Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or... – Discount or incentive
Reexamination Certificate
1999-05-12
2001-02-06
Cosimano, Edward R. (Department: 2761)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Discount or incentive
C705S026640, C705S027200, C705S014270, C709S238000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06185541
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates generally to systems for providing incentives to customers to shop in retail stores and, more particularly, to systems for delivering customer incentives and other shopping aids via a computer network. Various approaches have been widely used to deliver purchasing incentives, usually in the form of printed discount coupons, to customers of retail stores. Coupons have been distributed to customers by mail, either in a random manner or in a more demographically focused manner. Coupons have also been delivered to customers in retail stores, either from kiosks or at the check-out stand in response to the customer's purchase of some preselected item or items. The latter technique is well documented in prior patents assigned to the same assignee as the present application; e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 4,723,212, “Method and Apparatus for Dispensing Discount Coupons.”
In recent years, an increasing number of retail store customers also own personal computers and, of these, many have access to computer network services that provide connections to the Internet and the World Wide Web. Although some computer sites connected to the World Wide Web have begun to offer “online” shopping services, and some services have proposed to deliver discount coupons through a computer network, the full potential of online delivery of incentives has not been realized prior to the present invention.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention resides in a system and method for the distribution, via a computer network, of incentives and other related shopping aids useful to retail customers. Importantly, the incentives are distributed in such a way that they may be redeemed only at a specific retailer selected by each customer.
Briefly, and in general terms, the method of the invention comprises a sequence of steps performed at a central site in cooperation with a communication device at a customer site. The steps include logging in a remotely located customer using identity data and geographic region data transmitted by the customer over a communication network; transmitting back to the registered customer a plurality of incentive offers, the incentive offers being exercisable in the customer's geographic region; and then receiving incentive offer selection data from the customer over the communication network, the offer selection data including the designation of a retailer at which selected offer or offers may be exercised. In response to the customer selection data, the method performs the steps of generating a purchasing incentive containing (in encoded form) the identity of the retailer designated by the customer and the identity of the customer; and transmitting at least one incentive to the customer over the communication network, for subsequent printing by the customer. For security reasons, the transmitted incentive may be encoded with the identity of the retailer selected by the customer, and preferably also contains a customer identification code.
An important element of the invention is that it permits the customer to plan his or her shopping and shopping-related activities more efficiently. To this end, the method also includes the step of communicating with the customer concerning the use of shopping aids other than incentives or coupons. In one aspect of the invention, this communicating step includes transmitting a list of products available for purchase, receiving customer selections from the list of products, and then transmitting a shopping list to the customer. Thus the customer may browse through a list or index of available products, preferably organized by store department, and then make selections by marking appropriate entries on a computer screen, such as by positioning a mouse pointer on the desired items and clicking a mouse button.
Another aspect of the invention includes the steps of transmitting meal planning information, including a list of recipes, to the customer, receiving a customer selection of one or more recipe, transmitting back to the customer a shopping list that includes ingredient products needed in each selected recipe, and possibly transmitting to the customer at least one purchase incentive pertaining to an ingredient product used in a selected recipe. While shopping for products with purchasing incentive offers, or while preparing a shopping list, the customer may also use this feature to obtain the details of any recipe that is found to be of interest. The system of the invention transmits the recipe in two separate portions: (a) a complete copy of the recipe in traditional format, including a list of ingredients, and preparation and serving instructions, and (b) the list of ingredients in shopping list form, which the customer may take to the store. The latter portion of the recipe is added to the customer's shopping list automatically and the system transmits a purchase incentive or coupon if an incentive offer is associated with any of the recipe ingredients. The system also provides other meal planning information such as meal calorie and fat content, vegetarian meal ideas and recipes, recipes for meals that can be prepared in under thirty minutes, and so forth.
The purchasing incentive offers in the presently preferred embodiment of the invention are derived from two sources: product manufacturers and retailers. The manufacturers' incentives are presented to the customer in the form of a convenient index that the customer can browse through and select from. Similarly, retail supermarkets provide the source of another set of special offers, organized by store.
Another important aspect of the invention is the manner in which incentives or coupons are generated in the system of the invention. Specifically the step of generating a purchase incentive includes converting numeric and textual information provided by the customer to graphical form; converting other numeric and textual information to graphical form; and merging the converted information with other graphical information defining the incentive, to form a composite graphical incentive image for transmission to the customer.
In one embodiment of the invention the step of transmitting at least one incentive includes transmitting only an advisory message to the customer, and transmitting the terms of the incentive directly to the retail store selected by the customer, for use by the customer on a subsequent visit to the store. In a related embodiment, the step of transmitting at least one incentive includes transmitting only an incentive token to the customer, and transmitting the terms of the incentive directly to the retail store selected by the customer, for use by the customer, who brings the token to the store on a subsequent visit, and receives the discount or other benefit defined by the incentive offer.
The invention may also be defined in terms of a method for distributing purchasing incentives and other shopping aids to customers over a communication network, the method comprising the steps of: (1) registering as a customer by providing at least an individual identification, a postal region code, and retail store selection; (2) transmitting from a central site and receiving at a remote customer site, a plurality of incentive offers, each of which is exercisable based on the customer's postal region; (3) selecting at the customer site one or more of the incentive offers and transmitting these selections back to the central site; (4) generating at least one purchasing incentive containing in encoded form the identity of the retail store selected by the customer and the identity of the customer; and (5) transmitting at least one incentive to the customer.
The invention may also be defined in terms of a system for distributing purchasing incentives to retail customers, the system comprising a communication network establishing bi-directional communication between a central site and each of a plurality of customer devices; a file at the central site containing a plurality of incentive offers; and a computer located at the cen
Diamond David M.
Kacaba Michael E.
Rochon David A.
Scroggie Michael C.
Alvarez Raquel
Cosimano Edward R.
Oblon & Spivak, McClelland, Maier & Neustadt P.C.
SuperMarkets Online, Inc.
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