A central computer system directs a motorized transport unit through a retail shopping facility to a particular mobile item container having at least one item disposed therein, that item being designated for return to a particular department within the retail shopping facility such that this item can then again be presented for sale. After causing that motorized transport unit to physically attach to this mobile item container, the central computer system then directs that motorized transport unit through the retail shopping facility with the attached particular mobile item container to the one or more departments to which the item or items are to be so returned.

A method and system for providing lead recommendations are disclosed. A server system stores profile information for a plurality of members of a server system. The server system then analyzes the stored profile information to identify one or more potential sales lead recommendations for a first member of the server system. The server system then ranks the one or more identified potential sales lead recommendations. The server system selects one or more of the identified sales lead recommendations and transmits the selected one or more identified sales lead recommendations to a client device associated with the first member of the server system.

Disclosed herein are methods for providing a buy option to social networking communications. The method includes communicating with a social networking site that posts text, images and/or videos from posting entities to receiving entities. The posting can have data that points to a product database. The data is processed to determine whether there is a sale-related intent with the posting. The data is used to access a database of products for sale from a merchant. When the sale-related intent applies, the system transmits the posting through the social networking site with a buy button associated with the transmission such that a recipient can easily purchase a product.

A system selects a hearing device from several different available hearing devices in response to screening a consumer by providing a plurality of questions regarding the consumer's hearing that each require a subjective response. The questions can include questions relating to hearing difficulty during one-on-one conversations, hearing difficulty during conversations with women and/or children, hearing difficulty during conversations in restaurants and/or meetings, and presence of stress and/or agitating sounds. The recommended hearing device is automatically selected for the consumer based at least in part on the subjective responses. The recommended hearing device provides enhancement of high frequencies if the responses indicate difficulty hearing women and/or children, provides reduction of low frequencies if the responses indicate difficulty hearing in restaurants and/or meetings, and provides phase cancellation if the responses indicate presence of stress and/or agitating sounds. The recommended hearing device is identified to the user for possible purchase.

A shopping facility assistance system includes a plurality of motorized transport units, a plurality of user interface units, and a central computer system having a network interface such that the central computer system wirelessly communicates with one or both of the motorized transport units and the user interface units. The central computer system is configured to control movement of the motorized transport units through a shopping facility space based at least on inputs from the user interface units. More particularly, the central computer system controls movement of the motorized transport units such that a given one of the plurality of motorized transport units selectively leads a user to a destination within the shopping facility or follows the user within the shopping facility as determined by the central computer system. By one approach, the motorized transport units move through the shopping facility via a plurality of preferred pre-determined path segments.

A method and system for creating and editing video and/or audio tracks is described. The method includes providing at least one artist, venue, and track available for selection and providing at least one clip associated with the at least one artist, venue, and track. The method also includes allowing a user to create a custom track from the at least one clip. The system includes a plurality of video cameras for recording a live performance at a plurality of positions. The system also includes at least one server for storing a plurality of video clips created from the plurality of video cameras and an application stored on the at least one server for allowing a user to access the plurality of video clips via the Internet.

A method of accepting a bid for an item offered for sale through an internet web portal comprising the following steps: listing with an internet web portal bid program by an item being sold by a merchant; accessing the internet web portal bid program by a user to obtain of bid information of the item; placing with the internet web portal bid program by the registered user of a bid for the item, the bid containing a price that the registered user will pay for the item; presenting by the internet web portal bid program to the registered merchant of one or more economic factors to assist the registered merchant in selecting at least one bid from the one or more bids as a winning bid, one or more economic factors being based on item information and being other than the bid price.

A method whereby a customer may purchase footwear through a remote communication channel, and be assured that the purchased footwear will properly fit upon delivery. The customer purchases footwear by designating the last that is used to construct the footwear. A customer may identify a particular last based upon careful measurement of the customer's feet. A customer may also identify a last based upon previous experience with footwear constructed using the last.

A system of using a conversational agent to collect information and trigger actions, in one example embodiment, comprises a user interface to selectively receive user credentials to obtain access to a computer-implemented marketplace, an information exchange module to establish an information exchange between the user and a conversational agent based on the user profile, where the conversational agent is a computer program designed to simulate an intelligent conversation. The system may further include a communication module to communicate with the user to receive information related to a marketplace offering; and a listing module to list the marketplace offering at the computer-implemented marketplace based on the information received.

Systems, apparatuses, and methods for determining item availability are provided. A computer implemented method for determining item availability in a shopping space comprising: receiving a request for an item for purchase from a customer, querying an inventory database to determine whether the item for purchase is in stock, in an event that the item for purchase is not in stock according to the inventory database: determining an out of stock response to present to the customer, in an event that the item for purchase is in stock according the inventory database: instructing a motorized transport unit to travel to a display space in the shopping space corresponding to the item for the purchase, determining whether the item is available in the display space based on information captured by one or more sensors of the motorized transport unit, and in an event that the item for purchase is not available in the display space: determining an item unavailable response to present to the customer.