Symbol Technologies, LLC

Anandakumar Varatharajah

Eric A Bunn

Apparatus and methods for an electronic shopping service. The service enables a consumer to select line items from electronic receipts and group them as a review list. The consumer may create groups of people to have access to the review list and may assign access permissions to each of the review groups. A member of a review group may review the items in a review list and comment on the items. The comments may be directed to the consumer or to other members of the review group. The review may be off-line or on-line, as in a chat session or telephone or audiovisual conference. The consumer or a review-group member may order on-line any of the items listed in a review list. The consumer or a review-group member may add products from e-commerce sites to the review list (if so authorized). The shopping service handles the ordering. Where the items to be purchased are from multiple e-commercial sites, the shopping service places multiple orders as necessary, with shipping and payment as directed by the consumer. The shopping service may enable the consumer or a review-group member to match items from a review list for comparison. The comparison may be visual, cost-wise, etc. The service may enable a consumer to upload data to use in the item comparison. Such data may include images of the consumer or of his belongings, for example.

Electronic shopping service

Apparatus that assist a shopper during his visit to a merchant store. In one embodiment in the form of a shopping cart, the invention enables a shopper to check himself out of the merchant store. The shopping cart includes a bar-code scanner. The shopping cart rejects non-scanned goods and accepts or rejects scanned goods as directed by the shopper. In another embodiment, the shopping cart includes a web-enabled computer with display. The computer displays product-specific information. The shopping cart computer may detach from the cart&#x2014;with or without its accessories. The shopper can use the same computer at home to browse the web, to prepare for the shopping trip, to do other transactions. The shopper puts goods in a input bin of the shopping cart. One or more scanners attached to the input bin scan the product for identity. The computer retrieves product-specific information and displays this information on its display. On the successful scanning of a product and a display of the product's information, the shopper can accept or reject the product. The product moves into one container in the cart if accepted and moves to a different container in the cart if rejected. On completing shopping, the shopper selects his preferred payment method on the device and pays using the selected method. At the packaging counter, a merchant agent sees a indication that the shopper has paid and, in response, unlocks the cart to remove and pack the goods. Accordingly, the merchant minimally assists in the checkout.

Growing community of inventors

Wattala, Sri Lanka

Anandakumar Varatharajah