Importance

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Abstract

A system and method for designing and operating an electronic store (1) permit a merchant to organize and advertise descriptions of product inventory over the Internet, (2) permit Web page information to be extracted on-demand from a product inventory database, and (3) permit Web pages to be automatically customized to fit shopping behaviors of individual consumers. A graphical store design user interface of a Web browser displays a hierarchical representation of products and, product groups of an electronic store. A user manipulates icons of the Web browser store design user interface to cause a Web server to modify relationships between products and product groups stored in a product information database. A store designer creates HTML template files, embeds database and customize references within the template files, and assigns template files to groups or products of the electronic store. The Web server receives requests to access Web pages from consumers using standard Web browsers. The Web server opens a template file related to the requested Web page, creates hyperlinks and other information content by executing database references embedded within the template file, and merges the hyperlinks and content with the template file to generate an HTML Web page to send to the Web browser. The Web server automatically creates additional hyperlinks to any Web pages or products preferred by the consumer by executing customize instructions associated with customize references in a template file. To determine whether any products or Web pages are preferred by a consumer, the Web server examines a traffic analysis database and extracts the consumer's history of accesses to Web pages and orders of products. For each Web page the consumer has accessed, the Web server uses preferred page rules to determine whether the page was accessed with sufficient frequency to generate a hyperlink to the page. For each product the consumer ordered, the Web server uses preferred product rules to determine whether the product was ordered with sufficient frequency to generate a hyperlink to a page offering the product.

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First Claim