Amazon Patents Online Store Shopping Control

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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Many brick and mortar stores now offer price matching to online stores, while you are in the store checking prices. While Amazon has very little in terms of physical footprint when it comes to retail, it has just patented a "physical store online shopping control." This would allow the retailer you are in to identify your location in-store through triangulation, and also control the traffic to your device. The kicker here is that you have to be on the in-store WiFi for this to happen. If a retailer sees you trying to access a competitor's site, it could send you to a similar item in its own store, send you coupons, or fully block your traffic to that store. Then again, maybe Amazon will license this to its competitors in order to make a little kickback on brick and mortar store sales that it loses online.

Systems and methods for controlling online shopping within a physical store or retailer location are provided. A wireless network connection may be provided to a consumer device at a retailer location on behalf of a retailer, and content requested by the consumer device via the wireless network connection may be identified. Based upon an evaluation of the identified content, a determination may be made that the consumer device is attempting to access information associated with a competitor of the retailer or an item offered for sale by the retailer. At least one control action may then be directed based upon the determination.
 
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Note to self: never use Wi-Fi inside a store.

On another note, I wonder what the legal implications (if any) of this are? If you offer Internet access as an enticement to use your store, and then edit presented content, is there a conflict there? As near I can parse the legalese in the patent, they reserve the right to make any "counter-competitive" action on your communication. This could, potentially, include things not only beneficial to the consumer such as coupons, but also things like misquoted prices from competitors. I could see them doing the MSRP/price scam that a lot of the rotating sales sites use where they quote the highest price the item has ever been instead of the currently available price.
 
Would blocking a website for a competitor on someone's phone fall under the anti-trust law? And Couldn't I just use the cell data to bypass such controls?
 
SomeoneElse said:
Would blocking a website for a competitor on someone's phone fall under the anti-trust law? And Couldn't I just use the cell data to bypass such controls?
Click to expand...
I think if you are on their network, no, not if they had an agreement page when you logged onto their network.

As I mentioned....on their Wifi.
 
I read a theory about this on slashdot this morning where a commenter suggested that Amazon has patented this to prevent other retailers from being able to effectively combat showrooming. (A concept that's been discussed on [H] in the past.)
 
I was thinking about this some more over lunch, and it occurred to me that there might be previous art in the area. I recall (though I don't remember the exact details) that quite a few years back BestBuy got busted for adjusting (read: raising) prices on their website to match in-store prices if they determined that you were using in-store Wi-Fi to access the site. This seems to be basically the same scheme extended out somewhat to include competitor information. I would have thought this counts as an "obvious" implementation of previous behavior.
 
Paladin21 said:
I was thinking about this some more over lunch, and it occurred to me that there might be previous art in the area. I recall (though I don't remember the exact details) that quite a few years back BestBuy got busted for adjusting (read: raising) prices on their website to match in-store prices if they determined that you were using in-store Wi-Fi to access the site. This seems to be basically the same scheme extended out somewhat to include competitor information. I would have thought this counts as an "obvious" implementation of previous behavior.
Click to expand...

Well just remember that ALL of this needs to be found, not just parts:

1. A system, comprising: at least one wireless access point configured to provide Internet access to a consumer device within a retail establishment associated with a retailer, and at least one processing component configured to: identify a first uniform resource locater (URL) requested, via the wireless access point, by a browser application executing on the consumer device; determine, based upon a comparison of the first URL to stored information associated with one or more competitors of the retailer, that the first URL is associated with a competitor Web site; identify an offering of an item on the competitor Web site; identify (i) retailer information associated with an offering of the item by the retailer and (ii) competitor information associated with the offering of the item on the competitor Web site, wherein the retailer information comprises a first price for the offering of the item by the retailer and the competitor information comprises a second price for the offering of the item on the competitor Web site; determine that a difference between the first price and the second price exceeds a first threshold value or that a consumer value of a consumer associated with the consumer device does not exceed a second threshold value; determine, responsive to determining that the difference between the first price and the second price exceeds the first threshold value or that the consumer value exceeds the second threshold value, that information associated with an offering of a complementary item that is complementary to the item should be presented to the consumer in lieu of counter-competitive information that competes with the offering of the item on the competitor Web site; and redirect the browser application to a second URL different from the first URL, wherein the second URL is associated with a Web site that includes the information associated with the offering of the complementary item.

4. A method, comprising: under control of one or more computer systems configured with executable instructions, identifying content associated with a first uniform resource locater (URL) requested by a browser application executing on a consumer device via a wireless network connection provided on behalf of a retailer at a retailer location; determining, based upon an evaluation of content associated with the first URL, that the consumer device is attempting to access information associated with an item of interest to the retailer; responsive to determining that the consumer device is attempting to access information associated with the item of interest, identifying i) retailer information associated with an offering of the item of interest by the retailer and ii) competitor information associated with a competitive offering of the item of interest by a competitor to the retailer, wherein the retailer information comprises a first price for the offering of the item of interest by the retailer and the competitor information comprises a second price for the competitive offering of the item of interest by the competitor; determining that a difference between the first price and the second price exceeds a first threshold value or that a consumer value of a consumer associated with the consumer device does not exceed a second threshold value; determining, based at least in part on determining that the difference between the first price and the second price exceeds the first threshold value or that the consumer value exceeds the second threshold value, that information associated with an offering of a complementary item that is complementary to the item of interest should be presented to the consumer in lieu of counter-competitive information that competes with the competitive offering; and redirect the browser application to a second URL different from the first URL, wherein the second URL is associated with a Web site that includes the information associated with the offering of the complementary item.

20. A system, comprising: at least one memory configured to store computer-executable instructions; and at least one processor configured to access the at least one memory and execute the computer-executable instructions to: identify a user device connected to a wide area network via a wireless connection provided on behalf of an entity proximate to the user device; determine that content associated with a first uniform resource locater (URL) requested by a browser application executing on the user device via the wireless connection is of interest to the entity; identify an item associated with the requested content responsive to a determination that the requested content is of interest to the entity; identify: i) entity information associated with an offering of the item by the entity and ii) competitor information associated with a competitive offering of the item by a competitor to the entity, wherein the entity information comprises a first price for the offering of the item by the entity and the competitor information comprises a second price for the competitive offering of the item by the competitor; determine that a difference between the first price and the second price exceeds a first threshold value or that a consumer value of a consumer associated with the user device does not exceed a second threshold value; determine that information associated with an offering of a complementary item that is complementary to the item of interest should be presented to the consumer in lieu of counter-competitive information that competes with the competitive offering; and redirect the browser application to a second URL different from the first URL, wherein the second URL is associated with a Web site that includes the information associated with the offering of the complementary item.
 
I remember that ... they used to complain about the devil shoppers who only came in for the discounted item too

Kenny
 
As mentioned above, Amazon and Amazon Fresh are making inroads into B&M store model with the purchase of Whole Foods. This has potential disrupt the grocery biz. Many speculations already abound. Also read this ... https://slo.craigslist.org/sof/6165296369.html I live in the area and this job really looks tempting, but I am happy with my Gig. Decisions...
 
My this world is getting sickening, nothing but ads and ways for corps to track you in purchasing, this seems to be the growth, 1st world problems huh.
 
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