Reverse showrooming and merchant-customer engagement system

• US 9,904,946 B2
• Filed: 07/18/2013
• Issued: 02/27/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 07/18/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: PayPal, Inc. (PayPal Holdings, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: PayPal, Inc. (PayPal Holdings, Inc.)
• Inventors: Ellison, Scott
• Primary Examiner(s): Stopp, Courtney L
• Application Number:
  US13/945,670
• Publication Number:
  US 20150026010A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,685 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0613 Third-party assisted
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0631 Item recommendations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces

Abstract

Systems and methods for providing a merchant-customer engagement system include a physical merchant location in which a customer may be tracked to determine products within the physical merchant location that the customer is interested in. A merchant may use a wearable merchant device that is configured to identify the customer via a camera that captures an image of the customer, and that image may be used to retrieve customer account information for that customer. Using the customer account information and the products that the customer is showing interest in, the wearable merchant device may be used to display merchant-customer engagement information next to a view of the customer to allow the merchant to help the customer while utilizing a variety of displayed information about the customer including, for example, past purchases, products browsed in-store and previously browsed online, time spent in an area of the physical merchant location, etc.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

a non-transitory memory having stored thereon executable instructions; and

one or more hardware processors coupled to the memory and configured to, in response to executing the executable instructions, cause the system to perform operations comprising

receiving, through a network at a plurality of different times during a time period from at least one physical sensor that is deployed at a merchant physical location of a first merchant, first customer device location information of a first customer computing device in possession of a first customer;

tracking, using the first customer device location information received each of the plurality of different times during the time period, a first customer location throughout a plurality of different areas in the merchant physical location over the time period;

receiving, through the network from a merchant device following the time period, an image;

analyzing the image to identify the first customer;

determining, using the first customer location information and in response to identifying the first customer via the image, previous physical product viewing information for the first customer that identifies a physical product that was viewed by the first customer in the merchant physical location during the time period and prior to receiving the image;

identifying a first customer profile for the first customer that includes at least one previous purchase by the first customer;

determining, based on the first customer profile and the previous physical product viewing information, at least one product recommendation for at least one product; and

causing information about the at least one product to be displayed on a display of the merchant device adjacent a view of the first customer.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the analyzing the image to identify the first customer includes:

performing facial image recognition operations on the image to identify an identified face that is included in the image; and

comparing the identified face to a facial recognition database that includes a plurality of confirmed faces; and

matching the identified to a first customer confirmed face of the plurality of confirmed faces.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the previous physical product viewing information includes timing information indicating an amount of time the first customer was located in a first area of the plurality of different areas in the merchant physical location, and wherein the operations further comprise:

causing the timing information to be displayed on the display of the merchant device adjacent a view of the first customer.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:

analyzing the image to identify a product currently being viewed by the first customer; and

causing current product information about the product currently being viewed by the first customer to be displayed on the display of the merchant device adjacent a view of the first customer.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:

determining a first area of the plurality of different areas of the merchant physical location that the customer was most recently located in; and

causing merchant physical location area information about the first area to be displayed on the display of the merchant device adjacent a view of the first customer.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the display is located on a wearable merchant device between a user of the wearable merchant device and the first customer such that the view of the first customer is provided through the display.

7. A method, comprising:

tracking, using first customer identifying information about a first customer determined via a wirelessly transmitted signal emitted by a first customer computing device of the first customer, a first customer location as the first customer moves through a plurality of different areas of a merchant physical location;

receiving, from an image acquisition device located in the merchant physical location, an image;

analyzing the image to identify the first customer;

determining, using the first customer location that was tracked and in response to identifying the first customer via the mage, at least one physical product handled by the first customer prior to receiving the image;

retrieving, based on the identification of the first customer, first purchase information for a first purchase that is associated with the first customer, wherein the first purchase information includes information about a first product that was previously purchased by the first customer;

determining, based on the first purchase information and the at least one physical product handled by the first customer prior to receiving the image, at least one product recommendation for at least one product; and

causing the at least one product recommendation to be displayed on a display along with a view of the first customer.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the analyzing the image to identify the first customer includes performing facial recognition on the image to identity the first customer.

9. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

determining, using the first customer location that was tracked and in response to identifying the first customer via the image, timing information indicating an amount of time the first customer was located in a first area of the plurality of different areas in the merchant physical location; and

causing the timing information to be displayed on the display along with the view of the first customer.

10. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

analyzing the image to identify a product currently being handled by the first customer; and

causing an identification of the product currently being held by the first customer to be displayed on the display along with the view of the first customer.

11. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

causing merchant physical location area information about at least one of the plurality of different areas in the merchant physical location to be displayed on the display along with the view of the first customer.

12. The method of claim 7, wherein the display is located on a computing device of a merchant.

13. The method of claim 7, wherein the first product was previously purchased by the user at a different merchant than a merchant corresponding to the merchant physical location.

14. A non-transitory machine-readable medium having stored thereon a plurality of machine-readable instructions which, in response to being executed by a computer system, cause the computer system to perform operations comprising:

receiving, at least one wireless communications with a first customer device at at least one time, first customer location information;

determining, at the at least one time using the first customer locating information received at that time, a corresponding area of the merchant physical location such that a at least one area in the merchant physical location is determined;

receiving, from a mobile merchant device, an image;

analyzing the image to identify the first customer;

determining, in response to identifying the first customer via the image, previous physical product viewing information for the first customer that identifies a physical product that was viewed by the first customer in one of the at least one areas in the merchant physical location that were determined;

identifying, based on the physical product identified by the previous product viewing information, at least one related product that is related to the physical product that was viewed by the first customer; and

causing information about the related product to be displayed on a display of the wireless merchant device relative to a view of the first customer.

15. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the identifying the first customer includes identifying a face of the first customer in the image.

16. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the previous physical product viewing information includes timing information indicating an amount of time the first customer was located in a first area of the at least one area, and wherein the operations further comprise:

causing the timing information to be displayed on the display of the wireless merchant device adjacent a view of the first customer.

17. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the operations further comprise:

analyzing the image to identify a first product that is located adjacent the first customer; and

causing information about the first product to be displayed on the display of the wireless merchant device adjacent a view of the first customer.

18. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the operations further comprise:

causing merchant physical location area information about a first area of the at least one area of the merchant physical location that the customer was most recently located in to be displayed on the display of the wireless merchant device adjacent a view of the first customer.

19. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the display is located on a wearable merchant device between a user of the wearable merchant device and the first customer such that the view of the first customer is provided through the display.