An apparatus is disclosed herein comprising: a) a storage and distribution means; b) an inventory upload means; c) a product information download means; d) an order upload means; and e) a delivery download means. A method is disclosed herein comprising the steps of: (a) digitally transferring the goods and product information pertaining thereto from a provider of the goods to a storage and distribution means; (b) storing the goods, product information pertaining thereto, order information, and possibly sales information and marketing information on the storage and distribution means; (c) digitally transferring the product information to a shopper; (d) digitally transferring order information from a buyer of the goods to the storage and distribution means; and (e) digitally transferring the goods to the buyer. The storage and distribution means may be used to store digitally transferable goods, product information pertaining thereto, marketing information, and sales information. The storage and distribution means may be provided with one or more network connections, thereby allowing access by providers, shoppers, and buyers. A provider may establish a provider account, thereby allowing the provider access to the storage and distribution means to: a) upload and/or modify goods and/or product information; and/or b) access to marketing and/or sales information pertaining to goods of the provider. Goods and product information from a plurality of providers may be stored, preferably in a searchable form. The product information from a plurality of providers may be searched simultaneously by a shopper, and goods from a plurality of providers may be ordered by and immediately delivered to a buyer in a single order.
An online distribution system by which the time required for a downloading procedure in a shop can be performed in a short time by a download terminal connected to a search server through a data distribution server which is connectable to a personal terminal. The search server stores a plurality of titles of distribution information, searches the titles for a title designated for subscription from the personal terminal, and stores the searched out title and identification information transmitted from the personal terminal. The download terminal acquires identification information inputted from the outside, reads out, based on the acquired identification information, the title which corresponds to the identification information from the search server, reads out the distribution information corresponding to the read out title from the data distribution server, and records the read out distribution information onto a recording medium.
A control method and a system using a Bluetooth function for wireless data transmission and reception, and a server and a terminal used for the same. A database stores data to be transmitted from the server to the terminal. The data stored in the database are classified into many items. The server transmits an item selecting program to the terminal, allowing a user to select one or more items for data the user wishes to receive from the server. The terminal transmits to the server a data about an item selected and input by the user through the item selecting program. The server transmits to the terminal data corresponding to the user's selected item. Accordingly, the user can select an item, and thus obtain data corresponding to the selected item, i.e., the user can obtain the data that the user wants.
A transaction for purchasable content is facilitated over an electronic network, wherein the purchasable content includes downloadable digital data. A first presence is maintained on the electronic network to which a consumer may connect. A first page is transmitted from the first presence to the consumer over the electronic network, such that the first page includes information concerning the purchasable content. A command is received from the consumer over the electronic network indicating that the consumer wishes the transaction for the purchasable content. The consumer is automatically linked to a second presence on the electronic network in response to the command such that the consumer may interact with the second presence over the electronic network to complete the transaction for the purchasable content.
An "inventory free" approach for managing rental items across a plurality of distribution locations includes sending at least some rental items that are not needed by two or more distribution locations to a designated distribution location. Rental items sent to the designated distribution location may be permanently stored at the designated distribution location, returned to the distribution location from which they were sent, or sent to other distribution locations, depending upon where the rental items are needed. In situations where particular rental items are not currently needed by customers at a distribution location, but there is a high likelihood that the particular rental items will be needed by the customers within a specified time, the particular rental items may be maintained at the distribution location as "float" and not sent to the designated distribution location. The float is re-processed as returned rental items prior to being again rented to customers. The determination of whether customers need, or do not need, a particular rental item may be made based upon a wide variety of criteria such as time criteria, actual and predicted customer demand for rental items, actual and predicted returns of rental items, Net Ships and predicted loss and breakage of rental items.
