User-personalized media sampling, recommendation and purchasing system using real-time inventory database
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A media sampling method, comprising:
- storing product content samples and product content information;
disposing at a location within a retail site a sampling station, the sampling station being operable to enable a user to listen to and/or view one or more of the product content samples, and the sampling station comprising a display device, a bar code scanner, and a headphone;
communicatively connecting the sampling station to a server located within the retail site via a network cable, the sampling station being configured to (a) receive all of its electrical power via the network cable and (b) use the network cable to transmit data to and receive data from the server;
displaying on the display device a prompt prompting an administrator to configure the sampling station upon the sampling station being communicatively connected to the server via the network cable for the first time;
storing in a point-of-sale (POS) database pricing information for products being sold at the retail site;
automatically in response to the bar code scanner scanning a bar code of a product placed by the user adjacent to the bar code scanner, transmitting information encoded in the bar code to the server coupled to the POS database;
in response to receiving the information at the server, using the information to retrieve from the POS database pricing information for the product;
after retrieving the pricing information, transmitting the pricing information and product content information related to the product to the sampling station, wherein, upon receiving the pricing and product content information, the sampling station uses the display device to display the pricing and product content information to the user, whereinthe step of prompting the administrator to configure the sampling station comprises displaying a user interface screen to the administrator that enables the administrator to assign a configuration parameter to the sampling station, andthe configuration parameter is a location identifier identifying the location of the sampling station within the retail site.
8 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A product sampling and recommendation system uses customer profile data and/or real-time information from a point-of-sale system to tailor specific product recommendations to a customer using a sampling station.
18 Citations
14 Claims
-
1. A media sampling method, comprising:
-
storing product content samples and product content information; disposing at a location within a retail site a sampling station, the sampling station being operable to enable a user to listen to and/or view one or more of the product content samples, and the sampling station comprising a display device, a bar code scanner, and a headphone; communicatively connecting the sampling station to a server located within the retail site via a network cable, the sampling station being configured to (a) receive all of its electrical power via the network cable and (b) use the network cable to transmit data to and receive data from the server; displaying on the display device a prompt prompting an administrator to configure the sampling station upon the sampling station being communicatively connected to the server via the network cable for the first time; storing in a point-of-sale (POS) database pricing information for products being sold at the retail site; automatically in response to the bar code scanner scanning a bar code of a product placed by the user adjacent to the bar code scanner, transmitting information encoded in the bar code to the server coupled to the POS database; in response to receiving the information at the server, using the information to retrieve from the POS database pricing information for the product; after retrieving the pricing information, transmitting the pricing information and product content information related to the product to the sampling station, wherein, upon receiving the pricing and product content information, the sampling station uses the display device to display the pricing and product content information to the user, wherein the step of prompting the administrator to configure the sampling station comprises displaying a user interface screen to the administrator that enables the administrator to assign a configuration parameter to the sampling station, and the configuration parameter is a location identifier identifying the location of the sampling station within the retail site. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
-
-
13. A media sampling method, comprising:
-
storing a plurality of product content samples and product content information; operating a point-of-sale (POS) system within a retail site, the point-of-sale system comprising a POS database storing real-time product inventory information; disposing at a location within the retail site a sampling station, the sampling station being operable to enable a user of the sampling station to listen to and/or view one or more of the product content samples and to obtain product content information for a particular product, and the sampling station comprising a display device, a bar code scanner, and a headphone; in response to the user using the sampling station to obtain product content information for a particular product, selecting a set of other products to bring to the attention of the user; and for each of the selected other products, displaying on the display device of the sampling station an identifier identifying the selected other product, wherein the selecting step comprises; selecting an other product based, at least in part, on the particular product, retrieving real-time product inventory information from the POS system for the selected other product, using the retrieved real-time product inventory information to determine whether the selected other product is included in the inventory of the retail-site, and if it is determined that the selected other product is included in the inventory, then including the selected other product in the set of other products, otherwise not including the selected other product in the set of other products.
-
-
14. A media sampling method, comprising:
-
storing a plurality of product content samples and product content information; operating a point-of-sale (POS) system within a retail site, the point-of-sale system comprising a POS database storing real-time product inventory information; disposing at a location within the retail site a sampling station, the sampling station being operable to enable a user of the sampling station to listen to and/or view one or more of the product content samples and to obtain product content information for a particular product, and the sampling station comprising a display device, a bar code scanner, and a headphone; in response to the user using the sampling station to obtain product content information for a particular product, selecting a set of other products to bring to the attention of the user; and for each of the selected other products, displaying on the display device of the sampling station an identifier identifying the selected other product, wherein the step of selecting a set of other products comprises;
retrieving real-time information from the POS system; and
using the retrieved real-time information to select one or more products to include in said set of other products.
-
Specification