Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or... – Including point of sale terminal or electronic cash register
Reexamination Certificate
1998-09-03
2004-09-21
Trammell, James P. (Department: 3621)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Including point of sale terminal or electronic cash register
C705S001100, C705S014270, C705S017000, C705S020000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06795809
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates generally to point-of-sale computer systems of the type used in retail stores to record sales transactions. More particularly, the invention relates to point-of-sale systems capable of handling discount coupons. Most point-of-sale systems have terminals that are capable of reading a code printed on each product package, and thereby determining the price from an internal file that is accessed by a store controller. Products are coded by means of a series of parallel lines, in accordance with a convention known as the Universal Product Code.
As every grocery shopper knows, many manufacturers distribute discount coupons for their products, either through the mail, or by printing them in newspapers or magazines, or enclosing them in similar or related product packages. When a customer presents a discount coupon at the time of purchase of an appropriate product, the grocery checker operating the terminal will typically key in the coupon amount, and the discount will be subtracted from the customer's bill.
This procedure often has the disadvantage that the customer may not have actually purchased the discountable product, and the coupon will then be improperly redeemed. A further disadvantage, from a customer standpoint, is that collecting coupons and taking them to the store is inconvenient, and many customers simply do not participate in any promotional program involving distributed coupons. This represents a significant loss for the manufacturers or retailers that distribute the coupons.
In the cross-referenced patent application that has issued as U.S. Pat. No. 5,173,851, and in related U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,910,672 and 4,723,212, systems are disclosed for generating printable discount coupons at a checkout counter, as a result of the purchase of one or more “triggering” products. A customer may then be presented with a discount coupon for use on a subsequent visit. This technique has proved to be very successful in distributing single discount coupons in response to the purchase of selected products or groups of products, but does not address other important marketing goals of retailers.
Retailers and manufacturers of grocery items and other consumer products have long felt a need for marketing and promotional programs that were more selective in targeting customers for attention. Most promotional programs involving product discounts require the distribution of coupons to large numbers of people, most of whom do not take advantage of the discounts offered. An important goal in promotional programs is to increase the percentage of redemptions of discount coupons, but this goal can only be achieved if alternative schemes are devised to target the promotional programs more selectively than has been possible in the past. Printing discount coupons in the store has already proved to be a key feature of such programs, and printing coupons in response to the purchase of triggering items is one specific technique for customer targeting. What is still needed, however, is a more general technique for targeting customers to receive details of promotional programs, based on more than simply a single triggering purchase.
Another aspect of this invention relates generally to point-of-sale (POS) computer systems and, more particularly to difficulties associated with the processing of point-of-sale data. Point-of-sale computer systems are widely used in retail stores to record sales transactions. These systems have varying levels of complexity and local storage capacity, but have in common the ability to record data relating to each of many sales transactions that take place in a store.
The primary purpose of a point-of-sale system is to provide a record of the accumulated sales transactions in a store. From the record, store management personnel can track sales volume and revenues by store, by department, by product category, or even by product, since each product sold is entered into the record by product code. A familiar bar code known as the universal product code (UPC) is scanned at a checkout stand, or entered manually if the code is missing or unreadable.
A secondary purpose of a point-of-sale system is to provide additional information computed from the primary record. For example, a common problem is controlling inventory levels to meet customer demand. Theoretically, the point-of-sale record contains all the information needed to enable management personnel to decide how much of any given product needs to be reordered to maintain store inventory at a desired level. A related problem is shelf space allocation in retail stores. Typically, shelf allocation is based on product sales. If a product sells well, more shelf space should be allocated to it in the store, to minimize the possibility of low or empty shelves.
Another category of secondary information contained within the primary point-of-sale record is concerned with research into customer behavior. This includes research into mass customer behavior, such as determining the number of customers who bought a specific product that was the subject of a promotion program, and research into individual customer behavior, such as determining whether a customer should be given a discount coupon for a product, based in part on the customer's present or prior purchase activity.
Although these secondary uses of point-of-sale data hold promise for store owners and managers, in fact there has been very little exploitation of point-of-sale data for other than the primary purpose of tracking sales volume and revenues of the store. The principal reason is that large point-of-sale systems simply provide too much data for many practical purposes. Inventory control is still usually handled by placing a fixed weekly or other periodic order with product vendors, and occasionally modifying the order based on long-term trends in inventory levels and any anticipated peaks in demand. Shelf allocation is usually handled more or less intuitively, or using out-of-date product sales information that is eventually derived from the point-of-sale data. Using point-of-sale data for consumer research is also rendered difficult by the large volume of data that has to be analyzed to obtain the desired information.
It will be appreciated from the foregoing that a serious problem faces store owners and managers who wish to use point-of-sale data for such applications as inventory control, shelf allocation control, and various forms of consumer research. The volume of collected data is so great that efficient processing for applications such as these has not been realized. The present invention provides a solution to this problem and the other problems alluded to above.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention resides in a method and apparatus for generating printable discount coupons in a retail store, conditioned on some preselected combination of customer attributes and past and present customer shopping activities. In terms of apparatus, the invention comprises a plurality of terminals at customer checkout locations, each having means for reading product codes on purchased items in a customer order; means for filtering sales transaction data obtained at each terminal; a store controller with which the terminals can communicate, the store controller having access to an item record file containing price and other information for each product item; means for storing the terms and conditions of discount deals for which a customer may qualify; and means for uniquely identifying each customer, but only if preselected conditions relating to customers have been met by the specific customer whose order is being processed.
The apparatus may also include means for printing the discount coupon for immediate customer distribution. Further, the apparatus may include means for processing redemption of a printed discount coupon in a subsequent customer order, and applying a discount to the subsequent customer order if the discounted item is purchased, and means for maintaining a log of discount coupons printed and cumula
Cherney Timothy L.
Katz Gary M.
O'Brien Michael R.
Off George W.
Catalina Marketing International, Inc
Hewitt II Calvin L
Neifeld IP Law PC
Trammell James P.
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