초록 ▼

A system and method for delivering purchasing incentives and a variety of other retail shopping aids through a computer network, such as by E-mail over the Internet or the World Wide Web. Customers (10) of retail stores can establish a bi-directional communication link with the system, log in (16) t

A system and method for delivering purchasing incentives and a variety of other retail shopping aids through a computer network, such as by E-mail over the Internet or the World Wide Web. Customers (10) of retail stores can establish a bi-directional communication link with the system, log in (16) to the system, and then elect to browse among available purchasing incentive offers (18, 22), or elect to explore other shopping aids, such as a shopping list generator (26), a recipe center (30), or simply elect to claim a product rebate or to receive product information. If the customer elects to have product information or rebate information delivered, only minimal customer identification is required. For purchase incentives redeemable at retail stores, the customer must provide identification information and must also designate a retailer (12) at which the purchasing incentive can be exercised. For receipt of focused incentives based the customer's past shopping behavior, the customer must also supply a unique customer id., such as a check cashing card number or credit card number, used for in-store purchases. For delivery of a product sample, the customer's name and address must be supplied. The system merges this customer-supplied information (270) with other purchase incentive data (272) and creates a printable graphical image of the purchasing incentive (282) for transmission to the customer. In an alternate embodiment of the invention, the purchase incentive is not transmitted directly to the customer. Instead, the terms of the incentive are transmitted electronically to the retail store (310) designated by the customer, who receives either a token (316) to present at the store or an advisory message. In yet another embodiment of the invention, incentives may be targeted to specific consumers based on a consumer purchase history (502), and transmitted to consumers' computers (510) using electronic mail addresses stored in a consumer database (506).

대표청구항 ▼

[ We claim:] [1.] A method for distributing purchasing incentives to retail customers, comprising the following steps performed at a central site in cooperation with a communication device at a customer site:logging in a remotely located customer using identity data and region data transmitted by th

[ We claim:] [1.] A method for distributing purchasing incentives to retail customers, comprising the following steps performed at a central site in cooperation with a communication device at a customer site:logging in a remotely located customer using identity data and region data transmitted by the customer over a communication network;transmitting over the communication network a plurality of incentive offers to the registered customer, the incentive offers being exercisable in the customer's region;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;generating a purchasing incentive containing in encoded form the identity of the retailer designated by the customer and the identity of the customer;transmitting at least one incentive to the customer over the communication network, wherein the transmitted incentive is encoded with the identity of the retailer selected by the customer; andcommunicating with the customer concerning the use of other shopping aids, wherein the step of communicating with the customer includestransmitting a list of recipes to the customer,receiving customer selection of one or more recipes,transmitting back to the customer a shopping list that includes ingredient products needed in each selected recipe, andtransmitting to the customer at least one purchase incentive pertaining to an ingredient product used in a selected recipe.