| CPC G06Q 30/0641 (2013.01) [G06Q 10/087 (2013.01)] | 19 Claims |
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1. An e-commerce backbone system for facilitating a unified marketplace for unique items, the e-commerce backbone system comprising one or more hardware computer processors configured to execute software code for:
a unified marketplace system interface configured to electronically communicate with one or more unified marketplace systems using a standardized data model;
a unique items inventory database configured to store, in a format compatible with the standardized data model, data associated with a plurality of unique items listed for sale by a plurality of unique item dealers,
wherein each of the plurality of unique items listed for sale comprises a unique combination of attributes, the attributes comprising one or more of feature attributes, condition attributes, or location attributes;
a dealer mappings database configured to store mappings that define translations between the standardized data model and one or more dealer marketplace-specific data formats for each of a plurality of unique item dealer marketplace systems,
wherein the plurality of unique item dealer marketplace systems comprises a plurality of direct unique item dealer marketplace systems and a plurality of indirect unique item dealer marketplace systems;
a dealer marketplace system interface configured to communicate over a computer network with each of the plurality of unique item dealer marketplace systems in order to at least:
receive a plurality of electronic feeds each comprising unique item inventory data related to at least a portion of the plurality of unique items listed for sale by the plurality of unique item dealers,
wherein at least some of the plurality of electronic feeds comprise unique item inventory data encoded differently than at least some other of the plurality of electronic feeds; and
transmit and receive data to and from each unique item dealer marketplace system in a format compatible with each unique item dealer marketplace system's one or more dealer marketplace-specific data formats to facilitate acquisition transactions between the one or more unified marketplace systems and the plurality of unique item dealers;
a normalization engine configured to:
translate the unique item inventory data of the received plurality of electronic feeds into data compliant with the standardized data model, wherein each translation uses a mapping stored in the dealer mappings database and associated with a dealer marketplace-specific data format;
store the translated unique item inventory data in the unique item inventory database; and
translate data received from and to be sent to the plurality of dealer marketplace systems, between data compliant with the standardized data model and data compliant with a dealer marketplace-specific data format for each unique item dealer marketplace system in facilitating the acquisition transactions, wherein each translation uses a mapping stored in the dealer mappings database and associated with a dealer marketplace-specific data format,
wherein the e-commerce backbone system is further configured to automatically de-duplicate the translated unique item inventory,
wherein the de-duplication comprises at least:
detecting, based on data received in the plurality of electronic feeds, that a first direct unique item dealer associated with a first direct unique item dealer marketplace system has transferred a first unique item to a second direct unique item dealer associated with a second direct unique item dealer marketplace system; and
updating the stored translated unique item inventory data such that data transmitted to the one or more unified marketplace systems will enable facilitation of an acquisition transaction for the first unique item through the second direct unique item dealer marketplace system and not through the first direct unique item dealer marketplace system;
wherein the de-duplication further comprises at least:
detecting, based on data received in the plurality of electronic feeds, that a first indirect unique item dealer associated with a first indirect unique item dealer marketplace system has sold a second unique item that is offered for sale through multiple indirect unique item dealer marketplace systems; and
updating the stored translated unique item inventory data such that data transmitted to the one or more unified marketplace systems will not enable facilitation of an acquisition transaction for the second unique item through any of the multiple indirect unique item dealer marketplace systems; and
a transaction processing engine configured to:
transmit unique item inventory data in a format compatible with the standardized data model to the one or more unified marketplace systems through the unified marketplace system interface, to enable the one or more unified marketplace systems to facilitate searching for and selection of an acquisition candidate unique item by a user;
receive, from the one or more unified marketplace systems through the unified marketplace system interface, acquisition request data in a format compatible with the standardized data model, the acquisition request data indicative of a request by the user to acquire the acquisition candidate unique item,
wherein the acquisition candidate unique item is associated with one of the plurality of unique item dealer marketplace systems;
translate, using the normalization engine, at least a portion of the acquisition request data from the format compatible with the standardized data model to a format compatible with the one of the plurality of dealer marketplace systems; and
transmit, to the one of the plurality of dealer marketplace systems through the dealer marketplace system interface, the translated at least a portion of the acquisition request data to facilitate processing of an acquisition transaction of the acquisition candidate unique item by the user.
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