shows an example of article database according to the present
  • Fig. 14 shows an example of sales database according to the present
  • Fig. 15 shows an example of refund database according to the present
  • Fig. 16 shows an example of client database installed at a cooperating
  • Fig. 17 shows an example of ledger database installed at a cooperating
  • Fig. 18 shows examples of point database and point investment database
  • Fig. 19 is a flowchart illustrating the article purchasing process according to the present invention.
  • Fig. 20 shows an example screen for payment method selection which is
  • Fig. 21 is a flowchart illustrating the drawing process according to an
  • Fig. 22 is a flowchart illustrating the selection process of immediate type
  • Fig. 23 is a flowchart illustrating the opening process of a refund account
  • Fig. 24 is a flowchart illustrating the refund process according to an
  • Fig. 25 is a flowchart illustrating the cash and card refund process
  • Fig. 26 is a flowchart illustrating the banking goods refund process
  • Fig. 27 is a flowchart illustrating the business card issue process according
  • Fig. 28 illustrates a system for realizing a method of selling articles using
  • Fig. 29 shows an example of member database according to the present
  • Fig. 30 shows an example of article database according to the present
  • Fig. 31 shows an example of purchase database accordmg to the present
  • Fig. 32 is a flowchart illustrating the article purchase process according to
  • Fig. 33 is a flowchart illustrating the drawing process according to an
  • Fig. 34 is a flowchart illustrating the opening process of a refund account
  • Fig. 35 is a flowchart illustrating the refund process according to an
  • Fig. 36 is a flowchart illustrating the cash and card refund process
  • Fig. 37 is a flowchart illustrating the banking goods refund process
  • Fig. 38 is a flowchart illustrating the business card issue process according
  • Figs. 39a and 39b are flowcharts illustrating the purchase process of the
  • Fig. 39c is a flowchart illustrating the article purchase process using the
  • Fig. 40 is a flowchart illustrating the refund process to the consumer who
  • Fig. 41 is a flowchart illustrating the article purchase process using Marble
  • Fig. 42 is a flowchart illustrating the refund process to the consumer who
  • Fig. 1 illustrates a system for realizing a method of selling articles using
  • the said system includes the client system 100 to register
  • the client system 100 can be connected to devices like scanner 103, which is
  • Internet shopping mall server system 101 is connected to membership DB 104,
  • communication device 109 includes cellular phone, PCS phone, and PDA etc.
  • Fig. 2 shows an example screen of the internet shopping mall according to
  • Entrusted trading articles are classified
  • articles are classified as "home/electronics” category, "small electronics”
  • button 202 are placed on internet shopping mall homepage for selling articles.
  • button 202 are placed on internet shopping mall homepage for selling articles.
  • card button 204 are provided, which enable users to apply for multi-purpose cards
  • the shopping mall server system 102 is connected to
  • membership DB 104 membership DB 104, article DB 105, and sales DB 106.
  • server system 102 via internet 111 and register for a membership, the shopping
  • mall server system 102 saves information of the member into the membership DB
  • article code 400 As illustrated in Fig 4, article code 400, registration date 401, article name
  • the shopping mall server system 101 saves the
  • drawing for the member 508 are linked to each other and saved into sale DB 106
  • Fig. 6 shows an example screen for member registration. It a user wants to
  • registration screen which leads the user to input information needed to registration
  • account information for cashback credit card information, bank account
  • the shopping mall server system notifies whether
  • a shopping mall server system allows the user to access to the shopping
  • membership registration screen is
  • FIG. 7 shows an example
  • system 100 transfers the information to a shopping mall server system.
  • mall server system saves the information about the article transferred by client
  • FIG. 10 is a flowchart illustrating the purchasing process of purchasing ticket
  • refrigerators and audios in home/electronics category are displayed on screen as in
  • article price is 100 Won
  • purchasing ticket price is 10 Won, number of issued purchasing tickets is 10 while
  • the user can cancel the transaction by clicking cancel button.
  • shopping mall server After ordering purchasing ticket(s) for an article, shopping mall server
  • a purchaser selects payment method (credit card or bank account transfer)
  • E-mail server 102 sends a receipt
  • the shopping mall server system checks whether purchasing
  • the shopping mall server system changes the drawing date of article
  • shopping mall server system performs drawing.
  • cashback function shopping mall server system records cashback date, cashback
  • Entrusted trading company builds a coalition with financial agency (bank,
  • entrusted trading company manages the information, such as cashback date,
  • present invention can be applied to home shopping system using CATN.
  • business process server controls over the method of selling articles following the
  • Fig 3 or Fig 5 are connected to the business process server.
  • CATN home shopping company registers articles to sell in a business
  • the business process server records article information in the same
  • purchasing ticket information are broadcasted to facilitate sale.
  • the sale service representatives inform whether the
  • the sales service representatives may nor check if consumers have
  • Payment method of consumers of purchasing tickets may be credit card, bank electronic fund transfer, or other payment methods.
  • business process server checks consumers
  • server refers to membership DB and article DB to register the information about article the consumer choose, where information such as member ID, purchase date,
  • the business process server may request another payment
  • business process server After payment, business process server creates numbers of purchasing tickets,
  • Business process server records related information to appropriate DB following a
  • the customer can purchase a purchasing ticket without any disadvantage.
  • Fig. 11 illustrates a system for realizing a method of selling articles using
  • the present invention includes the client system 1100 to register articles to internet shopping malls; business server system
  • e-mail server 1102 to distribute e-mails to the members; point manage
  • server 1103 to issue, transform, and manage increase or decrease of points
  • system 101 is connected to membership DB 104, article DB 105, and sales DB 106.
  • Business server system 1101 is equipped with membership DB 1104, article DB
  • communication device to communication network, for example internet 1113, via communication device
  • Communication device 1109 is connected to financial agency 1112 via
  • Financial agency 1112 can be equipped with inter-financial
  • the communication device 1109 can
  • cellular phone includes cellular phone, PCS phone, and PDA etc.
  • Homepage to sell articles is displayed when users connect to business
  • business server system 1101 is equipped with
  • membership DB 1104 includes member identifier
  • the business server system 1101 saves information
  • business server system 1101 saves the information about the articles into the article
  • member ID 1500 date buying purchasing ticket(s)
  • article code 1502 article code 1502, registration date 1503, number of ticket(s) purchased 1504,
  • system 1101 saves it into sales DB 1106.
  • Fig. 15 shows an example of refund database according to the present
  • Member ID 1600 Member ID 1600, member name 1601, payment date 1602, refund type
  • Fig. 16 shows an example of client database 1114 installed at a cooperating
  • Client DB 1114 is client related
  • opening date 1708, and closure date 1709 are recorded into client DB 1114.
  • Business server system 1101 saves refund related information for the losers in
  • financial agency updates client related information to manage refund information
  • Fig. 17 shows an example of ledger database 1115 installed at a
  • Business server system 1101 saves refund related information for the losers in
  • Fig. 18 shows examples of point management database 1108 and point
  • n th another point 1903 is defined as a number of points, which is utilized in
  • the point investment DB 1119 is built to record restored point of all purchasers.
  • an investment company can utilize the points as a
  • point investment DB 1119 includes
  • member ID 1911 member ID 1913, date received 1915, investment goods'
  • a business server system allows the user to access to the shopping
  • membership registration screen (confer
  • Fig 6 is provided to facilitate registration and the user will be denied to access to
  • This step is a process that a server records members' points registered in
  • Server enables users to register by themselves using membership
  • server can record information about members' points after
  • This step is a step of issuing multiple purchasing tickets of which the point
  • point management DB 1108 with the latest price to point ratio whenever there is a
  • SI 107 For example, a user who wants to browse refrigerators and audios which
  • This step is to receive purchase orders of purchasing tickets requested by a
  • server system displays the article name and number of purchasing ticket(s) the user
  • Payment method can be credit card, bank
  • Refund method can be cash, financial article,
  • This step is of receiving payment method from corresponding purchaser of
  • Business server system sends purchaser name 1302, citizenship registration
  • business server system 1101 asks purchaser to
  • Business server system 1101 repeats
  • server system sends transaction information to the financial agency system
  • server system reduces the number of points same as the number of points for purchasing tickets the purchaser ordered from the
  • point management server requests reduction of the purchaser's number
  • This step is a process that server system 1101 posts sales status of the
  • Business server system 1101 creates serial number(s) of purchasing
  • sales DB 1106 and updates information about number of sold purchasing ticket(s)
  • E-mail server 1102 after registration of the information into related DB's.
  • announcement date and announcement date may be specified in the receipt e-mail.
  • This step is a process that server system draws one or more purchasing
  • Drawing type refers to a method that draws purchasing tickets after a
  • Business server system can notify change of drawing date and do drawing
  • Fig. 21 is a flowchart illustrating the drawing process according to an
  • Business server system checks the status of
  • the shopping mall server system changes
  • business server 1101 of the entrusted trading company sends the
  • the financial agency receiving payment request information can request payment request information.
  • Immediate type refers to a method of deciding the winner right after the
  • winner is defined as the ratio of the number of winning purchasing tickets to the
  • Fig. 22 is a flowchart illustrating the selection process of immediate type
  • probability of being winner is defined as the
  • Another example of the second method is for the case when a purchaser
  • winning probability is calculated as a
  • This step is a process of restoring a proportion of cash or points as a
  • Server system decides the points restored to winners and losers in the range
  • Entrusted trading company pays the price to entrusting company, and takes
  • purchasing ticket is returned to users not winning prize with cash, banking merchandise, stock, or other article with comparable value after a certain period of
  • refund DB 1107 separately records and manages
  • membership ID 1600 name 1601, refund received date 1602, refund type 1603,
  • refund account number 1604 refund amount or point 1605, and refund date 1606
  • Entrusted trading company builds a coalition with financial agency (bank,
  • This step is a process of server system creating account information for
  • business server system 1101 to open an refund account to financial server or financial system.
  • business server system 2101 After drawing, business server system 2101 records membership ID 1600,
  • Server system 1101 retrieves
  • mailing address 1304, phone number 1305, and business card issuance 1310 from
  • the information is sent to a financial agency connected to the present company to
  • Fig. 23 is a flowchart illustrating the opening process of a refund account
  • the corresponding financial agency after finishing the account opening for the purchasers financial article, registers the purchaser information into client DB
  • point management server If a purchaser selects point refund method, point management server
  • FIG. 24 is a flowchart illustrating the refund process
  • This step is a process that a server system order financial server or
  • server requests information about cash
  • point management server browses point DB and calculates the cash amount
  • Refund is executed based on the cash amount
  • server increases the number of points recorded in membership DB by the number
  • point management server increases the number of
  • a financial agency 1112 records opening
  • Fig. 26 is a flowchart illustrating the banking goods refund process
  • a financial agency 1112 is provided according to an embodiment of the present invention.
  • a financial agency 1112 is provided.
  • refund method varies depending on
  • Financial agency 1112 sends member ID, open financial account number,
  • the business server system receives the result and
  • maturity date 1804 of it is checked. If it is maturity date, financial agency pays the
  • refund amount can be any value. According to the example of the present invention, refund amount can be any value.
  • the purchaser can use the deposited refund amount immediately.
  • the card
  • FIG. 21 is a flowchart illustrating the
  • the card is issued.
  • points and number of points for a purchasing ticket is 1,000 points, which are also
  • This step is of receiving payment method from the corresponding
  • refund is realized by cash or points, or
  • articles are fixed profit regular savings, flexible profit trust fund, or mutual fund.
  • purchasing tickets can be issued as a form of financial article at the point of
  • Another example of the present invention is a method to sell purchasing
  • Another effect of the present invention is, while utilizing the points in
  • Fig. 28 illustrates a system for realizing a method of selling articles using
  • articles includes the client system 2100 to register articles to internet shopping
  • business server system 2101 to sell the articles through the method of
  • e-mail server 2102 to distribute e-mails to
  • the client system 2100 can be connected to machines like scanner 2103,
  • Business server system 2101 is connected to membership DB 2104,
  • article DB 2105 sales DB 2106, refund DB 2107, and purchase DB 2108.
  • Business server system 2101 is connected to internet 2113 via communication device 2109. Numbers of unidentified users connect to internet 2113 using

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  • Business, Economics & Management (AREA)
  • Accounting & Taxation (AREA)
  • Finance (AREA)
  • Development Economics (AREA)
  • Economics (AREA)
  • Marketing (AREA)
  • Strategic Management (AREA)
  • Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • General Business, Economics & Management (AREA)
  • General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Theoretical Computer Science (AREA)
  • Management, Administration, Business Operations System, And Electronic Commerce (AREA)

Abstract

The present invention provides a method which comprises a step of selling a number of purchasing tickets for an article and a step of assigning the article to a prizewinner after drawing a ticket from the sold tickets when the tickets are sold out or when the predetermined drawing date comes. Specifically, the method comprises a step of registering and displaying information of articles; a step of selling the articles to a buyer if it is determined that the buyer can pay the price of the goods; a step of reiterating the step of selling until the tickets are sold out or until the predetermined drawing date comes; and a step of assigning the articles to a prizewinner after drawing a ticket from the sold tickets. Further, the present invention provides a method for selling goods through communication networks by means of points which member has.

Description

[Specification]
[Title of the Invention]
Method of Selling Goods in an Electronic Commercial Trade
[Field of the Invention]
The present invention is related to a method of selling goods using internet.
After selling a number of purchasing tickets through electronic commercial trading
using internet or cable TV (CATN), drawing of purchasing tickets and subsequent
conveying of goods to the winner of the drawing are followed when sale of the
purchasing tickets is finished or it becomes a designated drawing day.
The present invention includes a method for selling goods through
communication networks by means of points which member has. The concept of
the point includes, for example, the point which members of an electronic
commercial trading service have.
[Background of the Invention]
Recently, communication sales using telephone or personal computer is in
prosperous condition. Displaying goods on communication network, for example,
in a terminal hooked up to internet and purchasing the goods through the terminal
is able to be realized. The methods of trading like this way is called electronic commercial trading service.
As the electronic commercial trading is getting prosperous, competition
between electronic commercial trading service providers becomes severer.
Furthermore, even off-line companies, which sell goods via real trading, promote
actively selling goods through electronic commercial trading. In order to purchase an article, one should pay full price for it. This is true
not only for purchasing an article in general but also for on-line internet shopping
mall or home shopping using CATN. One should connect and log in to an internet
shopping mall or, in case of CATN shopping mall, call a representative person by
phone in order to request a purchase of an article. That is, although a purchaser
does not need to visit the trading company in person, it is same with conventional
market shopping that the purchaser should pay full price for it to have the article
conveyed to the purchaser even in the internet shopping or home shopping via
CATN.
Since the trading methods in general is paying full price for an article
before the article conveyed to the purchaser by the trading company, one who
definitely needs the article can not purchase the article unless he/she can afford the
full price for the article.
As competition between electronic commercial trading service providers is
getting severer, they provide incentive points to the users, as a way of promoting
the trade and increase the number of the clients, when they purchase goods and,
when the points get to a certain amount, allow the users to exchange the points with some present.
However, users should manage the points from the different electronic
commercial trading service providers separately. Furthermore, values of the points
from the different electronic commercial trading service providers vary too much
to exchange or transfer the points with each other electronic commercial trading
service providers. Also, since the point issuers set a lower limit of the points which can be consumed, users have to do the trade with the same electronic commercial
trade service provider to accumulate the points to the limit. Consequently, it
happens that users give up using the points and loose their benefits. Also, the
electronic commercial trading service providers issuing the points waste their
money and labor power to manage the unused points remained in their database.
There have been some attempts to utilize the unused points one of which is
the invention of "Lottery service system and managing methods of it using points",
Korean Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2000-59160. According to the invention,
once a user purchase an article through online or offline, the user is given some
points according to the price of the article, buy a lottery using the point given, get a
lottery numbers at the same time. The lottery service draws numbers for the lottery
and give away the present to the user having the drawn number. However, the
invention provides only the service for purchasing lottery using the point and
drawing lottery service but does not facilitate utilization of the points such as
buying another article using the points or refund of the points which can enhance
user's benefit in various way.
[Detailed Description of the Invention]
The present invention is to provide a method of selling articles through
electronic commercial trading as following; after registration and displaying of
articles in internet shopping malls or home shopping broadcasting of CATN,
selling a number of purchasing tickets for a lower price than actual price of the
article to a number of clients and then conveying the article to the winner of drawing of the purchasing tickets while providing cashback full or partial amount
of the price of purchasing ticket to the clients not winning at the drawing.
Also, the present invention is to provide the said method of selling articles
through points issued in electronic commercial trading.
The present invention is also to provide a method of selling articles
utilizing the points which are limited in consuming because of the lower limit of
consuming it.
Another purpose of this present invention is, while utilizing the points in
selling articles, to provide a method of returning the benefits of gathering the
points from many individuals to the individuals who purchased articles.
To achieve the above objects, a method of selling articles in an electronic
commercial trade, the method comprising the steps of:
(1) registering and displaying article information including purchasing
ticket information in which the price of said purchasing ticket is lower than the
actual price of the article to sell to a computer;
(2) selling said purchasing ticket to a purchaser in case that said purchaser
indicates an intention to purchase said purchasing ticket of displayed article and
presents a payment method for the price and the price is payable by said payment
method;
(3) performing said (2) step repeatedly until said purchasing tickets are
sold out or by a predetermined sales time limit; and
(4) conveying said article to a winner of the drawing after drawing a
purchasing ticket from said sold purchasing tickets, is provided. In the present invention, the method of selling articles by means of the
points comprising the steps of: saving the information about number of points
users have; issuing multiple purchasing tickets of which the point value is less
than the actual price of the article when comparing the actual price of the article
being sold and points corresponding to the actual price of the article; receiving and
recording purchasing requests of the purchasing tickets from more than two clients
and reducing the points of the said clients who requested the buying the purchasing
ticket; drawing the designated numbers of purchasing tickets out of the said
numbers of sold purchasing tickets; and notifying to the purchaser of being winner
which is defined as the clients who purchased the drawn purchasing ticket in the
step of drawing.
[Brief description of the drawings]
Fig. 1 illustrates a system for realizing a method of selling articles using
Internet according to an embodiment of the present invention.
Fig. 2 shows an example screen of the internet shopping mall according to
an embodiment of the present invention.
Fig. 3 shows an example of member database according to the present
invention.
Fig. 4 shows an example of article database according to the present
invention.
Fig. 5 shows an example of sales database according to the present
invention.
Fig. 6 shows an example screen for member registration. Fig. 7 shows an example screen for article registration.
Fig. 8 shows an example screen for article selection.
Fig. 9 shows an example screen for payment method selection which is
displayed after the article selection shown in Fig. 8. member registration.
Fig. 10 is a flowchart illustrating the purchasing process of purchasing
ticket of the article according to an embodiment of the present invention.
Fig. 11 illustrates a system for realizing a method of selling articles using
points through communication network according to an embodiment of the present
invention.
Fig. 12 shows an example of member database according to the present
invention.
Fig. 13 shows an example of article database according to the present
invention.
Fig. 14 shows an example of sales database according to the present
invention.
Fig. 15 shows an example of refund database according to the present
invention.
Fig. 16 shows an example of client database installed at a cooperating
banking agency according to the present invention.
Fig. 17 shows an example of ledger database installed at a cooperating
banking agency according to the present invention.
Fig. 18 shows examples of point database and point investment database
according to the present invention. Fig. 19 is a flowchart illustrating the article purchasing process according
to an embodiment of the present invention.
Fig. 20 shows an example screen for payment method selection which is
displayed after the article selection shown in Fig. 8. member registration.
Fig. 21 is a flowchart illustrating the drawing process according to an
embodiment of the present invention.
Fig. 22 is a flowchart illustrating the selection process of immediate type
according to the present invention.
Fig. 23 is a flowchart illustrating the opening process of a refund account
according to an embodiment of the present invention.
Fig. 24 is a flowchart illustrating the refund process according to an
embodiment of the present invention.
Fig. 25 is a flowchart illustrating the cash and card refund process
according to an embodiment of the present invention.
Fig. 26 is a flowchart illustrating the banking goods refund process
according to an embodiment of the present invention.
Fig. 27 is a flowchart illustrating the business card issue process according
to an embodiment of the present invention.
Fig. 28 illustrates a system for realizing a method of selling articles using
Internet according to another embodiment of the present invention.
Fig. 29 shows an example of member database according to the present
invention. Fig. 30 shows an example of article database according to the present
invention.
Fig. 31 shows an example of purchase database accordmg to the present
invention.
Fig. 32 is a flowchart illustrating the article purchase process according to
the present invention.
Fig. 33 is a flowchart illustrating the drawing process according to an
embodiment of the present invention.
Fig. 34 is a flowchart illustrating the opening process of a refund account
according to an embodiment of the present invention.
Fig. 35 is a flowchart illustrating the refund process according to an
embodiment of the present invention.
Fig. 36 is a flowchart illustrating the cash and card refund process
according to an embodiment of the present invention.
Fig. 37 is a flowchart illustrating the banking goods refund process
according to an embodiment of the present invention.
Fig. 38 is a flowchart illustrating the business card issue process according
to an embodiment of the present invention.
Figs. 39a and 39b are flowcharts illustrating the purchase process of the
gift certificate according to an embodiment of the present invention.
Fig. 39c is a flowchart illustrating the article purchase process using the
gift certificate according to an embodiment of the present invention. Fig. 40 is a flowchart illustrating the refund process to the consumer who
purchased the article using the gift certificate according to an embodiment of the
present invention.
Fig. 41 is a flowchart illustrating the article purchase process using Marble
10 method according to an embodiment of the present invention.
Fig. 42 is a flowchart illustrating the refund process to the consumer who
purchased the article using Marble 10 method according to an embodiment of the
present invention.
[Detailed description of the preferred embodiments]
The method of selling articles of the present invention in electronic
commercial trading will be explained in more detail referring to the accompanying
drawings. In the following explanation, the method of conveying the article to the
winner of the drawing of purchasing tickets while returning cashback full or partial
amount of the price of purchasing ticket to the clients who loses the drawing in the
method of selling articles in electronic commercial trading, and an explanation of
the invention of the method to sell articles through the points will be followed.
(Method of selling articles using drawing in electronic commercial
trading)
Fig. 1 illustrates a system for realizing a method of selling articles using
Internet according to an embodiment of the present invention.
Referring the Fig 1, the said system includes the client system 100 to register
articles to internet shopping malls; internet shopping mall server system 101 to sell
the articles through the method of selling articles of the present invention; e-mail server 102 to distribute e-mails to the members; and communication device 107 to
connect numbers of users to the shopping mall server system via internet.
The client system 100 can be connected to devices like scanner 103, which is
used to copy images of the articles and register to the shopping mall server system
101. Internet shopping mall server system 101 is connected to membership DB 104,
article DB 105, and sales DB 106. Shopping mall server system 101 is connected
to internet 111 via communication device 107. Numbers of unidentified users
connect to internet 111 using personal computer 108 or information
communication device 109 and browse or purchase purchasing tickets of the
registered articles in the shopping mall server system 101. The said information
communication device 109 includes cellular phone, PCS phone, and PDA etc.
Fig. 2 shows an example screen of the internet shopping mall according to
an embodiment of the present invention. Entrusted trading articles are classified
and displayed in corresponding shopping mall of the said homepage. In the
example, articles are classified as "home/electronics" category, "small electronics"
category, "computer/communications/SW" category,
"apparel/miscellaneous/cosmetics" category, "sports/leisure" category,
"stationery/office" category, "books/music/video" category, "furniture/interior"
category, "travel" category, "baby/toys" category, and "condo membership"
category etc. Other types of classifications are possible though. Registered articles
of the corresponding category are displayed followed by clicking the
corresponding category and detailed information about the article is displayed followed by clicking articles in user's mind. Register button 201, Login button 200, and member intormation change
button 202 are placed on internet shopping mall homepage for selling articles.
When users connect to the shopping mall server system 101 via internet 111, the
internet shopping mall homepage for selling articles is displayed. Users must
register for membership and login to the homepage as a member in order to be able
to browse articles and buy purchasing tickets for the articles. In other words, users
without membership must register for membership by clicking the register button
201 while members, users with membership, can login by clicking the login button
200.
Register button 201, Login button 200, and member information change
button 202 are placed on internet shopping mall homepage for selling articles.
When users connect to the shopping mall server system 101 via internet 111, the
internet shopping mall homepage for selling articles is displayed. Users must
register for membership and login to the homepage as a member in order to be able
to browse articles and buy purchasing tickets for the articles. In other words, users
without membership must register for membership by clicking the register button
201 while members, users with membership, can login by clicking the login button
200.
Application of rechargeable card button 203 and application of conventional
card button 204 are provided, which enable users to apply for multi-purpose cards
issued by company as needed.
As mentioned before, the shopping mall server system 102 is connected to
membership DB 104, article DB 105, and sales DB 106. As illustrated in Fig 3, member identifier (ID) 300, password 301, name 302, citizenship registration
number 303, mailing address 304, phone number 305, e-mail address 306, credit
card information 307, bank account information for electronic fund transfer 308,
bank account information for cashback 309, and zip code 311 are linked to each
other and saved in the membership DB 104. When a user connect to shopping mall
server system 102 via internet 111 and register for a membership, the shopping
mall server system 102 saves information of the member into the membership DB
104 and upgrade the data of the member whenever events regarding the
corresponding member happen.
As illustrated in Fig 4, article code 400, registration date 401, article name
402, article size 403, price 404, price for purchasing ticket 405, number of issued
purchasing ticket(s) 406, number of sold purchasing ticket(s) 407, drawing date
408, and winning number 409 are linked to each other and saved into the article
DB 105. When articles are registered in the shopping mall server system 101
through a client system 100, the shopping mall server system 101 saves the
information about the articles into the article DB 105 and updates it following any
events happened to the articles.
Member ID 500, date buying purchasing ticket(s) 501, article code 502,
registration date 503, number of ticket(s) purchased 504, serial number(s) of
purchasing ticket(s) 505, payment method 506, cashback amount 507, and result of
drawing for the member 508 are linked to each other and saved into sale DB 106
as shown in Fig. 5. When users buy purchasing tickets, shopping mall server
system 101 saves it into sale DB 106. Fig. 6 shows an example screen for member registration. It a user wants to
apply for membership after connected to shopping mall server system, membership
registration screen which leads the user to input information needed to registration
of the membership is transferred to the terminal of the user. The user should
provide some information, such as member ID, password, name, citizenship
registration number, business address and phone number, e-mail address, bank
account information for cashback, credit card information, bank account
information for electronic fund transfer, and home address and phone number etc.,
and click submit button. If the user does not want to register, he/she clicks a cancel
button. Once a user is approved to be a member through this registration process
on the membership registration screen, the information is saved in membership DB
according to the item. The shopping mall server system notifies whether
registration was approved on the homepage right away and e-mail server sends an
e-mail with message notifying completed registration and welcome message to the
e-mail address recorded in the membership DB. Users with membership are now
able to browse articles in the shopping mall.
A user with membership clicks a login button 200 and enters member ID and
password. A shopping mall server system allows the user to access to the shopping
mall if the member ID provided by the user is registered and the password is
matched with the information in the membership DB. However, if the member ID
provided by the user is not registered yet, membership registration screen is
provided to facilitate registration and the user will be denied to access to the
shopping mall if the password is not matched. Members logged-in can change any membership information other than member ID by clicking a member information
change button 202,
A contract about entrusted sales regarding articles will be made between a
trading company and a producer of articles or entruster when one wants to sell
articles in shopping mall.
Following is the process of registering an article in an internet shopping mall
after an entrusted trading contract is made. First, an image of the article is scanned
using a scanner and saved into client system and information about the article is
input using article registration screen of client system. Fig. 7 shows an example
screen for article registration. Information about the article, such as article code,
registration date, article name, article size, price, price for purchasing ticket, and
number of issued purchasing ticket(s), are needed in the article registration process.
Once the information is entered and article registration button is clicked, a client
system 100 transfers the information to a shopping mall server system. Shopping
mall server system saves the information about the article transferred by client
system into article DB matching to the categories illustrated in Fig 4 and at the
same time displays the article in the lower level of the corresponding category of
homepage.
Users who want to purchase articles login to the homepage of the present
invention using personal computer or mobile communication devices. Once
membership registration and identification are confirmed, users can browse
detailed information of articles and current status of purchasing tickets sales status
of the articles. Fig. 10 is a flowchart illustrating the purchasing process of purchasing ticket
of the article according to an embodiment of the present invention.
Registration of users entering shopping mall by connecting homepage is
checked (SI 01). If a user is not registered, the user will be lead to membership
registration step to facilitate registration (SI 03). If a user has membership, the user
will be approved to enter shopping mall and browse articles (SI 04). For example, a
user who wants to browse refrigerators and audios which are in home/electronics
category clicks home/electronics button on the homepage screen of Fig 2. Then
refrigerators and audios in home/electronics category are displayed on screen as in
Fig 8. Article name, price, purchasing ticket price, number of issued purchasing
ticket(s), number of sold purchasing ticket(s), and selection are displayed on the
screen. For XX refrigerator, as an example, article price is 100 Won, and
purchasing ticket price is 10 Won, number of issued purchasing tickets is 10 while
number of sold purchasing tickets is 3.
In case a user purchases two purchasing tickets for XX audio in
home/electronics category, once selection button of XX audio is clicked, detailed article information of the selected article and a box for entering number of
purchasing tickets the user wants to buy are displayed on the screen as in the
bottom of Fig 8. If the user write the number of purchasing tickets wanted and
click the confirm button, the order for the article is transferred to shopping mall
server system. The user can cancel the transaction by clicking cancel button.
After ordering purchasing ticket(s) for an article, shopping mall server
system displays the article name and number of purchasing ticket(s) the user purchased will be displayed on a screen as illustrated in Fig 9 and wait for payment
method information input after providing a message asking for selection of
payment method of the purchaser.
A purchaser selects payment method (credit card or bank account transfer)
and click OK button (SI 06), shopping mall server system checks the purchaser's
credit status and whether the payment is possible to the credit card company or
corresponding banking agency through communication device (SI 07).
If there is no problem in payment method after checking through credit
company (SI 08), shopping mall server system register information about the
article chosen into sales DB 106. Information about the article chosen by purchaser,
such as member ID, purchase date, article code, registration date, number of
ticket(s) purchased, and payment method, are registered in sales DB as a form of
file structure of Fig 5 referring membership DB and article DB.
Shopping mall server system creates serial number(s) of purchasing ticket(s)
and registers the number in the serial number of purchasing ticket item of sales DB
and updates information about number of sold purchasing ticket(s) item of article
DB and number of salable purchasing ticket(s) of the article in shopping mall
homepage. Shopping mall server system transmits article information and serial
number of purchasing ticket of the chosen article to e-mail server 102 after
registration of the information into related DB's. E-mail server 102 sends a receipt
e-mail (SI 09) with article information and serial number of purchasing ticket
referring e-mail address item in membership DB. Drawing date and announcement
date may be specified in the receipt e-mail. Shopping mall server system transfers related information to system of a
banking agency in which the purchaser has an account according to the payment
method the purchaser selected. This enables an agency (banking agency or public
agency) in co-operation with the trading company to take care of cashback process
in purchaser's credit card or bank account according to the payment method the
purchaser selected. Related banking agencies perform fund transfer process
between each other using banking network or communication network of
themselves.
Shopping mall server system can notify change of drawing date and do
drawing if purchasing tickets are sole out earlier than announced drawing date and
do drawing on the announced drawing date even when purchasing tickets are not
sold out.
Shopping mall server system checks the status of sales of purchasing tickets
first. That means the shopping mall server system checks whether purchasing
tickets of an article are sold our by comparing the number of sold purchasing
tickets and the number of issued purchasing tickets of the article in article DB.
Then, in case the purchasing tickets of an article are sold out before the notified
drawing date, the shopping mall server system changes the drawing date of article
DB to earlier date than notified one and notifies again the changed drawing date.
On drawing date, shopping mall server system performs drawing. Once
winning numbers are decided, the result is recorded in sales DB, the results is
entered according to serial number of purchasing ticket, and drawn numbers are
recorded in drawn number item of article DB according to article code. Also, winner of each article is announced on shopping mall homepage. Winners of
drawing are informed about the winning via e-mail referring to e-mail address of
membership DB.
Entrusted trading company selling articles through their homepage conveys
the articles to the winner, pays the price to entrusting company, and takes set
proportion of the price as a commission. Full amount of the price for purchasing
ticket is returned to users not winning prize with cash, banking merchandise, stock,
or other article with comparable value after a certain period of time. For this
cashback function, shopping mall server system records cashback date, cashback
amount, and cashback type of purchasers into shopping mall server system.
Entrusted trading company builds a coalition with financial agency (bank,
insurance company, trust company) or public agency and develops financial
merchandise to manage the cashback function securely and fairly. Financial
agency or public agency being in coalition with the trading company take charge in
overall process of cashback function and shopping mall server system of the
entrusted trading company manages the information, such as cashback date,
cashback type, and cashback amount, and transfers the information to the financial
agency or public agency in coalition with the trading company as needed.
Shopping mall server system extracts information about bank account and
cashback type from membership DB and cashback amount from sales DB, then
provides the information to the agencies in coalition with the trading company to
facilitate the cashback process in the agencies in coalition without any problem. As an example of the present invention, the method of selling articles of the
present invention can be applied to home shopping system using CATN.
Method of selling articles realized in home shopping system using CATN
following the present invention is similar to the system to realize the present
invention in the method of selling articles in internet shopping mall. That is,
business process server controls over the method of selling articles following the
present invention and membership DB, article DB, and sales DB as illustrated in
Fig 3 or Fig 5 are connected to the business process server.
CATN home shopping company registers articles to sell in a business
process server. The business process server records article information in the same
structure of article DB as illustrated in Fig 4. Article code, registration date, article
name, article size, price, price for purchasing ticket, number of issued purchasing
ticket(s), and number of sold purchasing ticket(s) are recorded in article
registration. After registration of article to DB, the article information and
purchasing ticket information are broadcasted to facilitate sale.
Consumers can connect to CATN home shopping company with various
communication devices when they feel like to buy articles watching CATN home
shopping channel. While phones have been general communication methods,
various communication devices permitted by the CATN home shopping company
such as PC communication, internet, or wireless communication devices can be
utilized to request purchase orders.
More detailed explanation is as following. Consumers call CATN home
shopping company using phone when they feel like to buy articles while they watch about articles through CATN. Consumers ask if purchasing tickets for
articles they want to buy are available and, if they are, request purchase orders to
sales service representatives. The sale service representatives inform whether the
purchasing tickets are available to the consumers referring article DB. If the
purchasing tickets of article of interest are sold out, consumers may cancel the
requests or choose and request the purchasing tickets of other articles. If the
purchasing tickets of the article of interest are available, consumers may request
purchasing order and present the payment method for price of purchasing tickets.
Here, the sales service representatives may nor check if consumers have
membership when they sell the purchasing tickets or may check membership and
sell the purchasing tickets only to members. If a consumer without membership
can apply for membership if the consumer wants. Membership information is
saved into and managed by membership DB with same structure as illustrated in
Fig 3 once a consumer registers membership.
Payment method of consumers of purchasing tickets may be credit card, bank electronic fund transfer, or other payment methods. CATN home shopping
company checks whether the payment is possible by the presented method and, if
possible, sells purchasing tickets to the consumers.
While sales service representatives input payment method consumer
presented into sales DB during a deal, business process server checks consumers
credit status and whether the payment methods is valid through credit card
company or financial agency. If the payment method is valid, business process
server refers to membership DB and article DB to register the information about article the consumer choose, where information such as member ID, purchase date,
article code, registration date, number of ticket(s) purchased, and payment method,
are registered in sales DB as a form of file structure of Fig. If there is a problem in
the payment method, the business process server may request another payment
method or cancel the purchase order.
After payment, business process server creates numbers of purchasing tickets,
registers the numbers to serial number of purchasing ticket item in sales DB, and
increases number in number of sold purchasing tickets item in sales DB. Also,
updated number of salable purchasing tickets of the article is broadcasted.
Business process server records related information to appropriate DB following a
set process and notifies article information and serial numbers of purchasing
tickets to the consumer. E-mail, voice or letter message transmission methods
using wireless communication devices are used for notification of that.
In case the purchasing tickets of an article are sold out before the notified
drawing date or the notified drawing date comes, drawing is performed. Drawing
date can be advanced if purchasing tickets are sold out earlier than notified
drawing date, and the advancement is to be notified to consumers and announced
in CATN home shopping channel. Business process server performs drawing and
the drawing result is announced through home shopping channel as well as notified
to every consumer via mail or e-mail.
Articles are conveyed to winners while partial or full amount of the price for
purchasing ticket is returned, i.e. cashback, to consumers not winning prize in drawing. Details of this process is same as the methods of selling articles in
internet shopping mall described before.
The preferred embodiments of the present invention are described until
now, the scope of the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments.
The various modifications can be added to the embodiments to execute the
invention described in the claims. It is apparent that such modifications belongs to
the technical scope of the invention related to the present application from the
description of the claims.
According to the present invention, a large quantity of the articles can be
sold inexpensively by minimizing the distribution margin. Therefore, the
manufacturer can produce articles of good quality and maximize the profit because
of the smooth money circulation due to the increase of the sales. The customer
may purchase the desired article at a low price. Moreover, since full or partial
amount of the price is refunded to the loser of the drawing as well as winner of the
drawing, the customer can purchase a purchasing ticket without any disadvantage.
(Method of Selling Articles by Means of Points Through
Communication Network)
Fig. 11 illustrates a system for realizing a method of selling articles using
points through communication network according to an embodiment of the present
invention. The illustration above is same as the system illustrated in Fig 1 in basic
structure of it but point related DB is added.
Referring the Fig 1, the said system realizing the method of selling articles
through communication network by the present invention includes the client system 1100 to register articles to internet shopping malls; business server system
1101 to sell the articles through the method of selling articles of the present
invention; e-mail server 1102 to distribute e-mails to the members; point manage
server 1103 to issue, transform, and manage increase or decrease of points; and
communication device 1109 to connect numbers of users to the business server
system 1101 via communication network 1113. Internet shopping mall server
system 101 is connected to membership DB 104, article DB 105, and sales DB 106.
Business server system 1101 is equipped with membership DB 1104, article DB
1105, sales DB 1106, refund DB 1107, point management DB 1108, point
investment DB 1119, and drawing DB. Business server system 1101 is connected
to communication network, for example internet 1113, via communication device
1109.
Communication device 1109 is connected to financial agency 1112 via
LAN or internet. Financial agency 1112 can be equipped with inter-financial
agency communication network in which case the communication device 1109 can
be connected to other financial agencies.
Numbers of unidentified users can access to communication network 1113
using personal computer 1110 or information communication device and browse
their points registered in business server system 1101 and browse or purchase
purchasing tickets of the registered articles. The said information communication
device 1110 includes cellular phone, PCS phone, and PDA etc.
Point issuing and management agency l l l l established by other electronic
commercial trading company can be connected to the communication network 1113. It is desirable to manage the information about the points issued by other
point issuing and management agency l l l l in combined manner.
Homepage to sell articles is displayed when users connect to business
server system 1101 via internet 1113. Homepage of the method of selling articles
with points is same as the homepage illustrated in Fig 2. Users must register for
membership and login to the homepage as a member in order to be able to browse
articles and buy purchasing tickets for the articles. In other words, users without
membership must register for membership by clicking the register button 201
while members, users with membership, can login by clicking the login button 200.
Application of rechargeable card button 203 and application of
conventional card button 204 are provided, which enable users to apply for multi¬
purpose cards issued by company as needed.
As mentioned before, business server system 1101 is equipped with
membership DB 1104, article DB 1105, sales DB 1106, refund DB 1107, point management DB 1108.
As illustrated in Fig 12, membership DB 1104 includes member identifier
(ID) 1300, password 1301, name 1302, citizenship registration number 1303,
mailing address 1304, phone number 1305, e-mail address 1306, zip code 1307,
bank account information 1308, bank account password 1309, expiration date 1310,
and user's point item 1313. When a user connect to business server system 1101
and register for a membership, the business server system 1101 saves information
of the member into the membership DB 1104 and upgrade the data of the member
whenever events regarding the corresponding member happen. As illustrated in Fig 13, article code 1400, registration date 1401, article
name 1402, article size 1403, price 1404, price for purchasing ticket 1405, number
of issued purchasing ticket(s) 1406, number of sold purchasing ticket(s) 1407,
drawing date 1408, winning number 1409, provider code 1410, and number of
points comparable to price 1412 are saved into the article DB 1105. When articles
are registered in the business server system 1101 through a client system 1100, the
business server system 1101 saves the information about the articles into the article
DB 1105 and updates it following any events happened to the articles.
As illustrated in Fig 14, member ID 1500, date buying purchasing ticket(s)
1501, article code 1502, registration date 1503, number of ticket(s) purchased 1504,
serial number(s) of purchasing ticket(s) 1505, payment method 1506, result of
drawing for the member 1507, payment amount 1508, and refund method 1509 are
saved into sale DB 1106. When users buy purchasing tickets, business server
system 1101 saves it into sales DB 1106.
Fig. 15 shows an example of refund database according to the present
invention. Member ID 1600, member name 1601, payment date 1602, refund type
1603, financial account number 1604, refund amount or points 1605, and refund
date 1606 are saved in refund DB 1107. Business server system 1101 saves refund
related information for the losers in drawing into refund DB 1107 after purchasing
tickets for an article are sold out and drawing for the purchasers are terminated.
Fig. 16 shows an example of client database 1114 installed at a cooperating
banking agency according to the present invention. Client DB 1114 is client related
information database for the present company taken care of by a financial agency which is connected to corresponding financial agency. Client number 1700,
citizenship registration number 1701, name 1702, registration date 1703, last
update date 1704, number of accounts 1705, account number 1706, password 1707,
opening date 1708, and closure date 1709 are recorded into client DB 1114.
Business server system 1101 saves refund related information for the losers in
drawing into refund DB 1107 after purchasing tickets for an article are sold out
and drawing for the purchasers are terminated. At the same time, related
information is sent to a financial agency connected to the present company. The
financial agency updates client related information to manage refund information
for losers in drawing into the client DB 1114 .
Fig. 17 shows an example of ledger database 1115 installed at a
cooperating banking agency according to the present invention. Account number
1800, client number 1801, account code 1802, opening date 1803, closure date
1804, balance 1805, last transaction date 1806, applied rate 1807, agreed rate 1808,
type of goods 1809, last date interest calculated 1810, method of paying interest
1811, amount received 1812, amount supplied 1813, password 1814, provider code
1815, and amount of provider supplied 1816 are saved into ledger DB 1115.
Business server system 1101 saves refund related information for the losers in
drawing into refund DB 1107 and membership DB 1104 after purchasing tickets
for an article are sold out and drawing for the purchasers are terminated. At the
same time, related information such as refund type purchaser selected, refund
amount, and winner's article related information are sent to a financial agency connected to the present company. The financial agency updates the losers and
winners related information into the ledger DB 1115.
Fig. 18 shows examples of point management database 1108 and point
investment database according to the present invention. Point type 1900, price to
point ratio 1901, point issue agency 1902, exchange rate for a point to the first
another point 1903, and exchange rate for a point to the second another point 1904
are recorded into point management DB 1108. Price to point ratio 1901 is defined
as the number of points comparable to article price. Exchange rate for a point to
the nth another point 1903 is defined as a number of points, which is utilized in
transaction, comparable to, for example nth, another point issued by another point
issuer. Points issued by point management server 1103, which is based on the
present invention, and another point issuer, which are accessible through
communication network, are saved into point management DB 1108. It is desirable
that updates and recording of point management DB 1108 is managed by point management server 1103.
In an example of the present invention, separate point investment DB 1119
is built to record restored point of all purchasers. The point investment DB 1119 is
utilized as basic resources to make profit from investment of points. For example,
cooperating with an investment company, points recorded in point investment DB
can be invested. Otherwise, an investment company can utilize the points as a
mortgage referring monetary value of the points calculated with the point to price
ratio recorded in the point investment DB. It is desirable that profit made by this
investment be distributed to the owner of the points based on the proportion of restored points of each of original owner recorded in the point investment DB. Fig.
18 shows examples of point database and point investment database according to
the present invention. As illustrated in Fig 18, point investment DB 1119 includes
member ID 1911, member name 1913, date received 1915, investment goods'
name 1917, investment point 1919, investment term 1921, estimated profit 1923,
maturity return amount 1925, cancellation fee 1927, and maturity date 1929.
Membership registration screen in the method of selling articles using
points is same as Fig 6.
A user with membership clicks a login button 1200 and enters member ID
and password. A business server system allows the user to access to the shopping
mall if the member ID provided by the user is registered and the password is
matched with the information in the membership DB. However, if the member ID
provided by the user is not registered yet, membership registration screen (confer
Fig 6 is provided to facilitate registration and the user will be denied to access to
the shopping mall if the password is not matched. Members logged-in can change
any membership information other than member ID by clicking a member
information change button 1202,
Users who want to purchase articles log in to the homepage of the present
invention using personal computers or mobile information communication devices.
Once membership registration and identification are confirmed, users can browse
detailed information of articles and current status of purchasing tickets sales status
of the articles.
In the following, a process for members to purchase articles is explained. (l)Recording and management of points
This step is a process that a server records members' points registered in
membership DB 1104 into the point item 1313 of the membership DB 1104.
Server enables users to register by themselves using membership
registration screen illustrated in Fig 6. Or, using membership information of
registered members, server can record information about members' points after
receiving the information from other point issuing and management agency l l l l
or point management server 1103 equipped in server.
(2) Issue of purchasing tickets
This step is a step of issuing multiple purchasing tickets of which the point
value is less than the actual price of the article when comparing the actual price of
the article being sold and points corresponding to the actual price of the article and
recording and displaying the information about the issued purchasing tickets.
Server browses an article's price 1404 recorded in article DB 1105,
calculates the number of points comparable to the price 1404 referring the price to
point ratio 1901 of point management DB 1108, and records the information into
number of point item of article DB 1105. The process about point processing is
expected to be managed by point management server 1103. Price to point ratio
1901 should be updated and recorded into the price to point ratio item 1901 of the
point management DB 1108 with the latest price to point ratio whenever there is a
change in price to point ratio.
Once multiple purchasing tickets of articles sold by server are issued, the
information about the issued purchasing tickets is recorded into number of points for purchasing tickets 1405, number of purchasing tickets to be sold 1406, number
of sold purchasing tickets 1407, and drawing date 1408 of article DB and
displayed onto web page.
Referring to Fig 19, a process that users browse the information about
purchasing tickets after the information is displayed on web page. Users connect to
server (SI 101). Registration of users entering shopping mall by connecting
homepage is checked (SI 103). If a user is not registered, the user will be lead to
membership registration step to facilitate registration (SI 105). If a user has
membership, the user will be approved to enter shopping mall and browse articles
(SI 107). For example, a user who wants to browse refrigerators and audios which
are in home/electronics category clicks home/electronics button on the homepage
screen of Fig 2. Then refrigerators and audios in home/electronics category are
displayed on screen as in Fig 8. Article name, price, purchasing ticket price,
number of issued purchasing ticket(s), number of sold purchasing ticket(s), and
selection are displayed on the screen. For a refrigerator, as an example, article
price is 100 Won, and number of points for a purchasing ticket is 10 points,
number of issued purchasing tickets is 10 while number of sold purchasing tickets
is 3. Detailed information about the article or the shape of article can be displayed
by clicking the article name and designated drawing date or refund date can be
displayed.
(2) Receiving purchase order of purchasing tickets This step is to receive purchase orders of purchasing tickets requested by a
user who browsed the displayed article information and purchasing tickets
information and to take care of the related processes (SI 109).
In case a user purchases a purchasing ticket for an audio in
home/electronics category, once selection button of XX audio is clicked, detailed
article information of the selected article and a box for entering number of
purchasing tickets the user wants to buy are displayed on the screen as in the
bottom of Fig 8. If the user write the number of purchasing tickets wanted and
click the confirm button, the user's terminal sends the order for the article to
shopping mall server system. The user can cancel the transaction by clicking
cancel button.
After ordering purchasing ticket(s) for an article (SI 109), shopping mall
server system displays the article name and number of purchasing ticket(s) the user
purchased will be displayed on a screen as illustrated in Fig 20 and wait for user's
response after providing a message asking for selection of payment method and
refund method of the purchaser. Payment method can be credit card, bank
electronic fund transfer, and points. Refund method can be cash, financial article,
and points.
This process of receiving purchase orders of purchasing tickets from users
lasts for a certain period or till the issued purchasing tickets are sold out.
(3) Input payment method
This step is of receiving payment method from corresponding purchaser of
the purchasing tickets. Here, a case that a purchaser selected credit card or bank electronic fund
transfer as a payment method and cash or financial article as a refund method and
click a confirm button will be explained (SI 111).
Business server system sends purchaser name 1302, citizenship registration
number 1303, credit card type 1308, credit card number 1309, expiration date 1310,
and payment account number 1311 extracted from membership DB 1104 to credit
card company or financial agency through communication network. Financial
agency checks the purchaser's credit status and whether the payment is possible
after receiving the information from the company's business server system and
sends back the result of the check as well as paid amount 1508. If there is any
problem in the payment method, business server system 1101 asks purchaser to
provide other payment method and waits for response. Business server system
1101 receives another payment methods from the purchaser and sends it to
financial agency and waits for check result. Business server system 1101 repeats
this process until there is no problem in the provided payment method. Business
server system sends transaction information to the financial agency system where
the purchaser opened an account for the payment method to facilitate the agency
transferring the payment to an agency (financial agency or public agency)
cooperating the trading company from credit card or the account of the purchaser's
payment method. Related financial agencies perform fund transfer process using
financial network or communication network of themselves.
In case that purchaser selects points as a payment methods, as a response of
purchaser's clicking confirm button, server system reduces the number of points same as the number of points for purchasing tickets the purchaser ordered from the
purchaser's number of points item of membership DB (SI 113. Server system
requests reducing the number of purchasing tickets to point management system
and it is desirable that point management system accesses to membership DB and
executes reducing points. Also, purchaser can use different type of points which
are not supposed to be used for buying purchasing tickets as a payment method. In
this case, point management server requests reduction of the purchaser's number
of points referring exchange rate or reduces the other type of points.
(4) Notification of purchasing ticket sales status
This step is a process that server system 1101 posts sales status of the
purchasing tickets as well as the purchasing tickets information (SI 115).
Business server system 1101 creates serial number(s) of purchasing
ticket(s) and registers the number in the serial number of purchasing ticket item of
sales DB 1106 and updates information about number of sold purchasing ticket(s)
item of article DB 1105 and number of salable purchasing ticket(s) of the article in
shopping mall homepage (confer Fig 8. Business server system transmits article
information and serial number of purchasing ticket of the chosen article to e-mail
server 1102 after registration of the information into related DB's. E-mail server
1102 sends a receipt e-mail (SI 109) with article information and serial number of
purchasing ticket referring e-mail address item in membership DB 1104. Drawing
date and announcement date may be specified in the receipt e-mail.
(5) Drawing, Notification and Conveyance of Article This step is a process that server system draws one or more purchasing
tickets out of sold purchasing tickets, notifies the result to winners and losers of the
drawing, and conveys the articles to the winner.
This process can be classified as drawing type and immediate type
according to the realization type of the present invention.
(5-1) Drawing type
Drawing type refers to a method that draws purchasing tickets after a
termination of the purchasing ticket sales.
Business server system can notify change of drawing date and do drawing
if purchasing tickets are sole out earlier than announced drawing date and do
drawing on the announced drawing date even when purchasing tickets are not sold
out.
Fig. 21 is a flowchart illustrating the drawing process according to an
embodiment of the present invention. Business server system checks the status of
sales of purchasing tickets first. That means the business server system checks
whether purchasing tickets of an article are sold out by comparing the number of
sold purchasing tickets 1407 and the number of issued purchasing tickets 1406 of
the article in article DB 1105. Then, in case the purchasing tickets of an article are
sold out before the notified drawing date, the shopping mall server system changes
the drawing date of article DB to earlier date than notified one and notifies again
the changed drawing date.
On drawing date, business server system performs drawing using a random
number table etc. According to an example of the present invention, number of winning purchasing tickets out of total issued purchasing tickets can be input to the
drawing process. Once winning numbers are decided, the result is recorded in sales
DB 1106, the results is entered according to serial number of purchasing ticket,
and drawn numbers are recorded in drawn number item of article DB 1105
according to article code. Also, winner of each article is announced on shopping
mall homepage. Winners of drawing are informed about the winning via e-mail
referring to e-mail address of membership DB 1104.
Entrusted trading company selling articles through their homepage requests
the maker to convey the articles to the winner and pays the price to entrusting
company. Once the maker submits a proof of conveying articles to the entrusted
trading company, business server 1101 of the entrusted trading company sends the
price 1404 retrieved from article DB 1105 to corresponding financial agency
system 1112. The financial agency receiving payment request information can
transfer the price to the maker's financial account in the agency or the maker can
claim the price directly to the financial agency.
(5-2) Immediate type
Immediate type refers to a method of deciding the winner right after the
purchase of purchasing tickets based on the probability. Probability of being
winner is defined as the ratio of the number of winning purchasing tickets to the
total number of issued purchasing tickets, which is larger than number of winning
tickets.
Fig. 22 is a flowchart illustrating the selection process of immediate type
according to the present invention. Recording and management of points and process of issuing purchasing tickets in the methods of selling articles in
immediate type is same as those in drawing type as described in detail. In the
following, only the differences with the drawing type will be explained.
Once members connect to shopping mall server, shopping mall server posts
the probability of winning in immediate type for each article in a list of articles to
be sold (SI 601. Membership identification, receiving purchase order (SI 603, and
payment method input process (SI 605 are same as describe in detail so that is
omitted.
After a purchaser's purchasing order and confirmation of validity of
payment method (SI 607, whether purchased tickets win or not is decided (SI 609.
According to an example of the present invention, number of winning purchasing
tickets out of total issued purchasing tickets can be input in the process of
managing server system. In this case, probability of being winner is defined as the
ratio of the number of winning purchasing tickets decided by manager to the total
number of issued purchasing tickets, which is larger than number of winning
tickets.
While drawing is made after the termination of selling purchasing tickets
or on designated drawing date in the drawing type of article selling method,
immediate type does not wait by the time the sale is over and decide winners right
after receiving the purchase order (SI 605. Being winner or not is notified to the
purchaser.
There can be two methods to decide winner as examples. First, winning tickets are decided at the point of issuing purchasing tickets
and purchaser who buys the winning tickets became winner at the point of
transaction. In this case, numbers of purchasing tickets are issued with a serial
number for each ticket so that purchasing tickets can be identified with the serial
numbers. Then certain number of winning tickets are selected and the serial
numbers of the winning tickets are recorded. When a purchaser buys purchasing
tickets, the serial numbers of purchased tickets are compared to the recorded serial
numbers of winning tickets and whether winner or loser is decided at that point. As
a method of selecting a certain number of tickets arbitrary, computer generated
random numbers, 0 as lower limit and total number of issued tickets as higher limit,
can be utilized.
Second, winning tickets are decided based on probability of being winner
at the point of transaction. When a purchaser orders purchasing tickets, the
purchaser is allowed to select tickets out of many tickets issued. Once the
purchaser selected the tickets, whether the purchaser is winner or not is decided
based on the probability of being winner. For example, if the probability is not 1,
computer generates random number between 0 and 1. Then, the purchaser became
winner if the generated number is, say, larger than the probability while loser if,
say, less.
Another example of the second method is for the case when a purchaser
selects more than one tickets. In this case, winning probability is calculated as a
ratio of combination of selecting the number of tickets out of winning tickets to
combination of selecting the number of tickets out of number of total issued tickets. For example, if the number of total issued tickets is 10, number of winning ticket is
decided as 4 by manager, and a purchaser is allowed to select 2 tickets, then the
probability of being winner is 4C2/10C2.
As described in the following, the process of restoring the price for
purchasing ticket or point to winner and loser is same for drawing type and
immediate type.
(6) Partial Refund of the Purchasing Price of the Purchasing Ticket or the
Points
This step is a process of restoring a proportion of cash or points as a
payment for purchasing tickets to winner and loser. This process is divided as a
process of deciding restoring amount or point, a process of creating restoring
account information or point information, and a process of performing the
restoring.
(6-1) Deciding refund amount or points Server system decides each restoring amount or points to losers and
winners who paid the price for the awarded purchasing tickets.
Server system decides the points restored to winners and losers in the range
of points that is subtraction of points comparable to the prices from the total points
for the total purchasing tickets of which requests of purchasing order was received.
Also, cash or financial article, not points, can be restored to the winners and losers.
Entrusted trading company pays the price to entrusting company, and takes
set proportion of the price as a commission. Full or partial amount of the price for
purchasing ticket is returned to users not winning prize with cash, banking merchandise, stock, or other article with comparable value after a certain period of
time. For this refund function, refund DB 1107 separately records and manages
membership ID 1600, name 1601, refund received date 1602, refund type 1603,
refund account number 1604, refund amount or point 1605, and refund date 1606
of the purchaser of purchasing tickets in the same file structure as illustrated in Fig
15.
Entrusted trading company builds a coalition with financial agency (bank,
insurance company, trust company) or public agency and develops financial
merchandise to manage the refund function securely and fairly. Financial agency
or public agency being in coalition with the trading company take charge in overall
process of refund function and business server system of the entrusted trading
company manages the information, such as refund date, refund type, and refund
amount, and transfers the information to the financial agency or public agency in
coalition with the trading company as needed. Business server system retrieves
information about name, citizenship registration number from membership DB
1104 and refund type, refund account number, and refund amount from refund DB
1107, then provides the information to the agencies in coalition with the trading
company to facilitate the refund process in the agencies in coalition without any
problem.
(6-2) Creating refund account or points information
This step is a process of server system creating account information for
paying refund amount to winners and losers. This process is managed by server
system 1101 to open an refund account to financial server or financial system. After drawing, business server system 2101 records membership ID 1600,
name 1601, and refund type 1603 according to the refund method 1509 the
purchaser chosen referring sales DB 2106 into the refund DB 1107 in order to
perform refund process for losers of the drawing. Server system 1101 retrieves
information like member name 1302, citizenship registration number 1303,
mailing address 1304, phone number 1305, and business card issuance 1310 from
membership DB 1104 and refund type 1603 information from refund DB 2107 and
the information is sent to a financial agency connected to the present company to
open a purchaser's account for refund.
Fig. 23 is a flowchart illustrating the opening process of a refund account
according to an embodiment of the present invention. In case a purchaser selects
cash refund method, a financial agency receiving the purchaser information
browses client DB 1114 and ledger DB 1115 and see if financial account is
registered in the account code item 1802. In case there is an account, the account is
registered as a refund account by updating kind of article item 1809 corresponding
to purchaser's existing account code 1802. In case of there is not an account,
financial account code of easy to transact account is registered in account code
1802 as a financial account for refund. If a purchaser wants to issue a business card,
a new refund account is made and provided.
If a purchaser selects a financial article as a refund method, the related
financial agency see if financial account is registered for financial article in the
same way and, if there is not, register a financial article account into a ledger DB
1115. The corresponding financial agency, after finishing the account opening for the purchasers financial article, registers the purchaser information into client DB
1114 and ledger DB 1115 and deposits appropriate refund amount.
If a purchaser selects point refund method, point management server
obtains the information about the points the purchaser wants to refund and find the
exchange ratio between points. Fig. 24 is a flowchart illustrating the refund process
for losers according to an embodiment of the present invention.
(6-3) Executing refund
This step is a process that a server system order financial server or
financial system to refund the refund amount to winners and losers of drawing or
execute the refund by itself.
As for deciding refund amount, server requests information about cash
amount for consumed points to buy purchasing tickets to point management server,
then point management server browses point DB and calculates the cash amount
corresponding to the points. Refund is executed based on the cash amount
calculated in this way.
In case that a purchaser select point refund method, point management
server increases the number of points recorded in membership DB by the number
of points to be refunded to winners and losers in the drawing. Also, if a purchaser
selects point investment method, point management server increases the number of
points recorded in point investment DB by the number of points to be refunded to
winners and losers in the drawing.
If a purchaser selects cash (including issuing card) refund method, Fig. 25
is a flowchart illustrating the cash and card refund process according to an embodiment of the present invention. A financial agency 1112 records opening
date 1803 in case of new customer referring account number 1800, client number
1801, account code 1802, and article type 1809 in ledger DB 1115 and updates
amount received 1812, amount supplied 1813, last transaction date 1806 and
balance 1805. If a purchaser uses rechargeable card, the purchaser can recharge by
the refund amount at places assigned by corresponding financial agency or the
trading company. In case of conventional card, user can use the card at places
assigned by the corresponding financial agency or the trading company and
payment of it is paid from refund account after the refund amount is deposited into
the account.
Fig. 26 is a flowchart illustrating the banking goods refund process
according to an embodiment of the present invention. A financial agency 1112
records opening date 1803 in case of new customer referring account number 1800,
client number 1801, account code 1802, and article type 1809 in ledger DB 1115
and updates maturity date 1804, balance 1805, last transaction date 1806, applied
interest 1807, method of paying interest 1811, and amount received 1812.
According to the present invention, refund method varies depending on
kinds of financial article (fixed term savings, mutual funds, insurance) the
purchaser selected.
Financial agency 1112 sends member ID, open financial account number,
deposited refund amount, deposit date, and payout date to business server system
1101 of the trading company. The business server system receives the result and
records account number 1604, deposit date 1602, refund amount 1605, and payout date 1606 of refund DB 1116 to refund DB 1107. Business server system 1101
sends financial account number and deposited refund amount to e-mail server 1102
and notifies the information to purchasers via e-mail after recording the
information into the refund DB 1107.
In case that a purchaser select financial article as a refund method, refund
amount is deposited in various way depending on types of financial account
articles. Then, referring ledger DB 1115, whether the financial article meets
maturity date 1804 of it is checked. If it is maturity date, financial agency pays the
deposited refund amount to purchaser.
According to the example of the present invention, refund amount can be
paid using financial article account based on fixed profit, i.e. periodic deposit
financial article account. Also refund amount can be paid using flexible profit
financial account, i.e. accumulative investment article account.
If purchaser selected cash refund or cash refund and issuance of business
card, the purchaser can use the deposited refund amount immediately. The card
issued by the trading company is a multi-purpose card having prepaid card
function, price paying function (when buying purchasing tickets), and additional
service function connected to various community, and a purchaser with the issued
card can user the deposited refund amount. Fig. 21 is a flowchart illustrating the
drawing process according to an embodiment of the present invention. Users can
get cards issued by trading company by clicking rechargeable card application
button 1203, conventional card application button 1204 in the company's shopping
mall homepage (Fig 2. Business server system 1101 issues appropriate card referring business card issuance item 1312 of membership DB 1104. In case ot
rechargeable card, trading company issues a card to user and the user can use it to
the refund amount charged to it. In case of conventional card, whether there is an
existing refund cash account is checked first. If there is, the existing account and
the conventional card are connected and existing cash account for refund is utilized
as payment account for the conventional card, then the card is issued.
(7) Application Example
Following the method of selling articles of the present invention, an
example of it, which returns partial or full amount of payment to losers of drawing
using circulation costs, is followed. In this example, a cosmetic article, named "A",
of which actual providing price is 50,000 Won, customer price is 100,000 Won, is
sold following the process of the present invention.
(7-1) Issue Purchasing Ticket
Server displays article information about "A" and sets 1,000 Won as price
for a purchasing ticket and issues 100 purchasing tickets, all of which are notified.
Thus, the cosmetic article's points comparable to the article's price is 100,000
points and number of points for a purchasing ticket is 1,000 points, which are also
notified.
(7-2) Receive a Request for Purchase of Purchasing Ticket
Now purchasing order for the purchasing tickets from multiple users are
received. This process of receiving purchase orders of purchasing tickets from
users lasts for a certain period or till the issued purchasing tickets are sold out. If a
purchaser wants to pay with points, number of points comparable to number of points for a purchasing tickets multiplied by number of tickets the purchaser want
to buy is reduced from the purchaser's membership DB.
(7-3) Input Payment Method
This step is of receiving payment method from the corresponding
purchaser of the purchasing tickets .
(7-4) Notification of the Purchasing Ticket Sales Status
During the sales of purchasing tickets or after termination of the sales,
purchasing tickets' sales status is notified.
(7-5) Drawing and conveying articles
1 ticket is drawn out 100 purchasing tickets sold. "A" cosmetic article is
conveyed to the winner.
(7-6) Refund partial amount of price for purchasing tickets
50,000 Won, which is the difference between actual sales profit point for
cosmetic article purchasing tickets, 100,000 Won, and actual providing price
50,000 Won, is refunded to losers of drawing by cash or points. Assuming it is
evenly distributed to every losers by cash, 505 Won will be refunded and 505
points by point refund.
According to the losers' choices, refund is realized by cash or points, or
financial articles using points or other types of real right. Examples of the financial
articles are fixed profit regular savings, flexible profit trust fund, or mutual fund.
Also, purchasing tickets can be issued as a form of financial article at the point of
issuing purchasing tickets. Opening a financial account for the financial articles before sale of
purchasing tickets or at the time of refund - in this case there should be a present
account in the financial agency- resulted in deciding the amount of deposit to the
financial agency at the time to begin to sell purchasing tickets. In this case, mass
purchases of the financial articles enables the purchasers to have higher interest
rate than general. The financial profit due to pre-determined mass deposit amount
can benefit purchasers. Also, in case the losers of drawing choose long-term
financial article, they can get back the interest and original deposit amount after
the deposit period according to fixed or flexible interest, it has the same effect that
10,000 Won, which is the price for purchasing ticket at first, are deposited after the
deposit period.
(8) Modified Embodiment
Another example of the present invention is a method to sell purchasing
tickets by discount sales method using points. This sales method will be called, by
the inventor, Marble Sales method.
Marble sales method is to display a specific article in shopping mall and, if
the specified number of articles are sold, to select one of the purchasers by drawing
etc. and give the article for free or refund the point the purchaser consumed during
the purchase and to convey the articles for the normal points to the losers in the
selection. Partial amount of purchasing price is refunded to the drawn consumer
while a proportion of circulation commission is refunded to the losers of the
drawing who pay normal price for the purchases. According to this method, the process of deciding the winners using draw
and notifying the result to the purchasers is same as the conventional method of
this invention. The difference is to convey articles to all of the purchasers who
bought purchasing tickets.
According to the present invention, consumers can buy articles for lower
costs using points which is easy to be neglected because of the lower limit of
consuming it. Also, even the consumers who do not win the prize get refunded full
or partial amount of points consumed in the purchases into financial article or cash,
which enhance the usage or the points.
Another effect of the present invention is, while utilizing the points in
selling articles, to provide a method of returning the benefits of gathering the
points from many individuals to the individuals who purchased articles. That is,
partial or full amount of consumed points are refunded to the winners and losers of
drawing and that creates a type of commercial trading minimizing the disadvantage
of consumers.
According to the present invention, a process of refund from points to
financial article or cash enables the expectation value of trading at the point of
buying purchasing tickets to be over 1 practically. This also is meaningful in terms
of minimizing the disadvantage of consumers.
Furthermore, a transaction of buying purchasing tickets and refund process
using financial articles creates number of financial accounts. This facilitate the
activation of financial trade, which also maximize the chance of consumer's profit. On the maker's standpoints, smooth money flow without default due to the
enhanced article sale, advertisement effect, and decrease in stock, enables makers
to produce more articles in good quality as well as provides makers with benefit of
maximized profit.
As a result, consumers have chances to buy articles and save some money
using points easily neglected while makers have chances to advertise their products
and sell them, and financial agency increase their deposited amount, so that all of
the parties get benefit from this process.
(Another Embodiment of a Method of selling articles using drawing in
electronic commercial trading)
Fig. 28 illustrates a system for realizing a method of selling articles using
Internet according to another embodiment of the present invention.
Referring the Fig 28, the said system to realize the method of selling
articles includes the client system 2100 to register articles to internet shopping
malls; business server system 2101 to sell the articles through the method of
selling articles of the present invention; e-mail server 2102 to distribute e-mails to
the members; and communication device 2109 to connect numbers of users to the
shopping mall server system via internet.
The client system 2100 can be connected to machines like scanner 2103,
which is used to copy images of the articles and register to the business server
system 2101. Business server system 2101 is connected to membership DB 2104,
article DB 2105, sales DB 2106, refund DB 2107, and purchase DB 2108.
Business server system 2101 is connected to internet 2113 via communication device 2109. Numbers of unidentified users connect to internet 2113 using
personal computer 2110 or information communication device 2111 and browse or
purchase purchasing tickets of the registered articles in the business server system
2101. The said information communication device 2111 includes cellular phone,
PCS phone, and PDA etc.
As mentioned before, the business server system 2101 is connected to
membership DB 2104, article DB 2105, sales DB 2106, refund DB 2107, and
purchase DB 2108. As illustrated in Fig 29, member identifier (ID) 2300, password
2301, name 2302, citizenship registration number 2303, mailing address 2304,
phone number 2305, e-mail address 2306, zip code 2307, credit card type 2308,
credit card number 2309, expiration date 2310, bank account information for
payment 2311, business card issuing 2312, prize amount 2313, and balance 2314
are linked to each other and saved in the membership DB 2104. When a user
connect to business server system 2101 and register for a membership, the business
server system 2101 saves information of the member into the membership DB
2104 and upgrade the data of the member whenever events regarding the
corresponding member happen.
As illustrated in Fig 30, article code 2400, registration date 2401, article
name 2402, article size 2403, price 2404, price for purchasing ticket 2405, number
of issued purchasing ticket(s) 2406, number of sold purchasing ticket(s) 2407,
drawing date 2408, winning number 2409, and provider code 2410 are linked to
each other and saved into the article DB 2105. When articles are registered in the
business server system 2101 through a client system 2100, the business server system 2101 saves the information about the articles into the article DB 2105 and
updates it following any events happened to the articles.
The structures of sales DB 2106, refund DB 2107, membership DB 2114,
and ledger DB 2115 are practically same the structures as illustrated in Fig 14, Fig
15, Fig 16, and Fig 17.
Fig. 31 shows an example of purchase database 2108 according to the
present invention. Member ID 2900, purchase date 2901, provider code 2902,
article code 2903, and purchase price 2904 are linked with each other and saved in
purchase DB 2108. In case that the article is not a general material but substitution
of cash such as gift certificate, that the winner of drawing is decided following the
termination of selling purchasing tickets, and that the winner buy some articles of
which value is comparable or less than the prize, management of purchase
information about it is needed and the total purchasing amount should not exceed
the prize. Business server system 2101 saves information of purchaser's buying
articles into purchase DB 2108.
A contract about entrusted sales regarding articles will be made between a
trading company and a producer of articles or entruster when one wants to sell
articles in shopping mall. Following is the process of registering an article in an
internet shopping mall after an entrusted trading contract is made. First, an image
of the article is scanned using a scanner and saved into client system and
information about the article is input using article registration screen of client
system. Fig. 7 shows an example screen for article registration of client system.
Information about the article, such as article code, registration date, article name, article size, price, price for purchasing ticket, and number of issued purchasing
ticket(s), are needed in the article registration process. Once the information is
entered and article registration button is clicked, a client system 2100 transfers the
information to a business server system. Business server system 2101 saves the
information about the article transferred by client system into article DB matching
to the categories illustrated in Fig 30 and at the same time displays the article in
the lower level of the corresponding category of homepage.
Users who want to purchase articles login to the homepage of the present
invention using personal computer or mobile communication devices. Once
membership registration and identification are confirmed, users can browse
detailed information of articles and current status of purchasing tickets sales status
of the articles.
Fig. 32 is a flowchart illustrating the article purchase process according to
the present invention. In the following, a process that a member purchases an
article is explained referring Fig 32.
(1) Registration and Display of Purchasing Ticket Information
This step is a step of issuing multiple purchasing tickets of which the price
is less than the actual price of the article and recording and displaying the
information about the issued purchasing tickets.
Users connect to server (S2101). Registration of users entering shopping
mall by connecting homepage is checked (S2102). If a user is not registered, the
user will be lead to membership registration step to facilitate registration (S2103). If a user has membership, the user will be approved to enter shopping mall and
browse articles (S2104).
(2) Receiving purchase order of purchasing tickets
This step is to request purchase orders of purchasing tickets while
browsing the displayed article information and purchasing tickets information.
In case a user purchases a purchasing ticket for an audio in
home/electronics category, once selection button of audio is clicked, detailed
article information of the selected article and a box for entering number of
purchasing tickets the user wants to buy are displayed on the screen. If the user
write the number of purchasing tickets wanted and click the confirm button, the
user's terminal sends the order for the article to shopping mall server system. The
user can cancel the transaction by clicking cancel button.
After ordering purchasing ticket(s) for an article (S2105, shopping mall
server system displays the article name and number of purchasing ticket(s) the user
purchased will be displayed on a screen as illustrated in Fig 9 and wait for user's
response after providing a message asking for selection of payment method and
refund method of the purchaser.
This process of receiving purchase orders of purchasing tickets from users
lasts for a certain period or till the issued purchasing tickets are sold out.
(3) Input payment method
This step is of receiving payment method from corresponding purchaser of
the purchasing tickets. Once a purchaser selected payment method (credit card or bank electronic
fund transfer) and refund method and click a confirm button (S2106), business
server system sends purchaser name 1302, citizenship registration number 1303,
credit card type 1308, credit card number 1309, expiration date 1310, and payment
account number 1311 extracted from membership DB 2104 to credit card company
or financial agency through communication network.
Financial agency checks the purchaser's credit status and whether the
payment is possible after receiving the information from the company's business
server system and sends back the result of the check as well as paid amount 1508.
If there is any problem in the payment method, business server system 2101 asks
purchaser to provide other payment method and waits for response. Business
server system 2101 receives another payment methods from the purchaser and
sends it to financial agency and waits for check result. Business server system
2101 repeats this process until there is no problem in the provided payment method.
Business server system sends transaction information to the financial
agency system where the purchaser opened an account for the payment method to
facilitate the agency transferring the payment to an agency (financial agency or
public agency) cooperating the trading company from credit card or the account of
the purchaser's payment method. Related financial agencies perform fund transfer
process using financial network or communication network of themselves.
(4) Notification of purchasing ticket sales status
This step is a process that server system 2101 posts sales status of the
purchasing tickets as well as the purchasing tickets information. Business server system 2101 creates serial numbers; ot purcnasmg
ticket(s) and registers the number in the serial number of purchasing ticket item of
sales DB 2106 and updates information about number of sold purchasing ticket(s)
item of article DB 2105 and number of salable purchasing ticket(s) of the article in
shopping mall homepage (confer Fig 2. Business server system transmits article
information and serial number of purchasing ticket of the chosen article to e-mail
server 2102 after registration of the information into related DB's. E-mail server
2102 sends a receipt e-mail (S2109 with article information and serial number of
purchasing ticket referring e-mail address item in membership DB 2104. Drawing
date and announcement date may be specified in the receipt e-mail.
(5) Drawing and Conveyance of the Article
This step is a process that server system draws one or more purchasing
tickets out of sold purchasing tickets and conveys the articles to the winner.
Business server system can notify change of drawing date and do drawing
if purchasing tickets are sole out earlier than announced drawing date and do
drawing on the announced drawing date even when purchasing tickets are not sold
out.
Fig. 33 is a flowchart illustrating the drawing process according to an
embodiment of the present invention. Business server system checks the status of
sales of purchasing tickets first. That means the business server system checks
whether purchasing tickets of an article are sold out by comparing the number of
sold purchasing tickets 2407 and the number of issued purchasing tickets 2406 of
the article in article DB 2105. Then, in case the purchasing tickets of an article are sold out before the notified drawing date, the shopping mall server system changes
the drawing date of article DB to earlier date than notified one and notifies again
the changed drawing date.
On drawing date, business server system performs drawing using a random
number table etc. Once winning numbers are decided, the result is recorded in
sales DB 2106, the results is entered according to serial number of purchasing
ticket, and drawn numbers are recorded in drawn number item of article DB 2105
according to article code. Also, winner of each article is announced on shopping
mall homepage. Winners of drawing are informed about the winning via e-mail
referring to e-mail address of membership DB 2104.
Entrusted trading company selling articles through their homepage requests
the maker to convey the articles to the winner and pays the price to entrusting
company. Once the maker submits a proof of conveying articles to the entrusted
trading company, business server 2101 of the entrusted trading company sends the
price 2404 retrieved from article DB 2105 to corresponding financial agency
system 2112. The financial agency receiving payment request information can
transfer the price to the maker's financial account in the agency or the maker can
claim the price directly to the financial agency.
(6) Partial Refund of the Price of Purchasing for the Purchasing Ticket
This step is a process of refunding a proportion of cash or points as a
payment for purchasing tickets to winner and loser. This process is divided as a
process of deciding refund amount, a process of creating refund account
information, and a process of performing the refund. (6-1) Deciding refund amount
Server system decides each restoring amount to losers and winners who
paid the price for the awarded purchasing tickets.
Entrusted trading company pays the price to entrusting company, and takes
( set proportion of the price as a commission. Full or partial amount of the price for
purchasing ticket is returned to users not winning prize with cash, banking
merchandise, stock, or other article with comparable value after a certain period of
time. For this refund function, refund DB 1107 separately records and manages
membership ID 1600, name 1601, refund received date 1602, refund type 1603,
refund account number 1604, refund amount or point 1605, and refund date 1606
of the purchaser of purchasing tickets in the same file structure as illustrated in Fig
6.
Entrusted trading company builds a coalition with financial agency (bank,
insurance company, trust company) or public agency and develops financial
merchandise to manage the refund function securely and fairly. Financial agency
or public agency being in coalition with the trading company take charge in overall
process of refund function and business server system of the entrusted trading
company manages the information, such as refund date, refund type, and refund
amount, and transfers the information to the financial agency or public agency in
coalition with the trading company as needed. Business server system retrieves
information about name, citizenship registration number from membership DB
2104 and refund type, refund account number, and refund amount from refund DB
2107, then provides the information to the agencies in coalition with the trading company to facilitate the refund process in the agencies in coalition without any
problem.
(6-2) Creating refund account
This step is a process of server system creating account information for
paying refund amount to winners and losers. This process is managed by server
system 2101 to open a refund account to financial server or financial system.
After drawing, business server system 2101 records membership ID 1600,
name 1601, and refund type 1603 according to the refund method 1509 the
purchaser chosen referring sales DB 2106 into the refund DB 1107 in order to
perform refund process for losers of the drawing. Server system 1101 retrieves
information like member name 1302, citizenship regisfration number 1303,
mailing address 1304, phone number 1305, and business card issuance 1310 from
membership DB'l 104 and refund type 1603 information from refund DB 2107 and
the information is sent to a financial agency connected to the present company to
open a purchaser ' s account for refund.
Fig. 34 is a flowchart illustrating the opening process of a refund account
according to an embodiment of the present invention. In case a purchaser selects
cash refund method, a financial agency receiving the purchaser information
browses client DB 2114 and ledger DB 2115 and see if financial account is
registered in the account code item 1802. In case there is an account, the account is
registered as a refund account by updating kind of article item 1809 corresponding
to purchaser's existing account code 1802. In case of there is not an account,
financial account code of easy to transact account is registered in account code 1802 as a financial account for refund. If a purchaser wants to issue a business card,
a new refund account is made and provided.
If a purchaser selects a financial article as a refund method, the related
financial agency see if financial account is registered for financial article in the
same way and, if there is not, register a financial article account into a ledger DB
2115.
The corresponding financial agency, after finishing the account opening for
the purchasers financial article, registers the purchaser information into client DB
1114 and ledger DB 1115 and deposits appropriate refund amount. Fig. 35 is a
flowchart illustrating the refund process according to an embodiment of the present
invention.
(6-3) Executing refund
This step is a process that a server system order financial server or
financial system to refund the refund amount to winners and losers of drawing or
execute the refund by itself.
Fig. 36 is a flowchart illustrating the cash and card refund process
according to an embodiment of the present invention.
A financial agency 2112 records opening date 1803 in case of new
customer referring account number 1800, client number 1801, account code 1802,
and article type 1809 in ledger DB 2115 and updates amount received 1812,
amount supplied 1813, last transaction date 1806 and balance 1805. If a purchaser
uses rechargeable card, the purchaser can recharge by the refund amount at places
assigned by corresponding financial agency or the trading company. In case of conventional card, user can use the card at places assigned by the corresponding
financial agency or the trading company and payment of it is paid from refund
account after the refund amount is deposited into the account.
Fig. 37 is a flowchart illustrating the banking goods refund process
according to an embodiment of the present invention. A financial agency 2112
records opening date 1803 in case of new customer referring account number 1800,
client number 1801, account code 1802, and article type 1809 in ledger DB 2115
and updates maturity date 1804, balance 1805, last transaction date 1806, applied
interest 1807, method of paying interest 1811, and amount received 1812.
According to the present invention, refund method varies depending on
kinds of financial article (fixed term savings, mutual funds, insurance) the
purchaser selected.
Financial agency 2112 sends member ID, open financial account number,
deposited refund amount, deposit date, and payout date to business server system
2101 of the trading company. The business server system receives the result and
records account number 1604, deposit date 1602, refund amount 1605, and payout
date 1606 of refund DB 1116 to refund DB 2107. Business server system 2101
sends financial account number and deposited refund amount to e-mail server 2102
and notifies the information to purchasers via e-mail after recording the
information into the refund DB 2107.
In case that a purchaser select financial article as a refund method, refund
amount is deposited in various way depending on types of financial account
articles. Then, referring ledger DB 2115, whether the financial article meets maturity date 1804 of it is checked. If it is maturity date, financial agency pays the
deposited refund amount to purchaser.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, refund amount can
be paid using financial article account based on fixed profit, i.e. periodic deposit
financial article account. Also refund amount can be paid using flexible profit
financial account, i.e. accumulative investment article account.
If purchaser selected cash refund or cash refund and issuance of business
card, the purchaser can use the deposited refund amount immediately. The card
issued by the trading company is a multi-purpose card having prepaid card
function, price paying function (when buying purchasing tickets), and additional
service function connected to various community, and a purchaser with the issued
card can user the deposited refund amount.
Fig. 38 is a flowchart illustrating the business card issue process according
to an embodiment of the present invention. Users can get cards issued by trading
company by clicking rechargeable card application button 1203, conventional card
application button 1204 in the company's shopping mall homepage (Fig 2.
Business server system 2101 issues appropriate card referring business card
issuance item 2312 of membership DB 2104. In case of rechargeable card, trading
company issues a card to user and the user can use it to the refund amount charged
to it.
In case of conventional card, whether there is an existing refund cash
account is checked first. If there is, the existing account and the conventional card are connected and existing cash account for refund is utilized as payment account
for the conventional card, then the card is issued.
(7) Application Example
Following the method of selling articles of the present invention, an
example of it, which returns partial or full amount of payment to losers of drawing
using circulation costs, is followed. In this example, a notebook computer, named
"A", of which actual providing price is 2.76 million Won, customer price is 4.60
million Won, is sold following the process of the present invention.
(7-1) Registration and Display of Purchasing Ticket Information
Server displays article information about "A" and sets 10,000 Won as price
for a purchasing ticket and issues 460 purchasing tickets, all of which are notified.
(7-2) Receiving purchase order of purchasing tickets
Now purchasing order for the purchasing tickets from multiple users are
received. This process of receiving purchase orders of purchasing tickets from
users lasts for a certain period or till the issued purchasing tickets are sold out.
(7-3) Input Payment Method
This step is of receiving payment method from the corresponding
purchaser of the purchasing tickets.
(7-4) Notification of purchasing ticket sales status
During the sales of purchasing tickets or after termination of the sales,
purchasing tickets' sales status is notified.
(7-5) Drawing and Conveyance of the Article 1 ticket is drawn out 460 purchasing tickets sold. "A" notebook is
conveyed to the winner.
(7-6) Partial Refund of the Price of Purchasing for the Purchasing Ticket
1.84 million Won, which is the difference between actual sales profit point
for notebook purchasing tickets, 4.60 million Won, and actual providing price 2.76
million Won, is refunded to losers of drawing by cash. Assuming it is evenly
distributed to every losers by cash, 4,009 Won will be refunded.
According to the losers' choices, refund is realized by cash, or financial
articles other types of real right. Examples of the financial articles are fixed profit
regular savings, flexible profit trust fund, or mutual fund. Also, purchasing tickets
can be issued as a form of financial article at the point of issuing purchasing tickets.
Opening a financial account for the financial articles before sale of
purchasing tickets or at the time of refund resulted in deciding the amount of
deposit to the financial agency at the time to begin to sell purchasing tickets. In
this case, mass purchases of the financial articles enables the purchasers to have
higher interest rate than general. The financial profit due to pre-determined mass
deposit amount can benefit purchasers. Also, in case the losers of drawing choose
long-term financial article, they can get back the interest and original deposit
amount after the deposit period according to fixed or flexible interest, it has the
same effect that 10,000 Won, which is the price for purchasing ticket at first, are
deposited after the deposit period.
(Description of a method of selling articles using gift certificate) Another example of the present invention is a method of selling articles
using gift certificate, i.e. object of sale is gift certificate. Figs. 39a and 39b are
flowcharts illustrating the purchase process of the gift certificate according to an
embodiment of the present invention.
Users who want to purchase articles login to the homepage of the present
invention using personal computer or mobile communication devices. Once
membership registration and identification are confirmed, users can browse
detailed information of articles and current status of purchasing tickets sales status
of the articles. Fig 39a and Fig 39b are flowcharts illustrating a process of
purchasing the articles using substitute of cash such as gift certificate, where
members buy gift certificates instead of general article.
(1) Registration and Display of Purchasing Ticket Information
This step is a step of issuing multiple purchasing tickets of which the price
is less than the actual price of the article and recording and displaying the
information about the issued purchasing tickets.
Users connect to server. Registration of users entering shopping mall by
connecting homepage is checked. If a user is not registered, the user will be lead to
membership registration step to facilitate registration. If a user has membership,
the user will be approved to enter shopping mall and browse articles. For example,
a user who wants to browse gift certificate category clicks "company gift
certificate" button on the homepage screen of Fig 2. Then gift certificates for
electronics and apparel are displayed on screen. Article name, price, purchasing
ticket price, number of issued purchasing ticket(s), number of sold purchasing ticket(s), and selection are displayed on the screen. For a electronics gift certificate,
as an example, certificate price is 10,000 Won, price for purchasing ticket is 1,000
Wpn, and number of issued purchasing tickets is 10 while number of sold
purchasing tickets is 3. Detailed information about the article or the shape of
article can be displayed by clicking the article name and designated drawing date
or refund date can be displayed.
(2) Receiving purchase order of purchasing tickets
This step is to request purchase orders of purchasing tickets of gift
certificate while browsing the displayed gift certificate information and purchasing
tickets information.
In case a user purchases a purchasing ticket for an electronics gift
certificate in company gift certificates, once selection button of electronics gift
certificate is clicked, detailed certificate information of the selected certificate and
a box for entering number of purchasing tickets the user wants to buy are displayed
on the screen. If the user write the number of purchasing tickets wanted and click
the confirm button, the user's terminal sends the order for the purchasing tickets
for the gift certificate to business server system. The user can cancel the
transaction by clicking cancel button.
After ordering purchasing ticket(s) for an gift certificate, business server
system displays the gift certificate name and number of purchasing ticket(s) the
user purchased will be displayed on a screen and wait for user's response after
providing a message asking for selection of payment method and refund method of the purchaser. This process of receiving purchase orders of purchasing tickets from users
lasts for a certain period or till the issued purchasing tickets are sold out.
(3) Input payment method
This step is of receiving payment method from corresponding purchaser of
the purchasing tickets.
Once a purchaser selected payment method (credit card or bank electronic
fund transfer) and refund method and click a confirm button, business server
system sends purchaser name 2302, citizenship registration number 2303, credit
card type 2308, credit card number 2309, expiration date 2310, and payment
account number 2311 extracted from membership DB 2104 to credit card company
or financial agency through communication network.
Financial agency checks the purchaser's credit status and whether the
payment is possible after receiving the information from the company's business
server system and sends back the result of the check as well as paid amount 1508.
If there is any problem in the payment method, business server system 2101 asks
purchaser to provide other payment method and waits for response. Business
server system 2101 receives another payment methods from the purchaser and
sends it to financial agency and waits for check result. Business server system
2101 repeats this process until there is no problem in the provided payment method.
Business server system sends transaction information to the financial
agency system where the purchaser opened an account for the payment method to
facilitate the agency transferring the payment to an agency (financial agency or
public agency) cooperating the trading company from credit card or the account of the purchaser's payment method. Related financial agencies perform fund transfer
process using financial network or communication network of themselves.
(4) Notification of purchasing ticket sales status
This step is a process that server system 2101 posts sales status of the
purchasing tickets as well as the purchasing tickets information.
Business server system 2101 creates serial number(s) of purchasing
ticket(s) and registers the number in the serial number of purchasing ticket item of
sales DB 2106 and updates information about number of sold purchasing ticket(s)
item of article DB 2105 and number of salable purchasing ticket(s) of the article in
shopping mall homepage. Business server system transmits article information and
serial number of purchasing ticket of the chosen article to e-mail server 2102 after
registration of the information into related DB's. E-mail server 2102 sends a
receipt e-mail (S2109 with article information and serial number of purchasing
ticket referring e-mail address item in membership DB 2104. Drawing date and
announcement date may be specified in the receipt e-mail.
(5) Drawing and Conveyance of the Article
This step is a process that server system draws one or more purchasing
tickets out of sold purchasing tickets and conveys the articles to the winner.
Business server system can notify change of drawing date and do drawing
if purchasing tickets are sole out earlier than announced drawing date and do
drawing on the announced drawing date even when purchasing tickets are not sold
out. Fig. 33 is a flowchart illustrating the drawing process according to an
embodiment of the present invention. Business server system checks the status of
sales of purchasing tickets first. That means the business server system checks
whether purchasing tickets of an article are sold out by comparing the number of
sold purchasing tickets 2407 and the number of issued purchasing tickets 2406 of
the article in article DB 2105. Then, in case the purchasing tickets of an article are
sold out before the notified drawing date, the shopping mall server system changes
the drawing date of article DB to earlier date than notified one and notifies again
the changed drawing date.
On drawing date, business server system performs drawing using a random
number table etc. Once winning numbers are decided, the result is recorded in
sales DB 2106, the results is entered according to serial number of purchasing
ticket, and drawn numbers are recorded in drawn number item of article DB 2105
according to article code. Also, winner of each article is announced on shopping
mall homepage. Winners of drawing are informed about the winning via e-mail
referring to e-mail address of membership DB 2104.
After a consumer selects gift certificate needed, the process of deciding
winner through draw and notification of the result to the purchaser is same as the
process of general article sales.
After winners are decided, business server system updates the winning
amount of winning amount 2313 item in membership DB 2104 and sends member
ID, winning amount, and purchaser related information to financial agency in
coalition with the company. Computer system of the financial agency, after receiving the related information, updates Client number 1700, citizenship
registration number 1701, name 1702, registration date 1703, last update date 1704,
number of accounts 1705, account number 1706, password 1707, opening date
1708, and closure date 1709 of membership DB 2114 and account number 1800,
client number 1801, account code 1802, opening date 1803, closure date 1804,
balance 1805, last transaction date 1806, applied rate 1807, agreed rate 1808, type
of goods 1809, last date interest calculated 1810, method of paying interest 1811,
amount received 1812, amount supplied 1813, and password 1814 of ledger DB
2115.
(6) Purchase of the Article using Gift Certificate
Differences of this example of the present invention from the mutual-help
methods of selling article is that winning purchasers are provided with the
substitutes of cash in various type of purchasing tickets (recharageable debit card,
electronic cash etc.) and then buy articles in a shopping mall operated by the
trading company. Fig. 39c is a flowchart illustrating the article purchase process
using the gift certificate according to an embodiment of the present invention.
If a purchaser buys articles in the shopping mall using substitute of cash
(card or electronic cash) won by drawing, business server system updates each
item of purchase DB 2108 in order to manage the information about each
purchaser's article purchase. In case that the winner purchaser buys articles in the
shopping mall, the balance of gift certificate and whether the winner can buy some
article are notified referring balance 2314 item of membership DB 2104. If the
balance is large enough to buy the corresponding article, the winner buys the article. Business server 2101 updates each record such as member ID 2900,
purchase date 2901, provider code 2902, article code 2903, purchase price 2904 in
purchase DB 2108 and balance 2314 of membership DB 2104 based on the
winner's purchase information, and submit the information to computer system of
a financial agency to update the balance 1805 of ledger DB. This prevents
purchasers from spending more than they can afford with the prize. If the winner
purchaser buys articles using gift certificates, business server transfers article price
2404 information retrieved from article DB 2105 to the related financial agency
system 2112. The financial agency receiving payment request information can
transfer the price to the maker's financial account in the agency or the maker can
claim the price directly to the financial agency.
(7) Partial Refund of the Price of Purchasing for the Purchasing Ticket
This step is a process of refunding a proportion of cash or points as a
payment for purchasing tickets to winner and loser. This process is divided as a
process of deciding refund amount, a process of creating refund account
information, and a process of performing the refund.
(7-1) Determination of Refund Amount
Server system decides each restoring amount to losers and winners who
paid the price for the awarded purchasing tickets.
Entrusted trading company pays the price to entrusting company, and takes
set proportion of the price as a commission. Full or partial amount of the price for
purchasing ticket is returned to users not winning prize with cash, banking
merchandise, stock, or other article with comparable value after a certain period of time. For this refund function, refund DB 2107 separately records and manages
membership ID 1600, name 1601, refund received date 1602, refund type 1603,
refund account number 1604, refund amount or point 1605, and refund date 1606
of the purchaser of purchasing tickets in the same file structure as illustrated in Fig
15.
Entrusted trading company builds a coalition with financial agency (bank,
insurance company, trust company) or public agency and develops financial
merchandise to manage the refund function securely and fairly. Financial agency
or public agency being in coalition with the trading company take charge in overall
process of refund function and business server system of the entrusted trading
company manages the information, such as refund date, refund type, and refund
amount, and transfers the information to the financial agency or public agency in
coalition with the trading company as needed. Business server system retrieves
information about name, citizenship registration number from membership DB
2104 and refund type, refund account number, and refund amount from refund DB
2107, then provides the information to the agencies in coalition with the trading
company to facilitate the refund process in the agencies in coalition without any
problem.
(7-2) Creating Refund Account
This step is a process of server system creating account information for
paying refund amount to winners and losers. This process is managed by server
system 2101 to open a refund account to financial server or financial system. After drawing, business server system 2101 records membership ID 1600,
name 1601, and refund type 1603 according to the refund method 1509 the
purchaser chosen referring sales DB 2106 into the refund DB 2107 in order to
perform refund process for losers of the drawing. Server system 2101 retrieves
information like member name 2302, citizenship registration number 2303,
mailing address 2304, phone number 2305, and business card issuance 2310 from
membership DB 2104 and refund type 1603 information from refund DB 2107 and
the information is sent to a financial agency connected to the present company to
open a purchaser's account for refund.
Fig. 34 is a flowchart illustrating the opening process of a refund account
according to an embodiment of the present invention. In case a purchaser selects
cash refund method, a financial agency receiving the purchaser information
browses client DB 2114 and ledger DB 2115 and see if financial account is
registered in the account code item 1802. In case there is an account, the account is
registered as a refund account by updating kind of article item 1809 corresponding
to purchaser's existing account code 1802. In case of there is not an account,
financial account code of easy to transact account is registered in account code
1802 as a financial account for refund. If a purchaser wants to issue a business card,
a new refund account is made and provided.
If a purchaser selects a financial article as a refund method, the related
financial agency see if financial account is registered for financial article in the
same way and, if there is not, register a financial article account into a ledger DB
2115. The corresponding financial agency, after finishing the account opening for
the purchasers financial article, registers the purchaser information into client DB
1114 and ledger DB 1115 and deposits appropriate refund amount. Fig. 35 is a
flowchart illustrating the refund process according to an embodiment of the present
invention.
(7-3) Executing Refund
This step is a process that a server system order financial server or
financial system to refund the refund amount to winners and losers of drawing or
execute the refund by itself.
Fig. 36 is a flowchart illustrating the cash and card refund process
according to an embodiment of the present invention.
A financial agency 2112 records opening date 1803 in case of new
customer referring account number 1800, client number 1801, account code 1802,
and article type 1809 in ledger DB 2115 and updates amount received 1812,
amount supplied 1813, last transaction date 1806 and balance 1805. If a purchaser
uses rechargeable card, the purchaser can recharge by the refund amount at places
assigned by corresponding financial agency or the trading company. In case of
conventional card, user can use the card at places assigned by the corresponding
financial agency or the trading company and payment of it is paid from refund
account after the refund amount is deposited into the account.
Fig. 37 is a flowchart illustrating the banking goods refund process
according to an embodiment of the present invention. A financial agency 2112 records opening date 1803 in case of new
customer referring account number 1800, client number 1801, account code 1802,
and article type 1809 in ledger DB 2115 and updates maturity date 1804, balance
1805, last fransaction date 1806, applied interest 1807, method of paying interest
1811, and amount received 1812.
According to the present invention, refund method varies depending on
kinds of financial article (fixed term savings, mutual funds, insurance) the
purchaser selected.
Financial agency 2112 sends member ID, open financial account number,
deposited refund amount, deposit date, and payout date to business server system
2101 of the frading company. The business server system receives the result and
records account number 1604, deposit date 1602, refund amount 1605, and payout
date 1606 of refund DB 1116 to refund DB 2107. Business server system 2101
sends financial account number and deposited refund amount to e-mail server 2102
and notifies the information to purchasers via e-mail after recording the
information into the refund DB 2107.
In case that a purchaser select financial article as a refund method, refund
amount is deposited in various way depending on types of financial account
articles. Then, referring ledger DB 2115, whether the financial article meets
maturity date 1804 of it is checked. If it is maturity date, financial agency pays the
deposited refund amount to purchaser.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, refund amount can
be paid using financial article account based on fixed profit, i.e. periodic deposit financial article account. Also refund amount can be paid using flexible profit
financial account, i.e. accumulative investment article account.
If purchaser selected cash refund or cash refund and issuance of business
card, the purchaser can use the deposited refund amount immediately. The card
issued by the trading company is a multi-purpose card having prepaid card
function, price paying function (when buying purchasing tickets), and additional
service function connected to various community, and a purchaser with the issued
card can user the deposited refund amount.
Fig. 38 is a flowchart illustrating the business card issue process according
to an embodiment of the present invention. Users can get cards issued by frading
company by clicking rechargeable card application button 1203, conventional card
application button 1204 in the company's shopping mall homepage. Business
server system 2101 issues appropriate card referring business card issuance item
2312 of membership DB 2104. In case of rechargeable card, trading company
issues a card to user and the user can use it to the refund amount charged to it.
In case of conventional card, whether there is an existing refund cash
account is checked first. If there is, the existing account and the conventional card are connected and existing cash account for refund is utilized as payment account
for the conventional card, then the card is issued.
(8) Partial Refund When the Winner Purchases an Article using Gift
Certificate In the following, a process of refund a proportion of circulation
commission when winners of drawing buy articles in the shopping mall using gift
certificate is explained.
After a winner of drawing finishes purchasing of articles in the company's
shopping mall using gift certificates, difference between the price provided by
maker and sales price is returned to the article purchaser. Fig. 40 is a flowchart
illustrating the refund process to the consumer who purchased the article using the
gift certificate according to an embodiment of the present invention. Refund
process is same as the refund process for losers of drawing described before.
(9) Application Example
Following the method of selling gift certificates of the present invention, an
example of it, which returns partial or full amount of payment to losers of drawing
using circulation costs, is followed. In this example, 460 purchasing tickets are to
be sold to buy gift certificates of which value is 4.60 million Won, and winner of
the gift certificate buys "A" computer, of which market price is 2.20 million Won
(providing price 1.32 million Won) and "B" dish dryer, of which market price is
2.40 million Won (providing price 1.50 million won).
(9-1) Registration and Display of Purchasing Ticket Information
Server displays gift certificate information of which value is 4.60 million
Won and sets 10,000 Won as price for a purchasing ticket and issues 460
purchasing tickets, all of which are notified.
(9-2) Receive a Request of Purchase for Purchasing Ticket Now purchasing order for the purchasing tickets from multiple users are
received. This process of receiving purchase orders of purchasing tickets from
users lasts for a certain period or till the issued purchasing tickets are sold out.
(9-3) Input Payment Method
This step is of receiving payment method from the corresponding
purchaser of the purchasing tickets.
(9-4) Notification of purchasing ticket sales status
This step is of receiving payment method from the corresponding
purchaser of the purchasing tickets.
(9-5) Drawing and Conveyance of the Article (Gift Certificate)/ Purchase of
the Article using Gift Certificate
1 ticket is drawn out 460 purchasing tickets sold. The gift certificate is
awarded to the winner. The winner buys articles for which the gift certificate can
pay.
(9-6) Partial Refund of the Price of Purchasing for the Purchasing Ticket
1.84 million Won, which is the difference between actual sales profit for
gift certificate purchasing tickets, 4.60 million Won, and minimum possible prices
of the articles buyable with the certificate, 2.76 million Won, is refunded to losers
of drawing. Assuming it is evenly distributed to every losers by cash, 4,009 Won
will be refunded.
According to the losers' choices, refund is realized by cash or points, or
financial articles using points or other types of real right. Examples of the financial
articles are fixed profit regular savings, flexible profit trust fund, or mutual fund. Also, purchasing tickets can be issued as a form of financial article at the point ot
issuing purchasing tickets. As explained before, in case the losers of drawing
choose long-term financial article, they can get back 10,000 Won, which is the
price for purchasing ticket at first. Explanation of management of this financial
article is same as previous so that is omitted.
(9-7) Refund for the Winner for the Gift Certificate after the Purchase
Finished
In the example of 9-1, the winner of certificate, of which value is 4.60 million
Won, buys "A" computer with 2.20 million Won of which discount rate is 40%
and "B" dish dryer with 2.40 million Won of which discount rate is 50%. In this
case 460,000 Won, 10% of 4.60 million Won can be immediately refunded to the
winner. If the winners selected long-term financial articles, more amount of refund
than that is possible.
According to the losers' choices, refund is realized by cash, or financial
articles other types of real right. Examples of the financial articles are fixed profit
regular savings, flexible profit trust fund, or mutual fund. Also, purchasing tickets
can be issued as a form of financial article at the point of issuing purchasing tickets.
Detailed explanation of management of this financial article is not provided
because it is same as previous example.
(Description of sales method using discounts sales method)
According to another embodiment of the present invention, the purchasing
tickets may be sold by discount sale method. In this description, it is named as
Marble 10 sales method. Fig. 41 shows the process of this embodiment. According to Marble 10 sales method, a specific article is displayed on the
shopping mall and sold for a predetermined amount. Then, one purchaser among
all the purchaser who was selected to be a winner by a drawing or the like can have
the article free of charge and the other purchasers purchase the article by a normal
method. For the winner of the drawing, price when paid when he purchased the
article is refunded, and for the other purchaser except winner of the drawing, who
purchased the article by a normal method, a part of distribution margin is refunded.
A user who wants to purchase an article may access to the server system
according to the present invention using personal computer or mobile digital
communication device. Then, the user can browse the article particular and
purchasing ticket (the price of the purchasing ticket is the same as that of the
article) sale status for the article if the user's membership is present and
authenticated.
(1) Registration and Display Purchasing Ticket Information
It is the step of registration and displaying purchasing ticket information
about each of two or more articles to sell to the host computer.
Membership is verified for the user entered to the shopping mall by
accessing the homepage. Here, if the user is not a member, the flow progresses to a
member registration step to induce the user to register as a member. If the user is a
member, the user is allowed to enter the shopping mall and browse the articles. For
example, if he wants to browse the gift certificate item on the homepage of the
internet shopping mall, he may click "Apparel/Miscellaneous/Cosmetics" button
on the homepage screen of Fig. 2. Then, business suits for men and fragrances for women which is included m
the terms of "Apparel/Miscellaneous/Cosmetics" are displayed. Article name,
price, amount for sale, amount sold, drawing date, and choose status, etc. are
displayed on the screen. For example, the price of the business suit for men is
300,000 won, the amount for sale is 10, and the amount sold is 3. Here, if the user
clicks the article name, detailed information and the external form of the article
may be displayed, and drawing schedule, refund date, or etc. may de displayed
together.
(2) Receive a request for purchasing the purchasing ticket
It is the step of requesting for the user to purchase the purchasing ticket for
the desired article after browsing the purchasing ticket information and the article
information displayed on the server.
For example, if the member wants to purchase one (1) purchasing ticket for
the business suit for men among Apparel/Miscellaneous/Cosmetics, he may click
the selection input section. Then, the server displays the screen displaying the
detailed information about the selected article and the input section for the amount
of purchasing ticket to purchase. If the user inputs a desired amount in the input
section and clicks the "OK" button, the user terminal transmits the order for the
purchasing ticket for the article to the business server system. If the user wants to
cancel the purchase of the purchasing ticket, he may click the "Cancel" button.
After the user orders the purchasing ticket for the article, the business
server system displays the name of the article and the amount of the purchasing
tickets in which the user purchased on the screen, and displays the message to select a payment method and refund method, and then waits for the purchasers
response.
The step of receiving purchasing request for purchasing ticket is repeated
until the set amount of the purchasing ticket is sold out or a predetermined time
limit expires.
(3) Input Payment Method
It is the step of receiving the payment method for the price of the
purchasing ticket from the user who wants or requests to purchase the purchasing
ticket.
If the purchaser selects the payment method (credit card or fund transfer)
and refund method and click the "OK" button, the business server system fransmits
the name of the purchaser 2302, citizenship regisfration number 2303, credit card
type 2308, credit card number 2309, validation date 2310, and account number for
payment 2311 drawn from the membership database 2104 to the credit card or
financing agency using the communication device.
The financing agency receives the data transmitted from the business
server system of the proprietor, confirms whether or not the payment account is
exist, the payment amount is exist, and the credit card is available, reports the
result to the business server system, and transmit the amount 1508 paid. If there is
an abnormal condition for the payment according to the receipt of the data from
the financing agency, the business server system 2101 requests for the purchaser to
select another payment method and waits for the purchaser's response. The
business server system 2101 receives another payment method from the purchaser, transmits the information to the financing agency in the same manner, and waits
for the results. If the purchaser's payment method is available as a result of the
confirmation to the financing agency, the financing agency system transfers the
amount paid for the price for the article to the business server 2101.
The business server system transfers the sale price to the account of the
cooperate agency (financing agency or public institution) from the credit card or
the account of the purchaser according to the selected payment method of the user.
Related banking agencies performs fund fransfer between related institution using
banking network or their own network.
(4) Notification of the Sale Status of the Purchasing Ticket
It is the step of notification the sale status of the purchasing ticket as well
as the information of the purchasing ticket by the server system 2101.
The business server system 2101 generates a serial number of the
purchasing ticket, registers the serial number to the serial number of the purchasing
ticket field of the sale database 2106, updates the data of the amount of purchasing
tickets sold of the article database 2105, and the amount of available purchasing
tickets for the article of the shopping mall homepage. The business server system
2101 sends the article information in which the purchaser selected and the serial
number of the purchasing ticket to the e-mail server 2102 after registration of the
data to the related database by the successive step. The e-mail server 2102 sends
the receipt where the article information in which the purchaser selected and the
serial number of the purchasing ticket are written to the purchaser by e-mail referring the e-mail field of the membership database 2104. The drawing date and
the announcement date for the winner of the drawing may be included.
(5) Drawing and Conveyance of the Article
It is the step of selecting one or more purchasing ticket(s) among the
purchasing tickets sold by the server system and conveying the article to the
purchaser who purchased the selected purchasing ticket and the loser of the
drawing.
The business server system may announce the change of the drawing date
and draws immediately if the purchasing tickets are sold out early and draws a
purchasing ticket on the pre-announced drawing date unless the purchasing tickets
are sold out.
Fig. 33 is a flowchart showing drawing process. First, the business server
system examines the purchasing ticket sale status. That is, it is examined whether
the purchasing tickets for the article are sold out by comparing the amount of the
purchasing tickets for sale item 2406 to the amount of the purchasing tickets sold
2407 of the article database 2105. It is possible to re-announce to advance the
drawing date if the purchasing tickets are sold out earlier than the drawing date
announced when the purchasing tickets for the article is started to sale.
The business server system draws a purchasing ticket using random
number table, etc. on the drawing date. If the winning number is determined, the
result is recorded in the sales database 2106 by inputting the result for each of the
purchasing ticket and registering the winning number to the winning number field
for each of the article code of the article database. Moreover, the winner of the drawing for each article is announced on the shopping mall homepage. In addition,
it is possible to notice to the winner of the drawing by sending e-mail referring the
e-mail address for member of the membership database 2104.
The process of selection of the article from the user, determination of the
winner of the drawing by drawing, and notification of the result of the drawing to
the purchaser is the same as the general article purchase process. However, it is
different that the articles are conveyed to all purchasers who purchased the
purchasing ticket.
(6) Refund the Price for the Purchase of the Purchasing ticket
In the following, it is described that the process of refund a part of
distribution margin for the winner of the drawing and the loser of the drawing who
bought the purchasing ticket as a result of the drawing.
A commission merchant pays the sale price to the article client and collects
several % of the sale price as a consignment fee. For the purchaser who is not a
winner of the drawing, a part of distribution margin of the purchased article is
refunded after a predetermined period as cash, banking goods, securities, or the
article corresponding to the amount. For the winner of the drawing, the entire
amount of the paid price for purchasing the article are refunded, and the part of the
distribution margin may be refunded.
For the refund function, the system administrates separately the information
such as member ID 1600, name 1601, refund receive date 1602, refund type 1603,
refund account number 1604, refund amount 1605, pay date 1606, etc of the
member who purchased the purchasing ticket by registering to the refund database. The commission merchant develops the banking goods for refund by
cooperating financing agency (bank, insurance company, investment trust
company) or public institution to manage the refund function fairly and securely.
The cooperating financing agency or public institution of the commission
merchant generalize the entire affairs about refund, and the business server system
administrates the information such as refund date, refund type and refund amount,
etc. and transfers such information to the cooperating financing agency or public
institution. The business server system extracts the data of the refund account field,
refund type field from the membership database 2104 for each member and the
refund amount field from the sales database, and provides the information to the
cooperating institution using communication device for the cooperating institution
to perform the refund affairs smoothly.
To perform the refund process for the winner of the drawing and the loser
of the drawing after the drawing, business server system 2101 registers the
member ID 1600, name 1601, and refund type 1603 to the refund database 2107
according to the refund method 1509 in which the purchaser selected referring the
sales database 2106, extracts name 2302, citizenship registration number 2303,
mailing address 2304, phone number 2305, business card issue status 2310 data
from the membership database 2107, extracts the refund type 1603 data from the
refund database 2107 and then fransfers the data to the cooperating financing
agency to open an account of the purchaser for refund.
The flowchart for opening an account for refund in the financing agency is
shown in Fig. 34. The financing agency which received the purchaser information examines whether the banking account is registered for the account code field
1802 referring client database 2114 and ledger database 2115. If the account exists,
the account is registered as the refund account by updating the goods type field
1809 corresponding to the existing account code field 1802. If the account does not
exist, an ordinary account code is registered to the account code and a new account
for refund is opened. If the purchaser wants to issue a business card, a new account
for refund is provided to the purchaser.
When the purchaser selects the banking goods as the refund method, the
financing agency examines whether the account for the selected banking goods
exists by the same process as described, and a new banking goods account is
registered to the ledger database 2115.
The financing agency registers the purchaser information to the client
database 2114 and ledger database 2115 and saves up the refund amount after
finishing the opening of a bank account for the purchaser. The entire flow of the
refund operation is shown in Fig. 42. The article is conveyed to the winner of the
drawing free of charge and a part of distribution margin is refunded according to
the rate of the discount of the purchased article.
Refund process in the case that the purchaser selects the cash (including
card issue) as the refund method is shown in Fig. 36. The financing agency 2112
refers the account number 1800, client number 1801, account code 1802, and kind
of goods 1809, registers the opening date 1803 if the purchaser is a new client, and
the contents of the amount received 1812, amount supplied 1813, last transaction
date 1806, and balance 1805 fields are updated. If the purchaser makes use of the rechargeable card, it is possible to charge the card as the amount refunded at the
place where the financing agency and the proprietor designated. If the purchaser
uses the conventional card, the purchaser uses the card at the shop cooperating
with the proprietor or the financing agency, and the refund amount is supplied to
the refund account to that the payment according to the use of the card is
performed from the refund account.
Refund process in the case that the purchaser selects the banking goods as
the refund method is shown in Fig. 37. The financing agency 2112 refers the
account number 1800, client number 1801, account code 1802, and kind of goods
1809 of the ledger database 2115, registers the opening date 1803 if the purchaser
is a new client, and the contents of the close date 1804, balance 1805, last
transaction date 1806, applied rate 1807, method of paying interest 1811, and
amount received 1812 fields are updated.
The refund method changes according to the kind of the banking goods (a
fixed account, mutual fund, insurance) in which the purchaser selected.
The financing agency 2112 transfers the member ID 1600, account number
1604 of the newly opened account, refund amount supplied 1605, and paying date
1602 fields to the business server system 2101 of proprietor. Business server
system receives the results and registers the account number 1604, paying date
1602, refund amount 1605, and refund date 1606 data to the refund database 2107.
On the other hand, the business server 2101 transfers the banking account number
and the contents of the saved refund amount to the e-mail server 2102 after the
data registration to the refund database 2101, and then the contents are reported to the purchaser by an e-mail. If the purchaser selects the banking goods as the refund
method, the financing agency saves the refund amount to the corresponding
banking account according to the method specific to the banking goods and
examines whether the maturity date is reached referring the ledger database 2115.
If the maturity date comes, the financing agency pays the saved refund amount to
the purchaser.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, refund amount can
be paid via banking goods account applying fixed rate, that is, the fixed account.
Moreover, refund amount can be paid via banking goods account applying variable
rate, that is, accumulation type investment goods account.
If the purchaser selects the cash refund or wants to issue a business card
with the selection of cash refund, the purchaser may use the refund amount
immediately. The business card in which the proprietor issues is a multi-functional
card having prepaid card function, payment function (when purchasing the
purchasing ticket), and additional service functions connected to various
communities. If the card is issued once, the purchaser may use the saved refund
amount successively using the card.
The flowchart for issuing a business card is shown in Fig. 38. The card
may be issued to the user by selecting the "apply rechargeable card" button or
"apply conventional card" button in the shopping mall homepage of the proprietor
when needed. The business server system 2101 issues the card referring the
business card issue field 2312 of the membership database 2104 for referring the
kind of the card in which the user wants to apply. If the user applies a rechargeable card, the proprietor issues the card and user the amount refunded to the card after
charging.
If the user applies to a conventional card, the existing account is linked to
the conventional card as the payment account for the conventional card to use the
existing refund cash account as the payment account of the conventional card if the
existing refund cash account exists, and then the card is issued..
(7) Application Example
A practical example of the method in which the purchasing tickets for the
article are sold, the article is conveyed free of charge to the winner of the drawing,
and the article is conveyed for a reasonable price to the loser of the drawing. This
example details are as follows: the market price of A notebook computer is
4,600,000 won, the actual supplying price is 2,760,000 won, 10 purchasing tickets
for A notebook computer are sold, A notebook is conveyed to each of the
purchasers, and the price of the purchasing ticket is refunded to the winner of the drawing.
(7-1) Registration and Display of the Purchasing Ticket Information
First, the server displays the article information about A notebook
computer equivalent to 4,600,000 won, and the purchasing ticket information
including the price of the purchasing ticket which is 4,600,000 won and the
amount of the purchasing ticket which is 10.
(7-2) Receive a Request for Purchasing a Purchasing Ticket The requests for purchasing a purchasing ticket are received from a
plurality of the users who want to purchase the article. This step is repeated until
the purchasing tickets are sold out or the predetermined time period is expired.
(7-3) Payment Method Input
The requester for purchasing a purchasing ticket transfers the payment
method for paying the price of the purchasing ticket.
(7-4) Notification of the Purchasing Ticket Sale Status
The purchasing ticket sale status may be opened during the sale period or
after the purchasing tickets are sold out.
(7-5) Drawing and Conveyance of Article
1 purchaser is selected among 10 who bought the purchasing tickets. Then,
10 A notebook computers are conveyed to 10 purchaser who bought the
purchasing tickets.
(7-6) Refund the Buying Price of the Purchasing Ticket
The entire amount of the price of the purchasing ticket is refunded to the
winner of the drawing. It is possible to refund to the loser of the drawings a part of
difference amount in which the refunded amount to the winner of the drawing and
the practical supplying price of 10 notebook computers are subtracted from the
sale price of the 10 notebook computer purchasing tickets.
The refund method may include the cash or banking goods depending on
the winner of the drawing and the loser of the drawings' choices as described
above. Applicable banking goods includes a fixed deposit having fixed rate and a trust saving having variable rate. The description of the application of the banking
goods are omitted since it is the same as in the case of the application example.
(Application Example)
As another embodiment of the present invention, the article sales method
according to the present invention may be applicable to the home shopping system
using CATN. The home shopping system for realizing the article sales method
using CATN according to the present invention is similar to the system for
embodying the article sales method of the internet shopping mall as described
above. That is, a business server controls the entire sales method of the present
invention, and the membership database 2104, article database 2105 and refund
database 2107 are connected to the business server.
CATN home shopping company registers the articles for sale to the
business server 2101. The name of the article, size, article code, sale price, price of
the purchasing ticket, number of purchasing tickets for sale, and number of
purchasing tickets sold are recorded on the article database 2105 having the
structure shown in Fig. 4 by the business server when the article is registered.
After the regisfration, the article information and the purchasing ticket information
for the articles for sale are broadcasted.
The consumer accesses to the CATN home shopping company via variable
communication means if customers' interest is generated when watching the
CATN home shopping broadcasting. Nowadays, wire telephones are generally
used for accessing to the home shopping company, various other communication means can be used for example PC communication, internet, or wireless
communication device approved by the home shopping company.
More detailed description is as follows. The broadcasting is started, the
customer feels interest, and the customer calls for the CATN home shopping
company. After a telephone call is connected, the customer requests to purchase a
purchasing ticket to the sales service representative after confirmation of the
availability of the purchasing ticket to purchase. The sales service representative
informs to the customer the availability of the purchasing ticket by referring the
article database 2105. If the purchasing tickets are sold out, the customer may
cancel the purchase, or may purchase another purchasing ticket for another article.
If the purchasing tickets are available, the customer can request for buying the
purchasing ticket, and presents the payment method for the purchasing ticket price
and the refund method. The sales service representative may sell the purchasing
ticket to all customers regardless of the membership, or only to the registered
member by referring the membership status. If the customer wants to register as a
member, it is possible to register the customer as a new member. If a new member
is registered, the membership information is recorded to the membership database
2104 as shown in Fig. 3.
The payment method presented by the purchaser of the purchasing ticket
may be a credit card, fund transfer, or other payment method. CATN home
shopping company refers whether the payment method is available, and sells the
purchasing ticket to the customer if the payment method is available. The sales service representative inputs the payment method presented by
the purchaser to the sales database during the telephone call, and the business
server system transfers the purchaser name 2302, citizenship regisfration number
2303, kind of credit card 2308, number of the credit card 2309, validation date
2310, and payment account number 2311 extracted from the membership database
2104 to the credit card agency or financing agency via the communication device.
The financing agency receives the data from the business server system, examine
whether the payment account exists, whether the payment amount exists, and
whether the credit card is available, reports the results of examination, and
transfers the payment amount 1508. If there is an abnormal condition for the
payment according to the receipt of the data from the financing agency, the
business server system 2101 requests for the purchaser to select another payment
method and waits for the purchaser's response. The business server system 2101
receives another payment method from the purchaser, fransmits the information to
the financing agency in the same manner, and waits for the results. If the
purchaser's payment method is available as a result of the confirmation to the
financing agency, the financing agency system transfers the amount paid for the
price for the article to the business server 2101.
The business server system transfers the sale price to the account of the
cooperate agency (financing agency or public institution) from the credit card or
the account of the purchaser according to the selected payment method of the user.
Related banking agencies performs fund transfer between related institution using
banking network or their own network. The business server system 2101 generates a serial number of the
purchasing ticket, registers the serial number to the serial number of the purchasing
ticket field 1505 of the sale database 2106, and increases the data of the amount of
purchasing tickets sold 2407 of the article database 2105. The amount of available
purchasing tickets are updated and broadcasted. As described, the business server
registers the data to the related databases by the successive process, and then the
business server reports the article information in which the purchaser selected and
the serial number of the purchasing ticket 1505.
for article of the shopping mall homepage. The system 2101 sends to the e-
mail server 2102 after regisfration of the data to the related database by the
successive step. The e-mail server 2102 sends the receipt where the article
information in which the purchaser selected and the serial number of the
purchasing ticket are written to the purchaser by e-mail referring the e-mail field of
the membership database 2104. The drawing date and the announcement date for
the winner of the drawing may be included. The reporting method may include e-
mail, voice or short message using wireless communication device.
A drawing for the purchasing tickets is performed if the purchasing tickets
are sold out or the drawing date announced when the purchasing tickets are started
to sale comes. It is possible to advance the drawing date if the purchasing tickets
are sold out earlier than the drawing date, but the change of the drawing date
should be notified to all purchasers of the purchasing tickets and announced on the
CATN home shopping broadcasting. The business server system draws a purchasing ticket. The result of
drawing is announced through the CATN home shopping broadcasting and
notified to each of the purchasers by a telephone call or e-mail. . First, the business
server system examines the purchasing ticket sale status. That is, it is examined
whether the purchasing tickets for the article are sold out by comparing the amount
of the purchasing tickets for sale item 2406 to the amount of the purchasing tickets
sold 2407 of the article database 2105. It is possible to re-announce to advance the
drawing date if the purchasing tickets are sold out earlier than the drawing date
announced when the purchasing tickets for the article is started to sale. The
business server system draws a purchasing ticket when the drawing date comes.
When the winning number is determined, the result is recorded in the sales
database 2106 by inputting the result for each of the purchasing ticket and
registering the winning number to the winning number field for each of the article
code of the article database. Moreover, the winner of the drawing for each article is
announced on the CATN home shopping broadcasting. In addition, it is possible to
notice to the winner of the drawing by sending e-mail referring the e-mail address
for member of the membership database 2104.
A commission merchant who sells the article through the CATV home
shopping indicates for the supplier to convey the article to the winner of the
drawing after the selection of the winner of the drawing. If the supplier submits the
receipt for article to the commission merchant after conveyance of the article to the
winner of the drawing, the business server 2101 of the commission merchant
fransfers the sale price 2404 data, extracted from the article database 2105 to the financing agency system. The financing agency received the indication of payment
may fransfer the article price to the supplier banking account opened in the
financing agency, or the supplier may directly claims the article sale price to the
financing agency.
As a result of the drawing, the article is conveyed to the winner of the
drawing and full or partial amount of the price paid for purchasing a purchasing
ticket is refunded to the loser of the drawing after a predetermined time period.
The details are the same as the refund method of the internet shopping mall.
The preferred embodiments of the present invention are described until
now, the scope of the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments.
The various modifications can be added to the embodiments to execute the
invention described in the claims. It is apparent that such modifications belongs to
the technical scope of the invention related to the present application from the
description of the claims.
According to the present invention, a large quantity of the articles can be
sold inexpensively by minimizing the distribution margin. Therefore, the
manufacturer can produce articles of good quality and maximize the profit because
of the smooth money circulation due to the increase of the sales. The customer
may purchase the desired article at a low price. Moreover, since full or partial
amount of the price is refunded to the loser of the drawing as well as winner of the
drawing, the customer can purchase a purchasing ticket without any disadvantage.
[Industrial applicability] The preferred embodiments of the present invention are described until
now, the scope of the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments.
The various modifications can be added to the embodiments to execute the
invention described in the claims. It is apparent that such modifications belongs to
the technical scope of the invention related to the present application from the
description of the claims.

Claims

[Claims] [Claim 1 ] A method of selling articles in an electronic commercial trade, the method comprising the steps of:
(1) registering and displaying article information including purchasing
ticket information in which the price of said purchasing ticket is lower than the
price of the article to sell to a computer;
(2) selling said purchasing ticket to a purchaser in case that said purchaser
indicates an intention to purchase said purchasing ticket of displayed article and
presents a payment method for the price and the price is payable by said payment
method;
(3) performing said (2) step repeatedly until said purchasing tickets are
sold out or by a predetermined sale time limit; and
(4) conveying said article to a winner of the drawing after drawing a
purchasing ticket from said sold purchasing tickets.
[Claim 2]
The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:
(5) cash-backing full or partial amount of the price of purchasing said
purchasing ticket to at least the loser of the drawing using at least of one from cash,
banking goods, security, or conveying article conform to the price. [Claim 3]
The method of claim 2, wherein said purchaser can select the cashback
method when said purchaser indicates the intention to purchase said purchasing ticket and the cash-back is performed using said selected cashback method in said
step (5).
[Claim 4]
The method of claim 1 or 2, wherein the paying ability of the payment
method is referred by fransferring a credit card number to the credit card agency
when the payment method presented by said purchaser is a credit card and the
paying ability of the payment method is referred by fransferring an account
number to the banking card agency when the payment method presented by said
purchaser is fund transfer.
[Claim 5]
The method of claim 4, wherein a shopping mall is opened on said
computer and information of the articles to sell is registered and displayed on said
shopping mall in said step (1).
[Claim 6]
The method of claim 5, wherein said articles registered on said shopping mall are displayed group- wise by field.
[Claim 7]
The method of claim 5, wherein said computer grants a right to browse
articles and purchase said purchasing tickets if said purchaser registers and logins
as a member of said shopping mall.
[Claim 8]
The method of claim 5, wherein said computer draws a purchasing tickets
from said purchasing tickets sold, announce the result of the drawing on a homepage of said shopping mall, and report to at least winner of the drawing by e-
mail or voice or short message of a wireless communication device.
[Claim 9]
The method of claim 4, wherein the information of the articles and
purchasing tickets are broadcasted through the television to show to said purchaser.
[Claim 10]
The method of claim 9, wherein said computer draws a purchasing tickets
from said purchasing tickets sold, announce the result of the drawing by
broadcasting and report to at least winner of the drawing by e-mail or voice or
short message of a wireless communication device.
[Claim 11]
The method of claim 1 or 2, wherein said computer issues a receipt
including the purchased article particulars and the number of the purchasing ticket
if the price of said purchasing ticket is paid using said payment method.
[Claim 12]
The method of claim 11, wherein said receipt is transferred by e-mail or
voice or short message of a wireless communication device.
[Claim 13]
The method of claim 1, wherein said computer pays the article price to the
article provider after conveying said article to said winner of the drawing.
[Claim 14]
A method of selling articles using members' points through a
communication network, the method comprising the steps of: memorizing numbers of members' points;
issuing two or more lottery tickets which is defined as a number of points
smaller than the number of points for the article according to the article price to
point ratio which is defined as the number of points for the price of the article and
the price of the article to sell;
receiving and recording a request for purchase of said lottery ticket
requested by two or more members among said members and cutting down the
numbers of points in which the requesters possess; selecting a predetermined numbers of lottery tickets from all the lottery
tickets in which said request for purchase is received; and
reporting to the winner of the drawing who is defined as the member who
purchased the selected lottery ticket in the step of selecting lottery ticket among
said members that he won the prize.
[Claim 15]
The method of claim 14, wherein said article includes bearer bond,
securities, and points.
[Claim 16]
The method of claim 14, further comprising the step of:
determining the points to be refunded to the loser of the drawing who is
defined as the member excluding said winner of the drawing among said winner of
the drawing and said all purchase requester in the range of the value in which the
number of the points for the price of the article is subtracted from the sum of the
points of all lottery tickets in which said purchase request is received.
[Claim 17]
The method of claim 16, wherein the number of points in which said
winner of the drawing and said loser of the drawing possess increases according to
the result of said determining the points to be refunded.
[Claim 18]
The method of claim 16, further comprising the step of:
recording the determined result in said step of determining the points to be
refunded to the point investment database.
[Claim 19]
The method of claim 16, further comprising the steps of:
memorizing the banking account information of said member; and
fransfer the price for the said refunded points for the refunded point to cash
ratio which is defined as an amount of cash for the number of refunded points
determined to each memorized banking accounts of said winner of the drawing and
loser of the drawing through the communication network after the step of
determining said refund point.
[Claim 20]
The method of claim 19, wherein the method comprising the step of
receiving a request for opening a new banking account and requesting to open a
banking account to the computer of banking agency and wherein said step of
memorizing the banking account information comprising the step of receiving the
information of the and memorizing said banking account information.
[Claim 21 ] The method of claim 20, further comprising the steps of:
notifying proposed saving period and the rate of the interest thereof of the
banking account; and
receiving and fransferring the saving period and the rate of the interest for
opening a new banking account from said member to the computer of said banking
agency through the communication network.
[Claim 22]
The method of claim 14, wherein said step of memorizing the number of
points comprising the step of:
memorizing the number of points to be memorized in the step of
memorizing the number of points corresponding to the number of points in which
said member possesses according to the exchange rate among points which is
defined as the number of the points to be memorized in the step of memorizing the
number of points for the points in wliich said member possesses when the points in
which said member possesses is a different points from the points to be memorized
in the step of memorizing the number of points.
[Claim 23]
The method of claim 14 or 16, wherein there are two or more said articles
to sell and the same numbers of lottery tickets as the numbers of articles to sell are
sold in the step of issuing lottery tickets.
[Claim 24] An article sales system comprising a subscriber terminal to sell articles
using subscribers' points through a communication network and a server
connected to said subscriber terminal through the communication network,
the server comprising
(1) means for issuing two or more lottery tickets which is defined as a
number of points smaller than the number of points for the article according to the
article price to point ratio which is defined as the number of points for the price of
the article and the price of the article to sell and posting said lottery tickets through
said communication network;
(2) purchase request management means for receiving and recording
purchase request for said lottery ticket requested by two or more subscribers'
terminal from said subscribers;
(3) lottery ticket selecting means for selecting a predetermined numbers of
lottery tickets from all the lottery tickets in which said request for purchase is
received; and
(4) winning notice means for reporting to the winner of the drawing's
terminal who is defined as the subscriber who purchased the selected lottery ticket
by said lottery ticket selecting means among said subscribers that he won the prize.
(5) subscribers' points management means for memorizing the numbers of
points in which said subscriber possesses, increasing or decreasing said numbers of
points and decreasing the number of points in which said lottery ticket purchase
requester possesses in response to receiving the lottery ticket purchase request by
said purchase request management means; and said subscriber's terminal comprising:
(1) means for displaying lottery ticket issued by said server;
(2) means for fransferring a lottery ticket purchase request to said server in
case that there is an input of lottery ticket selection by said subscriber; and
(3) means for receiving the fact that he win the prize from said server.
[Claim 25]
The article sales system of claim 24, wherein the server further comprises
means for receiving the number of winning ticket which is defined as said selected
number of lottery ticket.
[Claim 26]
An article sales apparatus connected to said subscriber's terminal through
the communication network comprising:
means for issuing two or more lottery tickets which is defined as a number
of points smaller than the number of points for the article according to the article
price to point ratio which is defined as the number of points for the price of the
article and the price of the article to sell and posting said lottery tickets through
said communication network;
purchase request management means for receiving and recording purchase
request for said lottery ticket requested by two or more subscribers' terminal from
said subscribers;
lottery ticket selecting means for selecting a predetermined numbers of
lottery tickets from all the lottery tickets in which said request for purchase is
received; and winning notice means for reporting to the winner of the drawing's terminal
who is defined as the subscriber who purchased the selected lottery ticket by said
lottery ticket selecting means among said subscribers that he won the prize.
subscribers' points management means for memorizing the numbers of
points in which said subscriber possesses, increasing or decreasing said numbers of
points and decreasing the number of points in which said lottery ticket purchase
requester possesses in response to receiving the lottery ticket purchase request by
said purchase request management means.
[Claim 27]
The article sales apparatus of claim 26, further comprising means of
receiving the number of winning ticket which is defined as said selected number of
lottery ticket.
[Claim 28]
The article sales apparatus of claim 26, wherein said article uses points
including bearer bond, securities, or points.
[Claim 29]
The article sales apparatus of claim 26, further comprising refund point
determination means for determining the points to be refunded to the loser of the
drawing who is defined as the member excluding said winner of the drawing
among said winner of the drawing and said all purchase requester in the range of
the value in which the number of the points for the price of the article is subtracted
from the sum of the points of all lottery tickets in which said purchase request is
received.
[Claim 30]
The article sales apparatus of claim 29, wherein said subscriber's points
management means increases the number of points of said winner of the drawing
and said loser of the drawing according to the results determined by said refund
point determination means.
[Claim 31 ]
The article sales apparatus of claim 29, further comprising a point
investment database for recording the results determined by said refund point
determination means.
[Claim 32]
The article sales apparatus of claim 29, wherein
said apparatus further comprises banking account management means for
memorizing the banking account information of said member and fransceiving
information with a computer of banking agency related to said subscriber's banking account; and wherein
said banking account management means requests to transfer the price for
the said refunded points determined by said refund point determination means
according to the refunded point to cash ratio which is defined as an amount of cash
for the number of points to each banking accounts of said winner of the drawing
and loser of the drawing in which said banking account management means
memorizes through the communication network to the computer of banking
agency related to said subscriber's banking account .
[Claim 33] The article sales apparatus of claim 32, wherein
said banking account management means receives a request for opening a
new banking account from said subscriber, requests to open a banking account to
the computer of banking agency, and memorizes the banking account information
received from the computer of banking agency.
[Claim 34]
The article sales apparatus of claim 33, wherein
said banking account management means notifies proposed saving period
and the rate of the interest thereof of the banking account to said subscriber; and
wherein
receives and fransfers the saving period and the rate of the interest for
opening a new banking account from said subscriber to the computer of said
banking agency through the communication network.
[Claim 35]
The article sales apparatus of claim 26, wherein
said subscriber's point management means memorizes the number of
points to be memorized by said subscriber's point management means
corresponding to the number of points in which said subscriber possesses
according to the exchange rate among points which is defined as the number of the
points to be memorized by said subscriber's point management means for the
points in which said subscriber possesses when the points in which said subscriber
possesses are different points from the points to be memorized by said subscriber's
point management means.
[Claim 36]
A method of selling articles using subscribers' points through a
communication network, the method comprising the steps of:
memorizing numbers of subscribers' points;
issuing two or more lottery tickets which is defined as a number of points
smaller than the number of points for the price of the article according to the article
price to point ratio which is defined as the number of points for the price of the
article and which can be distinguished by different issue number from each other;
selecting a predetermined numbers of lottery tickets from said issued
lottery tickets and recording the issue numbers of selected lottery tickets;
allotting said lottery tickets to purchase requester who requested to
purchase said lottery ticket among said subscribers in regular sequence and cutting
down the number of points in which said lottery ticket purchase requester
possesses; and
reporting to the purchase requester in which the issue number
distinguishing the allotted lottery ticket when the purchase is requested is agreed
with the issue number recorded in the step of selecting and recording among said purchase requester.
[Claim 37]
A method of selling articles using subscribers' points through a
communication network, the method comprising the steps of:
memorizing numbers of subscribers' points; issuing two or more lottery tickets which is defined as a number of points
smaller than the number of points for the price of the article according to the article
price to point ratio which is defined as the number of points for the price of the
article and the price of the article and which can be distinguished by different issue
number from each other;
making a purchase requester who requested to purchase said lottery ticket
among said subscribers select a lottery ticket from said two or more issued lottery
tickets and cutting down the number of points in which said lottery ticket purchase
requester possesses;
determining whether the lottery ticket selected by said purchase requester
is won or not based on winning probability which is defined as the number smaller
than the said total number for the total number of said issued lottery tickets;
reporting to the purchase requester in which the lottery ticket allotted to
said purchase requester is determined to win according to the result of said step of
determining.
[Claim 38]
The method of claim 37, further comprising the step of:
receiving the number of winning lottery tickets among said issued lottery
tickets; and wherein
the winning probability is the number of said winning tickets to the total
number of said issued lottery tickets in said step of determining whether the lottery
ticket is won or not .
[Claim 39] A method of selling articles using subscribers' points through a
communication network, the method comprising the steps of:
memorizing numbers of subscribers' points;
issuing two or more lottery tickets which is defined as a number of points
smaller than the number of points for the price of the article according to the article
price to point ratio which is defined as the number of points for the price of the
article and the price of the article and which can be distinguished by different issue
number from each other;
making a purchase requester who requested to purchase said lottery ticket
among said subscribers select two or more lottery tickets from said two or more
issued lottery tickets and cutting down the number of points in which said lottery
ticket purchase requester possesses;
determining whether the lottery ticket selected by said purchase requester
is won or not based on winning probability which is defined as the number smaller
than the said total number for the total number of said issued lottery tickets;
reporting to the purchase requester in which the lottery ticket allotted to
said purchase requester is determined to win according to the result of said step of
determining.
[Claim 40]
The method of claim 39, further comprising the step of:
receiving the number of winning lottery tickets among said issued lottery
tickets; and wherein said step of selecting lottery tickets and cutting down points is to make the
purchase requester select the smaller numbers of lottery tickets than the number of
said received winning lottery tickets and
the winning probability is the ratio of the combination value of the
selection number of said lottery tickets among said winning tickets for the
combination value of the selection number of said lottery tickets among total
numbers of said issued lottery tickets in said step of determining whether the
[Claim 41 ]
The method of claim 36 or claim 37, wherein said article uses points
including bearer bond, securities, or points.
[Claim 42]
The method of claim 36 or claim 37, further comprising the step of:
determining the points to be refunded to the loser of the drawing who is
defined as the subscriber excluding said winner of the drawing among said winner
of the drawing and said all purchase requester in the range of the value in which
the number of the points for the price of the article is subtracted from the sum of
the points of all lottery tickets in which said purchase request is received.
[Claim 43]
The method of claim 42, further comprising the step of:
increasing the number of points in which said winner of the drawing and
said loser of the drawing possess according to the result of said step of determining
the points to be refunded.
[Claim 44] The method of claim 42, further comprising the step of:
recording the determined result in said step of determining the points to be
refunded to the point investment database.
[Claim 45]
The method of claim 42, further comprising the steps of:
memorizing the banking account information of said subscriber; and
fransferring the price for the said refunded points for the refunded point to
cash ratio which is defined as an amount of cash for the number of refunded points
determined to each banking accounts of said winner of the drawing and loser of the
drawing memorized in the step of memorizing the banking account information
through the communication network after the step of determining said refund point.
[Claim 46]
The method of claim 45, wherein the method comprising the step of
receiving a request for opening a new banking account and requesting to open a
banking account to the computer of banking agency; and wherein
said step of memorizing the banking account information comprising the
step of receiving the information of the and memorizing said banking account
information.
[Claim 47]
The method of claim 46, further comprising the steps of:
notifying proposed saving period and the rate of the interest thereof of the
banking account to said subscriber; and receiving and fransferring the saving period and the rate of the interest for
opening a new banking account from said subscriber to the computer of said
banking agency through the communication network.
[Claim 48]
The method of claim 36 or claim 37, wherein said step of memorizing the
number of points comprising the step of:
memorizing the number of points to be memorized in the step of
memorizing the number of points corresponding to the number of points in which
said subscriber possesses according to the exchange rate among points which is
defined as the number of the points to be memorized in the step of memorizing the
number of points for the points in which said member possesses when the points in
which said subscriber possesses is a different point from the points to be
memorized in the step of memorizing the number of points.
[Claim 49]
The method of claim 36 or 37, wherein there are two or more said articles
to sell and the same numbers of lottery tickets as the numbers of articles to sell are
sold in the step of issuing lottery tickets.
[Claim 50]
The method of claim 42, wherein there are two or more said articles to sell
and the same numbers of lottery tickets as the numbers of articles to sell are sold in
the step of issuing lottery tickets.
[Claim 51 ] An article sales system comprising a subscriber terminal to sell articles
using subscribers' points through a communication network and a server
connected to said subscriber terminal through the communication network,
said server comprising:
(1) means for memorizing the number of points in which said subscriber
possesses;
(2) means for issuing two or more lottery tickets which is defined as a
number of points smaller than the number of points for the price of the article
according to the article price to point ratio which is defined as the number of points
for the price of the article and the price of the article to sell and posting said lottery
tickets to said subscriber's terminal;
(3) means for selecting a predetermined numbers of lottery tickets from
said issued lottery tickets and recording the issue numbers of selected lottery
tickets;
(4) means for allotting said lottery tickets to purchase requester who
requested to purchase said lottery ticket among said subscribers in regular
sequence and cutting down the number of points in which said lottery ticket purchase requester possesses; and
(5) means for reporting to the terminal of the purchase requester in which
the issue number distinguishing the allotted lottery ticket when the purchase is
requested is agreed with the issue number recorded in the step of selecting and
recording among said purchase requester; and
said subscriber's terminal comprising: (1) means for displaying lottery ticket issued by said server;
(2) means for fransferring a lottery ticket purchase request to said server in
case that there is an input of lottery ticket selection by said subscriber; and
(3) means for receiving the fact that he win the prize from said server.
[Claim 52]
An article sales system comprising a subscriber terminal to sell articles
using subscribers' points through a communication network and a server
connected to said subscriber terminal through the communication network,
said server comprising:
(1) means for memorizing the number of points in which said subscriber
possesses;
(2) means for issuing two or more lottery tickets which is defined as a
number of points smaller than the number of points for the price of the article
according to the article price to point ratio which is defined as the number of points
for the price of the article and the price of the article to sell and posting said lottery
tickets to said subscriber's terminal;
(3) means for requesting the subscriber's terminal of the purchase
requester who requested to purchase said lottery ticket among said subscribers to
select a lottery ticket from said two or more issued lottery tickets and cutting down
the number of points in which said lottery ticket purchase requester possesses;
(4) means for determining whether the lottery ticket selected by said
purchase requester is won or not based on winning probability which is defined as the number smaller than the said total number for the total number of said issued
lottery tickets;
(5) means for reporting to the subscriber's terminal of the purchase
requester in which the lottery ticket allotted to said purchase requester is
determined to win according to the result of said step of determining; and
said subscriber's terminal comprising:
(1) means for displaying lottery ticket issued by said server;
(2) means for fransferring a lottery ticket purchase request to said server in
case that there is an input of lottery ticket selection by said subscriber; and
(3) means for receiving the fact that he win the prize from said server..
[Claim 53]
A method of selling articles using communication network, the method
comprising the steps of:
registering and displaying purchasing ticket information in which the price
of said purchasing ticket is lower than the price of the article to sell to a host
computer; receiving a purchase request for said purchasing ticket requested by
prospective purchaser using a terminal of the prospective purchaser;
recording payment method for the price of purchasing ticket presented by
said prospective purchaser using a terminal of the prospective purchaser to said
host computer; performing said steps of receiving a purchase request and recording
payment method repeatedly until the price is paid for all said purchasing tickets or
by a predetermined sale time limit;
selecting a predetermined number of purchasing tickets by said host
computer among all purchasing tickets whose price are paid;
determining the refund amount to be refunded to each of the winner of the
drawing who paid the price of said selected purchasing tickets among said
purchasers of purchasing tickets and the loser of the drawing excluding said
winner of the drawing among said purchasers of purchasing tickets by said host
computer;
generating banking account information of all of said purchaser of the
purchasing tickets by said host computer; and
paying said determined amount to be refunded to said banking account.
[Claim 54]
A method of selling articles using communication network, the method
comprising the steps of:
registering and displaying purchasing ticket information for each of two or
more articles to sell to a host computer;
receiving a purchase request for said purchasing ticket requested by
prospective purchaser using a terminal of the prospective purchaser;
recording payment method for the price of purchasing ticket presented by
said prospective purchaser using a terminal of the prospective purchaser to said
host computer; performing said steps of receiving a purchase request and recording
payment method repeatedly until the price is paid for all said purchasing tickets or
by a predetermined sale time limit;
selecting a predetermined number of purchasing tickets by said host
computer among all purchasing tickets whose price are paid;
determining the refund amount to be refunded to each of the winner of the
drawing who paid the price of said selected purchasing tickets among said
purchasers of purchasing tickets and the loser of the drawing excluding said
winner of the drawing among said purchasers of purchasing tickets by said host
computer;
generating banking account information of all of said purchaser of the
purchasing tickets by said host computer; and
paying said determined amount to be refunded to said banking account.
[Claim 55]
The method of claim 53 or 54, further comprising the steps of:
recording information of purchaser of purchasing tickets who paid the price
of said purchasing ticket using said purchasing ticket price payment method among
said prospective purchaser to said host computer.
[Claim 56]
The method of claim 53, wherein said step of determining the refund
amount comprises the step of:
determining the refund amount by sharing the amount equal to or less than
the amount that the actual buying price is subtracted from the sum of the sale price of said paid purchasing tickets to be proportional to the number of purchasing
tickets purchased by the winner of the drawing and the loser of the drawing to the
winner of the drawing and the loser of the drawing.
[Claim 57]
The method of claim 54, wherein said step of determining the refund
amount comprises the step of:
determining the refund amount of said winner of the drawing as the amount
which corresponds to the amount of sale price of said purchasing ticket among the
amount that the actual buying price is subfracted from the sum of the sale price of
said paid purchasing tickets, and
determining the refund amount of each of said loser of the drawing by
sharing the amount equal to or less than the amount that the refund amount of said
winner of the drawing is subfracted from the amount that actual buying price is
subtracted from the sum of the sale price of said paid purchasing tickets to be
proportional to the number of purchasing tickets purchased by said loser of the
drawing.
[Claim 58]
The method of claim 53 or 54, wherein said step of generating banking
account information comprises the steps of:
displaying proposed saving period in which said determined refund amount
to be saved; and
receiving and recording a selection of desired saving period from said
purchaser of said purchasing ticket referring said proposed saving period; and wherein the banking account information is generated based on desired saving
period selected by said purchaser of said purchasing ticket.
[Claim 59]
The method of claim 53 or 54, wherein said step of generating banking
account information comprises the steps of:
receiving and recording a predetermined banking account information from
each of said purchaser of said purchasing ticket.
[Claim 60]
The method of claim 53 or 54, wherein said step of generating banking
account information comprises the steps of:
requesting to open a predetermined banking account of purchaser of the
purchasing ticket who requested to open a new banking account among said
purchaser of the purchasing ticket to a computer of a banking agency connected to
said host computer; and receiving and recording information about banking account opened by said
computer of the banking agency.
[Claim 61 ]
The method of claim 60, wherein said step of requesting to open a banking
account comprises the step of:
fransferring information about said determined refund amount and saving
period selected by said purchaser of the purchasing ticket to said computer of the
banking agency.
[Claim 62] The method of claim 60, wherein said step of generating banking account
information comprises the step of:
receiving and registering information about definite earning rate
determined based on information about said determined refund amount and saving
period selected by said computer of the banking agency after the step of requesting
to open a banking account.
[Claim 63]
The method of claim 60, wherein said step of generating banking account
information comprises the step of:
receiving and registering information about floating earning rate
determined based on information about said determined refund amount and saving
period selected by said computer of the banking agency after the step of requesting
to open a banking account.
[Claim 64] A sales system using communication network, comprising a host computer
and prospective purchaser's terminal, wherein
said host computer comprises:
(1) purchasing ticket information record and display means for recording
and displaying purchasing ticket information in which the price of said purchasing
ticket is lower than the price of the article to sell;
(2) means for receiving a purchase request for said purchasing ticket
requested by prospective purchaser using a terminal of the prospective purchaser; (3) payment method recording area for recording the of said prospective
purchaser of the article;
(4) purchaser information recording area for recording information about
the purchaser of the purchasing ticket who paid the price of said purchasing ticket
using said payment method for the price of purchasing ticket;
(5) means for receiving a purchase request by said means for receiving a
purchase request, recording said payment method for the price of purchasing ticket
of said prospective purchaser to said payment method recording area, and
recording information about the purchaser of the purchasing ticket who paid the
price of said purchasing ticket to said purchaser information recording area until
the price is paid for all said purchasing tickets or by a predetermined sale time
limit;
(6) means for selecting a predetermined number of purchasing tickets
among said all purchasing tickets whose price are paid;
(7) means for determining the refund amount to be refunded to each of the
winner of the drawing who paid the price of said selected purchasing tickets
among said purchasers of purchasing tickets and the loser of the drawing excluding
said winner of the drawing among said purchasers of purchasing tickets; and
(8) banking account information generating and recording means for
generating and recording banking account information of all of said purchaser of
the purchasing tickets; and wherein said prospective purchaser's terminal receives the payment method for the
price of purchasing ticket from said prospective purchaser of the article and
fransfers to said host computer.
[Claim 65]
A sales system using cornmunication network, comprising a host computer
and prospective purchaser's terminal, wherein
said host computer comprises:
(1) purchasing ticket information record and display means for recording
and displaying purchasing ticket information about each of two or more articles to
sell;
(2) receiving means for receiving a purchase request for said purchasing
ticket requested by prospective purchaser of said article using a terminal of the
prospective purchaser;
(3) payment method recording area for recording the of said prospective
purchaser of the article;
(4) purchaser information recording area for recording information about
the purchaser of the purchasing ticket who paid the price of said purchasing ticket
using said payment method for the price of purchasing ticket;
(5) means for receiving a purchase request by said means for receiving a
purchase request, recording said payment method for the price of purchasing ticket
of said prospective purchaser to said payment method recording area, and
recording information about the purchaser of the purchasing ticket who paid the
price of said purchasing ticket to said purchaser information recording area until the price is paid for all said purchasing tickets or by a predetermined sale time
limit;
(6) means for selecting a predetermined number of purchasing tickets
among said all purchasing tickets whose price are paid;
(7) means for determining the refund amount to be refunded to each of the
winner of the drawing who paid the price of said selected purchasing tickets
among said purchasers of purchasing tickets and the loser of the drawing excluding
said winner of the drawing among said purchasers of purchasing tickets; and
(8) banking account information generating and recording means for
generating and recording banking account information of all of said purchaser of
the purchasing tickets; and wherein
said prospective purchaser's terminal receives the payment method for the
price of purchasing ticket from said prospective purchaser of the article and
transfers to said host computer.
[Claim 66]
The system of claim 64, wherein said means for determining the refund
amount comprises:
means for determining the refund amount by sharing the amount equal to
or less than the amount that the actual buying price is subtracted from the sum of
the sale price of said paid purchasing tickets to be proportional to the number of
purchasing tickets purchased by the winner of the drawing and the loser of the
drawing to the winner of the drawing and the loser of the drawing.
[Claim 67] The system of claim 65, wherein said means for determining the refund
amount comprises:
means for determining the refund amount of said winner of the drawing as
the amount which corresponds to the amount of sale price of said purchasing ticket
among the amount that the actual buying price is subtracted from the sum of the
sale price of said paid purchasing tickets, and
determining the refund amount of each of said loser of the drawing by
sharing the amount equal to or less than the amount that the refund amount of said
winner of the drawing is subfracted from the amount that actual buying price is
subtracted from the sum of the sale price of said paid purchasing tickets to be
proportional to the number of purchasing tickets purchased by said loser of the
drawing.
[Claim 68]
The system of claim 64 or 65, wherein said banking account information
generating and recording means comprises:
means for receiving and recording a predetermined banking account
information from each of said purchaser of said purchasing ticket.
means for requesting to open a predetermined banking account of
purchaser of the purchasing ticket who requested to open a new banking account
among said purchaser of the purchasing ticket to a computer of a banking agency
connected to said host computer; and
means for receiving and recording information about banking account
[Claim 69] The system of claim 68, wherein said means for requesting to open a
banking account comprises:
means for transferring information about said determined refund amount
and saving period in which determined refund amount to be saved to said computer
of the banking agency.
[Claim 70]
The system of claim 69, wherein said banking account information
generating and recording means comprises:
means for receiving and registering information about definite earning rate
determined based on information about said determined refund amount and saving
period by said computer of the banking agency .
[Claim 71 ]
The system of claim 69, wherein said banking account information
generating and recording means comprises:
means for receiving and registering information about floating earning rate
determined based on information about said determined refund amount and saving
period by said computer of the banking agency .
[Claim 72]
A computer-readable recording medium where an article sales program is
recorded therein, the program comprises the steps of:
registering and displaying purchasing ticket information in which the price
of said purchasing ticket is lower than the price of the article to sell to a host computer; receiving a purchase request for said purchasing ticket requested by
prospective purchaser using a terminal of the prospective purchaser;
recording payment method for the price of purchasing ticket presented by
said prospective purchaser using a terminal of the prospective purchaser to said
host computer;
performing said steps of receiving a purchase request and recording
payment method repeatedly until the price is paid for all said purchasing tickets or
by a predetermined sale time limit;
selecting a predetermined number of purchasing tickets by said host
computer among all purchasing tickets whose price are paid;
determining the refund amount to be refunded to each of the winner of the
drawing who paid the price of said selected purchasing tickets among said
purchasers of purchasing tickets and the loser of the drawing excluding said
winner of the drawing among said purchasers of purchasing tickets by said host
computer;
generating banking account information of all of said purchaser of the
purchasing tickets by said host computer; and
paying said determined amount to be refunded to said banking account.
[Claim 73]
A computer-readable recording medium where an article sales program is
recorded therein, the program comprises the steps of:
registering and displaying purchasing ticket information for each of two or
more articles to sell to a host computer; receiving a purchase request for said purchasing ticket requested by
prospective purchaser using a terminal of the prospective purchaser;
recording payment method for the price of purchasing ticket presented by
said prospective purchaser using a terminal of the prospective purchaser to said
host computer;
recording information about the purchaser of the purchasing ticket who
paid the price of said purchasing ticket using said payment method for the price of
purchasing ticket;
performing said steps of receiving a purchase request and recording
payment method repeatedly until the price is paid for all said purchasing tickets or
by a predetermined sale time limit;
selecting a predetermined number of purchasing tickets by said host
computer among all purchasing tickets whose price are paid;
determining the refund amount to be refunded to each of the winner of the
drawing who paid the price of said selected purchasing tickets among said
purchasers of purchasing tickets and the loser of the drawing excluding said
winner of the drawing among said purchasers of purchasing tickets by said host
computer;
generating banking account information of all of said purchaser of the
purchasing tickets by said host computer; and
paying said determined amount to be refunded to said banking account.
PCT/KR2001/000540 2000-11-18 2001-03-30 Method of selling goods in an electronic commercial trade WO2002041212A1 (en)

Priority Applications (1)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
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Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
KR2000/68770 2000-11-18
KR1020000068770A KR20020038884A (en) 2000-11-18 2000-11-18 Method for Selling Goods through a Communication Network by using Points as Exchanging Medium

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Publication Number Publication Date
WO2002041212A1 true WO2002041212A1 (en) 2002-05-23

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AU (1) AU2001248872A1 (en)
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Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
WO2009009943A1 (en) * 2007-07-16 2009-01-22 Fanghua Lei Trading method and system based on network platform

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Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
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