Point-of-sale promotions

• US 8,459,551 B2
• Filed: 06/28/2011
• Issued: 06/11/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 05/24/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: PayPal, Inc. (PayPal Holdings, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Inventors: Lee, Janet, Melnick, Andrew, Yang, Zhenyin, Petkov, George B., Tregan, Loic, Cemballi, Gunshekar, Jain, Bhupendra, Ahmed, Ghufran, Iannone, Jamie, Rannala, Erik, Sidana, Annupreet, Subramaniam, Vikram
• Primary Examiner(s): Lee, Michael G
• Assistant Examiner(s): GUDORF, LAURA A
• Application Number:
  US13/171,057
• Publication Number:
  US 20110258027A1
• Time in Patent Office: 714 Days
• Field of Search: 235/383, 235/375, 705/14.1, 705/14.23, 705/14.25, 705/14.53
• 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 a 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 of past transactions and the preliminary selection.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, from a user, a preliminary selection related to a purchase of a listing for placement of an item for sale on a commerce system;

determining past transactions conducted by the user;

determining, using a processor, a promotion for an additional product that includes a feature for promoting the listing on the commerce system to present to the user, at a point-of-sale, based on at least one attribute from the past transactions and at least one attribute of the preliminary selection; and

publishing the promotion to the user at the point-of-sale prior to the user finalizing the purchase.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one attribute from the past transactions comprises a selection from a group consisting of a feature that the user regularly purchases, a lack of a feature that the user regularly purchases, an indication that the user is an infrequent buyer, and an indication that the user is a new buyer.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one attribute of the preliminary selection comprises a selection from a group consisting of a site used by the user, a country ID of the user, a location ID of the user, a listing format, a listing category, PayPal®

accepted for a listing, listing shipping instructions, which listing selling features are selected, whether the listing is catalog based, a listing product ID, a return policy, a listing starting price, a fixed price amount, a listing reserve price amount, a quantity of items for listing, a currency selected for listing, a number of photos, a item sequence number, a item duration;

a item re-listed, a item listed in 2nd category, an application ID, a item return policy, a listing tool used, and a user login.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one attribute of the preliminary selection comprises a feature that the user is currently purchasing.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the additional product is an upgraded feature, the determining of the promotion comprising determining the upgraded feature based on the feature that the user is currently purchasing.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the additional product comprises a feature to promote to the user.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the feature comprises a listing feature selected from a group consisting 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.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the additional product comprises a feature bundle, the feature bundle being a plurality of features.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising eliminating any feature bundles that comprises a single feature for which the user is not eligible.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one attribute from the past transactions comprises a selection from a group consisting 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 PayPal®

, date a particular feature was last used, and total number of times a particular feature was used.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining of the promotion comprises filtering out promotions for features that the user regularly purchases.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining of the promotion comprises eliminating duplicate promotions, filtering out lower priority conflicting promotions, and prioritizing remaining promotions after the eliminating- and filtering.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the promotion comprises a discount associated with the listing and the discount is associated with the feature to promote the listing.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining of the promotion comprises:

retrieving a rule condition associated with each promotion;

analyzing each rule condition, based upon the preliminary selection, to determine rule conditions that apply to the user; and

communicating each rule condition that applies to the user.

15. A non-transitory machine-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by at least one processor of a machine, cause the machine to perform operations comprising:

receiving, from a user, a preliminary selection related to a purchase of a listing for placement of an item for sale on a commerce system;

determining past transactions conducted by the user;

determining, at a point-of-sale, a promotion for an additional product that includes a feature for promoting the listing on the commerce system to present to the user based on at least one attribute from the past transactions and at least one attribute of the preliminary selection; and

publishing the promotion to the user at the point-of-sale prior to the user finalizing the purchase.

16. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the determining of the promotion comprises filtering out promotions for features that the user regularly purchases.

17. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the determining of the promotion comprises eliminating duplicate promotions, filtering out lower priority conflicting promotions, and prioritizing remaining promotions after the eliminating and filtering.

18. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the promotion includes a discount associated with the listing and the discount is associated with the feature to promote the listing.

19. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the determining of the promotion comprises:

receiving a rule condition associated with each promotion;

analyzing each rule condition, when the user makes the preliminary selection, to determine rule conditions that apply to the user; and

communicating to an interface each rule condition that applies to the user.

20. A system comprising:

means for receiving, from a user, a preliminary selection related to a purchase of a listing for placement of an item for sale on a commerce system;

means for determining past transactions conducted by the user;

means for determining, at a point-of-sale, a promotion for an additional product that includes a feature for promoting the listing on the commerce system to present to the user based on at least one attribute from the past transactions and at least one attribute of the preliminary selection; and

means for publishing the promotion to the user at the point-of-sale prior to the user finalizing the purchase.