POS apparatus

• US 20030055730A1
• Filed: 08/30/2002
• Published: 03/20/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 09/04/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NEC Platforms, Ltd. (NEC Corporation)
• Original Assignee: NEC Infrontia Corporation (NEC Corporation)
• Inventors: Tokorotani, Mitsuhiro
• Granted Patent: US 7,523,049 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/16
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/20 Point-of-sale [POS] network systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/209 Specified transaction journal output feature, e.g. printed receipt or voice output
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0236 Incentive or reward received by requiring registration or ID from user
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 9/02 Devices for alarm or indication, e.g. when empty; Advertising arrangements in coin-freed apparatus alarms or warning devices indicating the interruption of flow to be metered G07F15/10

Abstract

A POS (point of sales) apparatus has: database constructing means for classifying a commodity with a high level of relation to a commodity sold to the customer to prepare a database for related commodities; and processing means for retrieving a related commodity with a high level of relation to a commodity sold to the customer from the database by using, as a key word, the above commodity sold to the customer and for printing information of the related commodity on the receipt.

Claims

1. A POS (point of sales) apparatus adapted for settling the accounts for a commodity sold to a customer and for printing the results on a receipt to be handed to the customer, said POS apparatus comprising:

database constructing means for classifying a commodity with a high level of relation to a commodity sold to the customer to prepare a database for related commodities; and

processing means for retrieving a related commodity with a high level of relation to a commodity sold to the customer from the database by using, as a key word, the above commodity sold to the customer and for printing information of the related commodity on the receipt.

2. The POS apparatus according to claim 1, wherein, when a plurality of related commodities are retrieved from the database, the processing means randomly selects one of the plurality of related commodities to use it as the information of the related commodity.

3. The POS apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the information of related commodity contains the name of a commodity with a high possibility for the customer to buy next time and a recommendation message for the related commodity.

4. The POS apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the processing means automatically updates the database concurrently with the accounting each time when the customer buys a commodity.

5. The POS apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the processing means prints, on the receipt, not only the information of related commodity but also a commodity discount coupon.

6. The POS apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the database constructing means produces a plurality of databases for related commodity each prepared using a category comprising one or more of time and weather at the time of the purchase of the commodity, sex, age and area for the customer.

7. The POS apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the processing means displays the information of related commodity on a display instead of or together with the printing of the information of related commodity on the receipt.