Systems, methods, devices, and non-transitory processor readable media of the various embodiments enable in store voice picking systems. In various embodiments, an end-to-end voice ordering and fulfillment system for a retail store may enable a customer to place an order over the phone, a personal shopper to be directed to fill the order via voice commands, and the order to be made available for pickup at the retail store by the customer or delivered to the customer from the retail store.

A method and system for establishing an electronic communication channel between at least one agent of a first entity and a second entity is provided. The method includes linking the second entity to the at least one agent of the first entity when a trigger is sent by the second entity. Providing one or more software programs over the electronic communication channel to the second entity; initiating an exchange by the at least one agent of the first entity to the second entity. And sending one or more messages over the communication channel between the at least one agent from the first entity and the second entity. The system includes a database containing a link between the agent of the first entity and the second entity. The system also includes a server configured to establish an electronic communication channel between the agent of the first entity and the second entity when a trigger is sent by the second entity. The server is further configured to provide at least one software program for sharing between the agent of the first entity and the second entity over the electronic communication channel.

A user device receives, from a server associated with a merchant, a menu of items offered for sale by the merchant. The menu permits a user, of the user device, to place an order associated with the merchant. The user device receives, from the server, information, associated with the order, that includes at least one item and a price associated with the item. The user device receives a user instruction to pay for the order and retrieves, from a memory associated with the user device, payment information to pay the price associated with the at least one item. The user device sends, to the server, the payment information to permit the server to process the payment information. The sending is performed in a manner that does not permit an attendant associated with the merchant to access the payment information. The user device receives an indication the payment information was processed.

A virtual payment system for paying for goods, services and content ordered over an internetwork is disclosed. The virtual payment system includes a commerce gateway. Buyers and sellers becomes registered participants by applying for virtual payment buyer and seller accounts. Once an account is established with the commerce gateway, a digital certificate is stored on the registered participant's computer. A buyer can then order a product, i.e., goods, services or content from a seller and charge it to the virtual payment account. When the product is shipped, the seller notifies the commerce gateway, which applies the charges to the buyer's virtual payment account. The buyer can settle the charges using a prepaid account, a credit account, or by using reward points earned through use of the virtual payment account. A buyer may create sub-accounts.

An incentive method, network transaction platform and incentive fund platform for safe network transactions. The method comprises: when an incentive period is reached, a network transaction platform calculating a ratio of the sum of the service fees of all network transactions for each seller in the current incentive period to the sum of service fees of all network transactions for all sellers in the current incentive period, as an incentive fund distribution ratio for each seller in the current incentive period; the network transaction platform notifying an incentive fund platform of the incentive fund distribution ratio for each seller in the current incentive period; and the incentive fund platform transferring corresponding incentive fund into the seller's account according to the incentive fund distribution ratio for each seller, according to the total incentive fund in the current incentive period. By means of the present invention, stores can be urged, through an incentive mechanism, not to sell fake merchandise or to deceive consumers on the network transaction platform, avoiding transactional disputes between consumers and stores as far as possible.

A secure network transaction method, network transaction platform, and service fee platform. The method comprises: when a buyer and a seller conduct a network transaction via a network transaction platform, the network transaction platform deducting a part of fee from a transaction fund of the network transaction as a service fee of the network transaction, transferring the remaining transaction fund after the service fee has been deducted to a seller account, and transferring the service fee of the network transaction to a service fee platform, service fees of all network transactions conducted on the network transaction platform constituting a compensation capital pool on the service platform; and, when the buyer initiates a claim for compensation with regard to the network transaction, the service fee platform extracting a compensation capital of the network transaction from the compensation capital pool and transferring same to a buyer account. The difficulty of rights protection of a consumer with regard to a shop can be reduced when a transaction dispute occurs between the consumer and the shop, which better ensures the rights and interests of the consumer.

Provided is a courier management system. The system includes a customer computing device for accessing and receiving data produced by the system and a server located at a service provider, the server coupled to the customer computing device. The server may be programmed to store customer preferences, generate and transmit a scalable shopping preference interface to allow a customer to select a level of courier involvement, automatically generate order instructions in response to accessing and processing the customer preferences and the level of courier involvement after receiving a shopping list. Automatically generating order instructions may include selecting a substitute or alternative product to complete the shopping list in response to automatically determining a requested product is out of stock.

Provided is a customer interface system. The system includes a customer computing device and a server. The server may be programmed to receive from the customer computing device customer preferences and automatically store the customer preferences and to automatically generate and transmit to the customer computing device for display a scalable shopping preference interface associated with the customer preferences, wherein the scalable shopping preference interface comprises a sliding scale indicating a level of courier involvement. The system is programmed to receive from the customer computing device a signal from the scalable shopping preference interface a signal indicating selection of the level of courier involvement and store selection of courier involvement with the customer preferences and receive from the customer computing device a shopping list and automatically store the shopping list, wherein the shopping list is created in response to right clicking on a product from a web page.

A housing contains a plurality of motorized transport units in a stacked relationship to one another, with a bottom-most one of the plurality of motorized transport units serving as a locomotion mechanism that selectively causes movement of the housing with the plurality of motorized transport units contained therein. By one approach the aforementioned housing has a cylindrical form factor and includes a cylindrically-shaped chamber configured to receive the motorized transport units. By one approach, for example, this housing includes no lifting mechanism to lift any of the motorized transport units into itself and further has no integral locomotion mechanism by which the housing can move itself. The interior of the housing can include at least one track formed therein to receive a corresponding part of each of the plurality of motorized transport units which the motorized transport units can engage to thereby lift themselves into the interior of the housing.

A method and apparatus for a commerce platform coordinating a purchase of a product sold by a merchant system through a third party application are described. The method may include receiving a notification at the commerce platform from the third party application that a user device executing the third party application has requested to purchase a product from within the third party application, wherein the notification comprises an identifier for the product and an identifier for the merchant system that sells the product using the commerce platform. The method may also include generating a product checkout interface by the commerce platform based on the identifier for the product and the identifier for the merchant system, and transmitting the product checkout interface to the third party application to change a user interface of the third party application to include the product checkout interface within the third party application.