Alabama Patent of the Month – May 2021

Comment Selling is a relatively new sales method which converts comments on social media posts into sales. These programs typically use simple phrases to trigger immediate sales orders – for instance, commenting “sold M” on a post could instantly generate a sales order for a size medium of the pictured product. However, with the advent of influencers and social media, video streams are increasingly popular options to showcase products to potential customers. CommentSold, Inc., a leader in the comment selling industry, has developed a method to apply the ease of comment selling to live videos.

Their system integrates with a user’s normal live feed systems (ex. Facebook LIve) and helps to engage potential customers with the products. The system can overlay product information on the live stream to give potential buyers more details and information. It also processes responses from customers to interact with their comments or orders. 

To ensure their system would be effective, it interacts with databases that contain repeat customer information, inventory data, order data, and product data. A secondary database is used to process key phrases that can direct sales. For instance, a viewer could type “sold 432, M” to indicate they want to order item 432 in size medium. The system can then process this order if the customer has payment information saved, or can direct the user to the payment portal. In addition, the system tracks parameters of the live video as well as the sales to help offer insight into improving live videos in the future. For instance, a live video with poor lighting might not show the products well and reduce sales. The system could suggest increasing the lighting. Programs like this live video sales system help to remove the “extra step” barrier that many online retailers experience. Often if a purchase requires too many steps, sales drop drastically. Removing those extra steps can help improve sales and customer satisfaction.

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