Social Marketplace Process and Architecture

Abstract

A method and system are disclosed for managing social commerce within a social media environment. A merchant implements a social commerce storefront on behalf of an affiliate, who selects a subset of available products contained in a master catalog. The selected products are then displayed as purchasable products within the affiliate's social commerce storefront. Users of various social media environments are then referred by the affiliate to the social commerce storefront, where they purchase the merchant's products. In turn, the affiliate receives a portion of each sale as compensation for referring the user.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0001]1. Field of the Invention[0002]Embodiments of the invention relate generally to information handling systems. More specifically, embodiments of the invention provide a method and system for managing social commerce.[0003]2. Description of the Related Art[0004]As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and / or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or c...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

However, affiliates still face integration challenges when attempting to provide their users a customized subset of the merchant's website.

Currently, social marketing is typically limited to providing a link from a social media environment to the home page of a merchant's website, where a referred user can then search for a recommended product.

However, no known ability is currently available for a social marketer to refer a user to a customized subset of a merchant's products.

Furthermore, social marketers generally lack real-time integration with the merchant's site.

Moreover, there is a lack of simplified integration between merchant websites, affiliate networks, and social media environments, which pose challenges in realizing the promise of social marketing.

Images