Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or... – Discount or incentive
Reexamination Certificate
1996-07-12
2002-10-15
Stamber, Eric W. (Department: 2162)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Discount or incentive
C705S026640
Reexamination Certificate
active
06466915
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a customer history management method and system in online shopping, and, in particular, to a customer history management method and system in online shopping, in which online shopping, in mail-order business using an online system, information of goods is transmitted to a customer from a center, the information of goods is displayed at the customer side and the customer may select a desired one of the goods.
In the online shopping, a system is demanded by which system, for each customer, information as to which goods were bought by the customer, information as to which goods the customer is curious about, and so forth are managed, and also, through which system, the customer may easily search for goods which the customer wishes to buy or is curious about.
2. Description of the Related Art
In online shopping in the related art, once a customer (user) is registered in a mail-order selling system which is provided by a center through a communications network, the center transmits various goods information to the customer. The transmitted goods information is displayed on a CRT at the customer side. Then, according to predetermined instructions shown on the CRT screen for making an order for a desired article, the customer makes an order for a desired article by inputting an article code, a number of the articles to be ordered, a cost thereof and so forth.
The center may manage goods information, which is transmitted from stores, for each store. The center transmits to the customer the individual goods information which were produced for the particular stores. Before starting the online shopping, the customer transmits to the center a name of a store from which the customer wishes to buy an article. Then, the center searches for and thus retrieves the information concerning that store and transmits this information to the customer. The customer refers to the transmitted goods information which was edited in the individual way of that store. The customer then makes an order for the article in a method similar to the above-mentioned method. In the goods information, the displayed contents and sequence thereof are fixed. Specifically, at first, the store is introduced, and then goods are introduced for each section.
However, in the above-described example in the related art, it is not possible to mark information of an article shown in goods information transmitted from the center in a catalog form, which article the customer is curious about but has not made a decision to order yet. In a case where goods are introduced on paper sheets as in an actual catalog book, it is possible to mark information of an article about which the customer is curious by folding the paper sheet, or adhering a tag to the paper sheet. Thereby, it is easy to search the catalog book for the information of the article shown on the paper sheet afterwards. However, in the case of online shopping, the information of the article is displayed on the CRT, and, therefore, it is not possible to again refer to the information of the article after the online system has been terminated. As a result, selection of an article is equivalent to ordering of the article in the online shopping in the related art. Therefore, a customer who is curious about an article but has not made a decision to order the article may actually order the article. If so, the customer will have to cancel the order when the customer changes his or her mind.
Further, in a case where the customer performs the online shopping using the goods information which was produced for each store as described above, when a store is specified, an introduction to the store is displayed first. Because the display sequence is fixed as mentioned above, even in a case where the customer previously specified the same store and thus was already shown the same store introduction display, the customer has to be shown the same store introduction display each time the store is specified. Further, in this online shopping system in the related art, information indicating the customers previously accessed information is not managed. Therefore, in a case where a customer accesses information in the morning and then the same customer accesses the same information in the afternoon, screens of image information displayed in the afternoon are the same as that displayed in the morning. As a result, for example, even when the customer access the information in the afternoon, a fixed message ‘Good morning, may I help you?’ is displayed in response thereto.
Further, until the information which the customer previously referred to and wishes to refer to again is reached, the customer will again be shown screens of image information the same as that which the customer was already shown when previously having referred to the information. Such a situation is inefficient and uneconomical in online information transmission.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention has been made in consideration of the above-mentioned problem, and an object of the present invention is to provide a customer history management method and system in online shopping, in which method and system a mark is automatically given to information of an article about which a customer is curious:, screens of image information which were previously viewed by the customer are skipped over and thereby the customer can easily retrieve the information of that article.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a customer history management method and system in online shopping, in which method and system, in goods information which was produced for a particular store, if screens of image information such as a store introduction which were already shown to a customer accompany the goods information, unless the customer inputs special instructions for the accompanying screens of image information to be displayed, only the goods information can be automatically provided.
A first aspect of the present invention, in online shopping, manages customer information when a customer selects and buys a desired article from goods information provided to a customer terminal from a center which provides online shopping information including the goods information to the customer terminal, and comprises steps of:
a) storing goods information in storage means for each customer individually, which goods information is goods information selected by the customer from goods information provided by the center; and
b) reading goods information from the storage means the next time a goods information search request is made by said customer, the read goods information being immediately displayed on a screen of the customer terminal.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, when goods information which has been provided by the center is displayed, the customer selects desired articles from the goods information. After the article selection is finished, a list of articles which were selected is displayed. The customer selects from the list of articles, articles to be actually bought. Then, information of articles which were bought and information of articles which were selected but were not bought are stored, separately.
According to a third aspect of the present invention, either a list of. selected articles or a list of bought articles is stored for each customer individually. A customer tendency is derived from either the list of articles selected or the list of articles bought, and the tendency is stored for each customer individually.
According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, an identifier of the customer is input, and a list of articles, which articles are articles that the customer of the identifier marked previously, is displayed. Articles that the customer actually decides to buy from the list of articles is determined. Then, the articles that the customer decided to buy are marked and stored for the customer individually.
According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, for each store which sells goods, eit
Kashu Yuriko
Suzuki Tetsujiro
Fujitsu Limited
Myhre James W.
Staas & Halsey , LLP
Stamber Eric W.
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