US 12,147,938 B2
Inferring a location of an item within a warehouse from a taxonomy of items offered by the warehouse and locations of other items within the warehouse
Benjamin Knight, Oakland, CA (US); Darren Johnson, Elko, NV (US); Daniel Haugh, San Francisco, CA (US); Saumitra Maheshwari, Sunnyvale, CA (US); Qi Xi, New York, NY (US); and Conor Woods, Berkeley, CA (US)
Assigned to Maplebear Inc., San Francisco, CA (US)
Filed by Maplebear Inc., San Francisco, CA (US)
Filed on Nov. 23, 2021, as Appl. No. 17/534,281.
Prior Publication US 2023/0162141 A1, May 25, 2023
Int. Cl. G06Q 10/087 (2023.01); G06Q 30/0601 (2023.01); G06Q 30/06 (2023.01)
CPC G06Q 10/087 (2013.01) [G06Q 30/0629 (2013.01); G06Q 30/0641 (2013.01)] 18 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method comprising:
receiving, at an online concierge system, an item catalog from an inventory system associated with a warehouse, the item catalog identifying locations within the warehouse for a set of items offered by the warehouse;
obtaining a taxonomy at the online concierge system, the taxonomy including multiple levels, with different levels providing different levels of specificity about items offered by the warehouse included in the levels;
receiving, at the online concierge system, an order from a customer client device associated with a user for fulfillment at the warehouse, the order including a particular item;
responsive to determining that the item catalog associated with the warehouse does not have a location of the particular item within the warehouse, identifying the particular item in the taxonomy;
determining a generic item description at a higher level in the taxonomy than the particular item and connected to the particular item in the taxonomy;
responsive to determining that the higher level of the taxonomy includes at least a threshold number or a threshold percentage of alternative items for which the online concierge system has locations within the warehouse, identifying one or more alternative items from the taxonomy, each alternative item coupled to the determined generic item description;
selecting an identified alternative item for which the online concierge system has a location within the warehouse;
determining the location within the warehouse of the particular item as the location within the warehouse of the selected identified alternative item; and
transmitting the determined location of the particular item to a shopper client device associated with a shopper assigned to fulfill the order, causing the determined location of the particular item to be displayed on the shopper client device.