Discount and/or loyalty reward system and retail apparatus therefor
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A method of providing purchasing inducements to a consumer, the method comprising:
- recording a communication user agent addressing id in association with a unique id in a database;
transmitting a representation of said unique id to the communication user agent whose addressing id was recorded in association with it;
associating al least one promotional offer with said unique id;
wirelessly receiving said unique id at a point of sale terminal;
obtaining data defining said offer or offers from a remote station;
making a sale using the point of sale terminal, wherein the sale price of said sale is modified in dependence said data defining said offer or offers and the goods/services being sold.
3 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Discount and/or loyalty reward system is arranged to provided discounts to users on the basis of user ids communicated from a user agent to a point of sale terminal. The point of sale terminal requests a list of discounts applicable to the received user id from a discount administration system. The discounts in the returned list are then applied where appropriate to the user'"'"'s purchases.
157 Citations
37 Claims
-
1. A method of providing purchasing inducements to a consumer, the method comprising:
-
recording a communication user agent addressing id in association with a unique id in a database;
transmitting a representation of said unique id to the communication user agent whose addressing id was recorded in association with it;
associating al least one promotional offer with said unique id;
wirelessly receiving said unique id at a point of sale terminal;
obtaining data defining said offer or offers from a remote station;
making a sale using the point of sale terminal, wherein the sale price of said sale is modified in dependence said data defining said offer or offers and the goods/services being sold. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
-
-
12. A system for providing purchasing inducements to a consumer, the apparatus comprising:
-
a database system recording;
associations between communication user agent addressing ids and respective unique ids, associations between promotional offers and said unique ids;
transmitting means for transmitting representations of said unique id to the communication user agents whose addressing id are associated therewith in the database system;
a point of sale terminal comprising;
wireless input means for wirelessly receiving said unique ids using said representations, and communication means for obtaining data defining offers from a remote station in dependence on received unique ids, wherein the point of said terminal is configured for modifying the sale price of a sale in dependence the promotional offer data associated with a said received unique id and the goods/services being sold. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22)
-
-
23. A point of sale terminal comprising:
-
a scanner means for reading product ids from products;
a machine-to-machine data input device for receiving a user id from a communication user agent;
network communication means; and
processing means operable to accumulate a total purchase price in dependence on product id codes read by the scanner means and store said code values, wherein the processing means is configured to be responsive to a user id from said data input device to;
transmit said user id to a remote location in a request message via the network communication means;
receive a response to said request message via the network communication means, the response containing a list of product id codes; and
reduce the accumulated purchase price in dependence on matches between elements in said list and said stored product codes. - View Dependent Claims (24, 25, 26, 27, 28)
-
-
29. A transaction system comprising a point of sale terminal and a communication user agent, the point of sale terminal comprising:
-
a bar code scanner means for reading product ids from products and a user id from a communication user agent, network communication means, and processing means operable to accumulate a total purchase price in dependence on product id codes read by the scanner means and store said code values;
and the communication user agent being operable to display a bar code representing a user id code, wherein the processing means of the point of sale terminal is configured to be responsive to a user id from said data input device to;
transmit said user id to a remote location in a request message via the network communication means, receive a response to said request message via the network communication means, the response containing a list of product id codes, reduce the accumulated purchase price in dependence on matches between elements in said list and said stored product codes, and report said matches to a remote location via said network communication means. - View Dependent Claims (30, 31)
-
-
32. A discount administration apparatus comprising:
-
a WAN interface;
a mobile communication network interface;
a database containing data linking, directly or indirectly, a user id to one or more product ids and associated discount amounts; and
processing means, wherein the processing means is configured for sending said user id to a communication user agent via the mobile communication network interface and for responding to a request message, containing said user id, received via the WAN interface, by generating a response message containing product ids and discount amounts linked to said user id in the database, and sending the response message to the source of the request message via the WAN interface. - View Dependent Claims (33, 34)
-
-
35. A transaction system comprising a point of sale terminal, a communication user agent and discount administration apparatus, the point of sale terminal comprising:
-
a bar code scanner means for reading product ids from products and a user id from a communication user agent, network communication means, and processing means operable to accumulate a total purchase price in dependence on product id codes read by the scanner means and store said code values;
the communication user agent being operable to display a bar code representing a user id code, and discount administration apparatus comprising;
a WAN interface;
a mobile communication network interface;
a database containing data linking, directly or indirectly, a user id to one or more product ids and associated discount amounts; and
processing means, wherein the processing means of the point of sale terminal is configured to be responsive to a user id from said data input device to;
transmit said user id to a remote location in a request message via the network communication means, receive a response to said request message via the network communication means, the response containing a list of product id codes, reduce the accumulated purchase price in dependence on matches between elements in said list and said stored product codes, and report said matches to a remote location via said network communication means, the processing means of the discount administration system is configured for sending said user id to a communication user agent via the mobile communication network interface and for responding to a request message, containing said user id, received via the WAN interface, by generating a response message containing product ids and discount amounts linked to said user id in the database, and sending the response message to the source of the request message via the WAN interface, and the discount administration apparatus is located at said remote location and said source is the point of sale terminal. - View Dependent Claims (36, 37)
-
Specification