Point-of-sale promotions

• US 7,980,466 B2
• Filed: 12/21/2006
• Issued: 07/19/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 05/24/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: PayPal, Inc. (PayPal Holdings, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Inventors: Rannala, Erik, Cemballi, Gunshekar, Iannone, Jamie, Ahmed, Ghufran, Sidana, Annupreet, Tregan, Loic, Petkov, George B., Yang, Zhenyin, Melnick, Andrew, Lee, Janet, Subramaniam, Vikram, Jain, Bhupendra
• Primary Examiner(s): Lee; Michael G
• Assistant Examiner(s): GUDORF, LAURA A
• Application Number:
  US11/643,577
• Publication Number:
  US 20070276730A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,671 Days
• Field of Search: 235/383, 705/14, 705/26, 705/27, 705/26.3, 705/27.1, 705/27.2, 705/37
• US Class Current: 235/383
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0207 Discounts or incentives, e.g. coupons or rebates
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0222 During e-commerce, i.e. online transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0226 Incentive systems for frequent usage, e.g. frequent flyer miles programs or point systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0255 based on user history
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0643 Graphical representation of items or shoppers
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/08 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange

Abstract

A method and system to publish a promotion at a point-of-sale are provided. For example, a preliminary selection associated with a purchase from a user may be received. A promotion may be published to the user at a point-of-sale associated with the purchase after the user makes the preliminary selection and before the user finalizes the purchase. The promotion may be based on at least one attribute, where the at least one attribute is selected from a group including a user attribute and an attribute associated with the preliminary selection.

Claims

1. An electronic system to publish a promotion at a point-of-sale, the system comprising:

a database including at least one user attribute;

an interface to;

receive, from a user a preliminary selection associated with a purchase of a listing for placement of an item for sale on a commerce system;

publish at least one promotion to the user at the point-of-sale associated with the purchase after the user makes the preliminary selection and before the user finalizes the purchase of the listing, the at least one promotion being based on at least one attribute associated with the listing; and

provide the user with an option to ignore selection of the at least one promotion in completing the purchase of the listing; and

an analysis module to;

determine features to promote the listing on the commerce system; and

determine promotions the user is eligible for based on the at least one attribute, the promotions comprising single feature promotions and feature bundles, the feature bundles being a plurality of single feature promotions grouped together. the feature promotion being a promotion for one or more features determined to promote the listing on the commerce system;

prioritize and filter the promotions for which the user is eligible; and

determine the at least one promotion to publish to the user using the interface.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the interface provides an option to the user to select the promotion.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the promotion includes a discount associated with the purchase.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the interface provides an option to the user to select the promotion, and wherein, when the user selects the promotion, a discount associated with the promotion is accounted for concurrently with the purchase at the point-of-sale.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the analysis module is to filter the promotions by removing promotions for features the user regularly purchases.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the promotion includes a discount associated with the listing, and wherein the discount is associated with the feature to promote the listing.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the preliminary selection of the purchase includes user login to the system.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein the point-of-sale includes a network-based commerce transaction.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein the at least one attribute comprises a listing attribute associated with the listing, the listing attribute including a selection from at least one of the groups of a site of user, country ID of user, location ID of user;

listing format;

listing category;

an online payment system accepted for listing;

listing shipping instructions;

which listing selling features are selected;

whether the listing is catalog based;

listing product ID;

return policy;

listing starting price;

fixed price amount;

listing reserve price amount;

quantity of items for listing;

currency selected for listing;

number of photos;

item sequence number, item duration;

item re-listed;

item listed in 2nd category;

application ID;

item return policy;

listing tool used; and

user login.

10. The system of claim 1 wherein the at least one attribute comprises a user attribute, the user attribute including a selection from at least one of the groups of an amount of feedback, positive feedback percentage, verifiable street address on file, time on file, associated country, date of first listing, date of last total number of listings, total number of listings that sold, date last used an online payment system, date a particular feature was last used, and total number of times a particular feature was used.

11. The system of claim 6 wherein the feature comprises a selection from at least one of the groups of bold, highlight, border, appear first on list, picture, multiple pictures, subtitle, gallery, gallery featured, bold, border, highlight, premium package, home page featured, scheduled listings, 10-day duration, list in two categories, gift services, listing designer, basic fee, insertion, picture services, reserve services, and fixed-price services.

12. The system of claim 1 wherein the analysis module is further configured to:

receive a rule condition associated with each promotion;

analyze each rule condition, when the user makes the preliminary selection, to determine each rule condition that applies to the user; and

communicate to the interface each rule condition that applies to the user.

26. The system of claim 1, further comprising sorting the feature bundles in order of priority.

27. The system of claim 1, further comprising eliminating any feature bundles that has an overlap with a single feature promotion previously selected by the user.

28. The system of claim 1, further comprising eliminating any feature bundles that has an overlap with a feature bundle previously selected by the user.

29. The system of claim 1, wherein the purchase is a purchase of a listing on an electronic marketplace system and the promotions are directed to features to enhance the listing.

30. The system of claim 1, wherein the analysis module is to prioritize and filter the promotions by eliminating duplicate promotions, filtering out lower priority conflicting promotions, and prioritizing remaining promotions after the eliminating and filtering.

31. The system of claim 1, further comprising eliminating any feature bundles that has comprises a single feature that the user is not eligible.

13. An electronic system to publish a promotion at a point-of-sale, the system comprising:

a database including at least one user attribute and including at least one promotion rule condition;

an interface to receive, from a user, a preliminary selection associated with a purchase of a listing for placement of an item for sale on a commerce system; and

an analysis module to determine, based on the at least one promotion rule condition, the at least one user attribute, and the preliminary selection, eligibility of a particular promotion for the user at the point-of-sale, the particular promotion being determined from promotions comprising single feature promotions and feature bundles, the feature bundles being a plurality of single feature promotions grouped together, the feature promotion being a promotion for one or more features to promote the listing on the commerce system,

based on the user being eligible for the particular promotion, the interface is to publish the particular promotion at the point-of-sale to the user when the user makes the preliminary selection and before the user finalizes the purchase of the listing, the interface further to provide the user with an option to ignore selection of the at least one promotion in completing the purchase of the listing.

14. An electronic system to publish a promotion at a point-of-sale, the system comprising:

a database including at least one user attribute;

an interface to;

receive, from a user, a preliminary selection associated with a purchase of a listing for placement of an item for sale on a commerce system;

publish at least one promotion to the user at the point-of-sale associated with the purchase after the user makes the preliminary selection and before the user finalizes the purchase of the listing, the at least one promotion being based on at least one attribute associated with the listing; and

provide the user with an option to ignore selection of the at least one promotion in completing the purchase of the listing; and

an analysis module to;

receive a rule condition associated with each promotion, the promotions comprising single feature promotions and feature bundles, the feature bundles being a plurality of single feature promotions grouped together, the feature promotion being a promotion for one or more features determined to promote the listing on the commerce system;

analyze each rule condition, when the user makes the preliminary selection, to determine the at least one promotion to present to the user; and

communicate to the interface the at least one promotion to be published to the user.

15. The system of claim 14 wherein the interface provides an option to the user to select the promotion.

16. The system of claim 14 wherein the promotion includes a discount associated with the purchase.

17. The system of claim 14 wherein the interface provides an option to the user to select the promotion, and wherein, when the user selects the promotion, a discount associated with the promotion is accounted for concurrently with the purchase at the point-of-sale.

18. The system of claim 14 wherein the analysis module is to filter the promotions by removing promotions for features the user regularly purchases.

19. The system of claim 14 wherein the promotion includes a discount associated with the listing, and wherein the discount is associated with the feature to promote the listing.

20. The system of claim 14 wherein the preliminary selection of the purchase includes user login to the system.

21. The system of claim 14 wherein the point-of-sale includes a network-based commerce transaction.

22. The system of claim 18 wherein the at least one attribute comprises a listing attribute associated with the listing, the listing attribute including a selection from at least one of the groups of a site of user, country ID of user, location ID of user;

listing format;

listing category;

an online payment system accepted for listing;

listing shipping instructions;

which listing selling features are selected;

whether the listing is catalog based;

listing product ID;

return policy;

listing starting price;

fixed price amount;

listing reserve price amount;

quantity of items for listing;

currency selected for listing;

number of photos;

item sequence number, item duration;

item re-listed;

item listed in 2nd category;

application ID;

item return policy;

listing tool used; and

user login.

23. The system of claim 14 wherein the at least one attribute comprises the user attribute, the user attribute including a selection from at least one of the groups of an amount of feedback, positive feedback percentage, verifiable street address on file, time on file, associated country, date of first listing, date of last listing, total number of listings, total number of listings that sold, date last used online payment system, date a particular feature was last used, and total number of times a particular feature was used.

24. The system of claim 19 wherein the feature comprises a selection from at least one of the groups of bold, highlight, border, appear first on list, picture, multiple pictures, subtitle, gallery, gallery featured, bold, border, highlight, premium package, home page featured, scheduled listings, 10-day duration, list in two categories, gift services, listing designer, basic fee, insertion, picture services, reserve services, and fixed-price services.

25. The system of claim 14 wherein the analysis module is further configured to:

determine which listing selling features to promote to the user while the user is on a web site associated with the electronic system;

determine which electronic system promotions the user is eligible for based on the at least one user attributes; and

prioritize and filter the promotions that the user is eligible for to display the filtered promotions to the user.