US Patent:
20060089897, Apr 27, 2006
Inventors:
Eric Maas - Salt Lake City UT, US
Jalali Hartman - Neptune Beach FL, US
International Classification:
G06Q 40/00
Abstract:
An online trade-in system comprises: a pricing guide module, an affiliates module, a marketplace listing module, a trade-in website module, a transaction processing module, an inventory handling module, a database and a marketplace manager. The marketplace manager creates an online trade-in system that accesses the other modules to complete a trade-in transaction. The pricing guide module is used to define the items that are acceptable by the merchant for trade-in as well as a price for each item. The marketplace manager uses information from the pricing guide module and provides it to the transaction processing module along with user input to begin and create a trade-in transaction. The marketplace manager uses also controls the inventory handling module to generate a reverse logistic label that can be used by the user to send the trade-in goods back to the merchant, and track the trade-in goods as well as initiate the process to list the item on an online marketplace. The present invention also includes a number of novel methods including: a method for performing an online trade-in, a method for creating a pricing guide, a method for handling inventory, a method for item record creation, a method for dynamic pricing of trade-in goods, and a method for performing trade-ins for affiliates.