WO2001041004A1

WO2001041004A1 - Method for informing records of electronic translations on the internet

Info

Publication number: WO2001041004A1
Application number: PCT/KR2000/001398
Authority: WO
Inventors: Kook Chae Jung; Won Don Lee; Chang Soon Lee
Original assignee: Kook Chae Jung; Won Don Lee; Chang Soon Lee
Priority date: 1999-12-02
Filing date: 2000-12-02
Publication date: 2001-06-07
Also published as: KR100372950B1; AU2025001A; KR20010053934A

Abstract

A method for informing records of electronic transactions on the Internet, wherein an order sheet and a transaction statement are sent to a merchant via his or her facsimile, thereby allowing the merchant to easily conduct electronic transactions on the Internet even though he or she has no knowledge of computers. At the first step (S11-S16), a customer gains access to a Web site for providing an electronic commerce service on the Internet, selects desired goods and requests the sale of the selected goods. At the second step (S17-S19), a financial transaction credit information network determines whether to approve the transaction of the selected goods according to personal information entered by the customer, the amount of money paid by the customer and terms of payment by the customer and performs an electronic settlement operation with assignment of an approval number upon approving the transaction of the selected goods.

Description

METHOD FOR INFORMING RECORDS OF ELECTRONIC TRANSACTIONS ON THE INTERNET

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Technical Field

The present invention relates in general to a method for informing records of electronic transactions on the Internet, and more particularly to a method for informing records of electronic transactions conducted on the Internet in real time by facsimile.

Background Art

People doing their shopping in Internet shopping ^' malls through personal computers and the like in their homes have recently increased in number with the development of Internet associated technologies.

In the general electronic commerce on the Internet, merchants of small and medium-sized enterprises are assigned parts of a large-scale shopping mall from a manager of the shopping mall and then move into the assigned parts. Thereafter, if customers order goods, the merchants access the Internet using their own computers, check records of transactions of the ordered goods and then deliver those goods to the customers. To this end, the merchants must have a considerable knowledge of computers .

In the case where merchants having no knowledge of computers intend to conduct electronic transactions on the Internet, they must make a heavy investment at the initial phase to acquire a knowledge of computers and purchase them.

A description will now be given of a general electronic commerce procedure with reference to a block diagram of Fig. 1 and a flowchart of Fig. 2.

First, a customer 1 gains access to the Internet through his or her own computer (SI) and searches for a desired Web site (S2) . Then, the customer 1 gains access to the desired Web site (S3) , selects desired goods in a shopping mall 2 on the Internet (S4), fills out an order sheet and requests the sale of the selected goods (S5) . Thereafter, a merchant managing the shopping mall 2 on the Internet checks the order sheet filled-out by the customer 1 via an ordering management program or mail.

Information of the order sheet filled-out by the customer 1 is encoded and supplied to a settlement system 3 and in turn transferred to a credit card company 4 while the security thereof is maintained. The credit card company 4 authenticates whether a credit card presented by the customer 1 is owned by the customer 1 himself or herself and whether it is valid, approves the use of the credit card as a result of the authentication and sends information about the card use approval to the customer 1 in real time (S6) . If the card company 4 approves the use of the credit card presented by the customer 1, then the shopping mall 2 draws up a transaction slip (S7) and notifies a goods provider 5 of approved ordering information to order the goods selected by the customer 1 from the goods provider 5. The shopping mall 2 also sends transaction records to the customer 1 by mail (S8) .

Thereafter, the goods provider 5 delivers the selected goods to the customer 1 according to the order sheet filled- out by the customer 1 (S9) . At this time, the card company 4 settles its account for a purchasing price of the delivered goods with a bank 6, which amount is then transferred to a bank account of the shopping mall 2 (S10) .

However, in the above-mentioned electronic commerce procedure, the merchant has to construct a merchant server for management of the shopping mall and thus have an Internet accessible computer, resulting in a considerable investment cost being required at the initial phase. The benefits realized by the server construction are also minimal as compared with the required cost.

Further, the merchant must keep his or her own computer connected to the Internet and check mails at regular intervals to determine whether order sheets have been received. As a result, the merchant cannot rapidly check the reception of order sheets, which leads to a delay in delivery time and other inconveniences of use.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Therefore, the present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a method for informing records of electronic transactions on the Internet, wherein an order sheet and a transaction statement are sent to a merchant via his or her facsimile, thereby allowing the merchant to easily conduct electronic transactions on the Internet even though he or she has no knowledge of computers and to curtail expenditures such as a computer purchasing cost.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a method for informing records of electronic transactions on the Internet, wherein ordering information is sent to a goods provider by facsimile, stored in a database (DB) of the goods provider and analyzed for calculation of a delivery time, and the calculated delivery time is notified to a customer via a general communication medium (an E-mail, cellular phone or pager) , resulting in an increase in convenience of use.

In accordance with the present invention, the above and other objects can be accomplished by the provision of a method for informing records of electronic transactions on the Internet, comprising the steps of a) gaining access to a Web site for providing an electronic commerce service on the Internet, selecting desired goods and requesting the sale of the selected goods by a customer; b) determining whether to approve the transaction of the selected goods according to personal information entered by the customer, the amount of money paid by the customer and terms of payment by the customer and performing an electronic settlement operation with assignment of an approval number upon approving the transaction of the selected goods by a financial transaction credit information network; and c) confirming the assigned approval number and approved transaction contents and drawing up delivery information including geographic information by the customer, and converting ordering information and the delivery information and payment information into facsimile data and sending the converted facsimile data to a facsimile of a goods provider associated with the selected goods by a computer telephony integration system.

Preferably, the above step c) may include the steps of c- 1) sending the approved transaction contents and the drawn-up delivery information to the computer telephony integration system by the customer; c-2) searching for the goods provider associated with the goods selected by the customer and calling a security card installed in the searched goods provider by the computer telephony integration system; c-3) checking a security state of the security card, accessing the facsimile of the goods provider and sending the ordering information, the delivery information, the payment information and a security code to the facsimile to print them, by the computer telephony integration system; and c-4) receiving a normal completion message from the facsimile if the printing of the facsimile is completed and storing the printed results in a database by the computer telephony integration system.

More preferably, the above step c-4) may include the steps of c-4-1) calculating a delivery time by analyzing the ordering information stored in the database; and c-4-2) notifying the calculated delivery time to the customer via a general communication medium and the ordering facts to the goods provider via a general communication medium, respectively. Preferably, the delivery information may include the geographic information or character information, the geographic information being set automatically or manually in connection with a geographic information system.

More preferably, the above step c-3) may include the step of, after checking the security state of the security card, appending graphic data contained in the security card to the information sent to the facsimile and printing it together with the sent information via the facsimile or displaying an approval code appended to the sent information on a display unit of the security card. In a feature of the present invention, a customer ordering goods on the Web can confirm via a general communication medium the ordering facts, which are also sent to a merchant in real time. Therefore, the electronic commerce is applicable to even a food field that has been unable to be accessed up to now.

Further, merchants can conduct electronic transactions without constructing servers.

Brief Description of the Drawings

The above and other objects, features and other advantages of the present invention will be more clearly understood from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:

Fig. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a general electronic commerce procedure;

Fig. 2 is a flowchart illustrating the general electronic commerce procedure; Fig. 3 is a block diagram showing the construction of an Internet electronic commerce system to which the present invention is applied; and

Fig. 4 is a flowchart illustrating a method for informing records of electronic transactions on the Internet in accordance with the present invention. DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

Fig. 3 is a block diagram showing the construction of an

Internet electronic commerce system to which the present invention is applied and Fig. 4 is a flowchart illustrating a method for informing records of electronic transactions on the

Internet in accordance with the present invention.

In Fig. 3, the reference numeral 10 denotes an Internet accessible computer held by a customer, 20 denotes a shopping mall management center for performing all operations necessary to the provision of an electronic commerce service on the Internet, 30 denotes a credit card company for performing an electronic settlement operation, and 40 denotes a goods provider. The shopping mall management center 20 includes a Web server 21 and a computer telephony integration (CTI) server 22, and the goods provider 40 includes a security card 41 and a facsimile 42.

In the present invention, a dedicated line network and a very high speed network can be arranged separately according to the grades of security in order to increase an information access speed and reduce expenditures required for the system operation. Preferably, the customer's computer 10 and the shopping mall management center 20, and the shopping mall management center 20 and the credit card company 30 are interconnected via an Internet communication network, and the shopping mall management center 20 and the goods provider 40 are interconnected via a public telephone network.

A description will hereinafter be given of a method for informing records of electronic transactions on the Internet in accordance with the present invention, which is executed by the Internet electronic commerce system with the above- mentioned construction, with reference to Fig. 4.

First, the customer gains access to the Internet communication network using the computer 10 (Sll) and searches for a Web site having information about desired goods (S12) . Then, the customer gains access to the searched Web site (S13) , enjoys home shopping in a shopping mall on the Internet (S14), selects desired goods (S15) , fills out an order sheet and requests the sale of the selected goods (Slβ) . At this time, the customer can register as a member of the Web site by entering his or her personal information (S17) . Alternatively, the customer may access a financial transaction credit information network by entering only information of his or her credit card (S18) . Upon accessing the financial transaction credit information network, the customer requests a credit card company associated with his or her credit card to approve the transaction of the selected goods by entering the amount of money to be paid and terms of payment. In response to the approval request from the customer, the credit card company determines whether to approve the transaction of the selected goods through an electronic payment service of Financial Telecommunications & Clearings Institute. Then, upon approving the transaction of the selected goods, the credit card company assigns an approval number to the customer (SI9) .

Thereafter, the customer confirms the assigned approval number and the approved transaction contents (S20) , draws up delivery information (S21) and sends the approved transaction contents and the drawn-up delivery information to a CTI system. Then, the CTI system converts the sent information into facsimile data (S22) .

The CTI system searches for a goods provider associated with the goods selected by the customer and calls a security card installed in the searched goods provider (S23) . Then, the CTI system sends customer information (an identification (ID) , a password, received information and a sending/reception code number) to the called security card (S24), confirms a security state of the sent customer information through the security card and sends an operation enable command to the security card (S25) . Thereafter, the CTI system accesses a facsimile installed in the goods provider (S26) and sends ordering information, delivery information and payment information to the facsimile to print them (S27 and S28) .

Thereafter, the CTI system prints a security logo or sign via the facsimile (S29) , sends a print completion command to the facsimile (S30), receives a normal completion message from the facsimile (S31) and sends a completion confirm message to the facsimile (S32) . Subsequently, the CTI system checks whether a transaction slip has been normally sent to the goods provider. If the transaction slip has been normally sent to the goods provider, the CTI system registers the ordering information, delivery information and payment information sent to the goods provider and stores the sent information in a database (DB) of the goods provider (S33) . Then, the CTI system calculates a delivery time by analyzing the ordering information stored in the DB of the goods provider (S34), and notifies the calculated delivery time to the customer via a general communication medium (an E-mail, cellular phone or pager) (S35) . Thereafter, the goods provider delivers the goods to the customer (S36) and settles its account for a selling price of the delivered goods with the credit card company (S37). Also, the customer pays a purchasing price of the delivered goods to a bank.

Industrial Applicability

As apparent from the above description, according to the present invention, a computer telephony integration (CTI) system is employed to enable even merchants having no knowledge of computers to easily conduct electronic transactions on the Internet.

Although the preferred embodiments of the present invention have been disclosed for illustrative purposes, those skilled in the art will appreciate that various modifications, additions and substitutions are possible, without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention as disclosed in the accompanying claims.

Claims

WHAT IS CLAIMED IS:

1. A method for informing records of electronic transactions on the Internet, comprising the steps of: a) gaining access to a Web site for providing an electronic commerce service on the Internet, selecting desired goods and requesting the sale of the selected goods by a customer; b) determining whether to approve the transaction of the selected goods according to personal information entered by the customer, the amount of money paid by the customer and terms of payment by the customer and performing an electronic settlement operation with assignment of an approval number upon approving the transaction of the selected goods by a financial transaction credit information network; and c) confirming the assigned approval number and approved transaction contents and drawing up delivery information including geographic information by said customer, and converting ordering information and the delivery information and payment information into facsimile data and sending the converted facsimile data to a facsimile of a goods provider associated with the selected goods by a computer telephony integration system.

2. The method as set forth in Claim 1, wherein said step c) includes the steps of: c-1) sending the approved transaction contents and the drawn-up delivery information to said computer telephony integration system by said customer; c-2) searching for the goods provider associated with the goods selected by said customer and calling a security card installed in the searched goods provider by said computer telephony integration system; c-3) checking a security state of said security card, accessing said facsimile of said goods provider and sending said ordering information, said delivery information, said payment information and a security code to said facsimile to print them, by said computer telephony integration system; and c-4) receiving a normal completion message from said facsimile if the printing of said facsimile is completed and storing the printed results in a database by said computer telephony integration system.

3. The method as set forth in Claim 1, wherein said delivery information includes said geographic information or character information, said geographic information being set automatically or manually in connection with a geographic information system.

4. The method as set forth in Claim 2, wherein said step c-4) includes the steps of: c-4-1) calculating a delivery time by analyzing said ordering information stored in said database; and c-4-2) notifying the calculated delivery time to said customer via a general communication medium and the ordering facts to said goods provider via a general communication medium, respectively.

5. The method as set forth in Claim 2, wherein said step c-3) includes the step of, after checking the security state of said security card, appending graphic data contained in said security card to said information sent to said facsimile and printing it together with the sent information via said facsimile or displaying an approval code appended to the sent information on a display unit of said security card.