Identifying matching items in an electronic catalog

摘要

Systems and methods are provided for analyzing received item information for a number of items in order to determine whether each item is already included in an electronic catalog. The item information for each item may be analyzed in order to determine whether the received item information is a close match with any known item previously included in the electronic catalog. When close matches are found for one or more items, one or more modifications may be applied to at least a portion of the received item information in order to match stored item information for the corresponding close match. One or more rules associated with the determined modifications may then be generated and applied to receive item information for other items that fit certain determined criteria.

主权项

1. A system comprising:
an electronic data store configured to store item information associated with each of a plurality of catalog items; and a computing device in communication with the electronic data store, the computing device configured to:
receive, as delimited text data, item information for each of a plurality of items to be offered for sale by a seller, wherein the item information comprises a plurality of item attribute values for each of the plurality of items to be offered for sale by the seller;parse the delimited text data to determine individual item attribute values for each of the plurality of items to be offered for sale by the seller;for each of the plurality of items to be offered for sale by the seller, determine a close matching item for the item from among the plurality of catalog items, wherein the close matching item is determined based at least in part by identifying that item information stored in the electronic data store for the close matching item is similar to the received item information for the item, wherein at least one item attribute value for the close matching item is different than an item attribute value for a corresponding attribute in the received item information for the item;for each of two or more pairings of an item offered for sale by the seller and a determined close matching item, determine a difference between item information of the item offered for sale by the seller and item information of the determined close matching item;compare the determined differences to identify a common difference between (a) item information of a first item offered for sale by the seller and a first close matching item and (b) item information of a second item offered for sale by the seller and a second close matching item;based at least in part on the identified common difference, generate a rule that when applied to item information of the first item offered for sale by the seller results in modified item information of the first item that matches item information of the first close matching item;apply the rule to item information of a third item to be offered for sale by the seller such that the item information of the third item, as modified by applying the rule, matches item information of a first catalog item identified in the electronic data store;update the item information of the first catalog item identified in the electronic data store to identify that the first catalog item is available from the seller;determine that a fourth item to be offered for sale by the seller is not identified in the electronic data store; andstore a new catalog item entry in the electronic data store that includes item information of the fourth item.