SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DIRECTING A CUSTOMER TO ADDITIONAL PURCHASING OPPORTUNITIES

• US 20100299204A1
• Filed: 08/04/2010
• Published: 11/25/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 06/02/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: WW Grainger Incorporated
• Original Assignee: WW Grainger Incorporated
• Inventors: Carroll, Thomas John, Westphal, Geoffry A.
• Granted Patent: US 10,565,637 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.49
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0251 Targeted advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0623 Item investigation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0625 Directed, with specific intent or strategy
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0631 Item recommendations

Abstract

A dynamic merchandising system creates for each of a plurality of products in a plurality of purchase orders a list of products purchased together. This information is then used to create ordered lists reflecting relationships between various product attributes, e.g., the relationships between different brand names purchased together, different product categories purchased together, different catalog pages of products purchased together, etc. From these ordered relationship lists information may be selected and presented to the customer for the purpose of directing the customer to additional purchasing opportunities.

Claims

1. A computer-readable media embodied in a non-transient, physical memory device having stored thereon computer-executable instructions for presenting additional purchasing opportunities to a consumer, the instructions performing steps comprising:

using data within a plurality of purchase orders to discern pairings of products that were purchased together and that have at least one product attribute from a group of product attributes which differ;

creating from the pairings of products ordered lists which contain data indicative of degrees to which combinations of the different product attributes appear within the pairings of products;

in response to data provided by the consumer, using the data to select from the ordered lists one or more of the product attributes; and

presenting the selected product attributes to the consumer whereby the consumer may interact with the provided product attribute to access information relevant to products having the selected product attribute.

2. The computer-readable media as recited in claim 1, wherein the group of product attributes comprise at least two selected from a product brand name, a product SKU, a catalog page, and a product category.

3. The computer-readable media as recited in claim 2, wherein the selected product attribute is provided to the consumer as a hyperlink.

4. The computer-readable media as recited in claim 1, wherein the group of product attributes are selected from fields within an electronic catalog.