SYSTEM AND METHOD OF OBTAINING MERCHANT SALES INFORMATION FOR MARKETING OR SALES TEAMS

• US 20130325548A1
• Filed: 05/29/2013
• Published: 12/05/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 01/21/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Truaxis, Inc. (MasterCard Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Truaxis, Inc. (MasterCard Incorporated)
• Inventors: Kulkarni, Nilesh Vijay, Kothari, Samir, Thornton, John Michael
• Granted Patent: US 10,504,126 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/7.29
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/00 Arrangements for metering, time-control or time indication ; Metering, charging or billing arrangements for voice wireline or wireless communications, e.g. VoIP
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/44 Augmented, consolidated or itemized billing statement or bill presentation
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/58 based on statistics of usage or network monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/745 Customizing according to wishes of subscriber, e.g. friends or family
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/80 Rating or billing plans; Tariff determination aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/8011 using class of subscriber
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/8044 Least cost routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/805 Bidding
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/8083 involving reduced rates or discounts, e.g. time-of-day reductions or volume discounts
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/83 Notification aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/84 Types of notifications
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/85 characterised by the type of condition triggering a notification
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/851 Determined tariff
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/0104 Augmented, consolidated or itemised billing statement, e.g. additional billing information, bill presentation, layout, format, e-mail, fax, printout, itemised bill per service or per account, cumulative billing, consolidated billing
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/0108 Customization according to wishes of subscriber, e.g. customer preferences, friends and family, selecting services or billing options, Personal Communication Systems [PCS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/018 On-line real-time billing, able to see billing information while in communication, e.g. via the internet
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/0184 involving reduced rates or discounts, e.g. time-of-day reductions, volume discounts, cell discounts, group billing, frequent calling destination(s) or user history list
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/0188 Network monitoring; statistics on usage on called/calling number
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/74 Rating aspects, e.g. rating parameters or tariff determination apects
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/7407 : class of subscriber
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/745 : Least cost routing, e.g. Automatic or manual, call by call or by preselection
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/7457 : Biding
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/81 : Notifying aspects, e.g. notifications or displays to the user
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/8129 : Type of notification
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/815 : Notification when a specific condition, service or event is met

Abstract

Disclosed herein is a method of obtaining merchant sales information for marketing or sales teams. Including accessing transaction data from one or more financial institutions and extracting metadata associated with the transaction data in accordance with at least one rule. The metadata is then analyzed to identify transaction data associated with one or more merchants. The transaction data associated with the one or more merchants is provided to the marketing or sales teams.

Claims

1. A method for providing merchant sales information to sales teams comprising:

obtaining a request from a sales team for sales information for one or more merchants;

accessing transaction data including sales information from one or more financial institutions;

extracting metadata associated with the transaction data in accordance with at least one rule;

analyzing the metadata to identify transaction data associated with one or more merchants;

providing the transaction data associated with the one or more merchants to sales teams.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising analyzing the metadata using one or more of a constant-time data structure, a Radix tree, a Lucene tree or fuzzy logic.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising analyzing the transaction data associated with the one or more merchants to determine sales trends over a period of time.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the sales trends comprise at least one of revenue, profitability, number of sales, seasonal sales, sales by location, and sales during an offer campaign.

5. The method of claim 3, further comprising analyzing the metadata or the transaction data to determine one or more of:

the geographic location of the merchant, the category of the merchant, online sales versus in-store sales, and individual products sold by the merchant.

6. The method of claim 3 further comprising comparing the sales trends of multiple merchants to each other.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the transaction data is anonymized to protect the security of the transaction data.

8. A method of obtaining merchant sales information comprising:

accessing transaction data from one or more financial institutions;

extracting metadata associated with the transaction data in accordance with at least one rule;

using one or more of a constant-time data structure, a Radix tree, a Lucene tree or fuzzy logic to analyze the metadata to identify transaction data associated with one or more merchants; and

analyzing the transaction data of the one or more merchants to obtain sales information.

9. A method for providing merchant sales information to a customer comprising:

obtaining a request for sales information associated with one or more merchants from a customer;

accessing transaction data from one or more financial institutions;

extracting metadata associated with the transaction data in accordance with at least one rule;

analyzing the metadata to identify transaction data associated with the one or more merchants;

analyzing the transaction data associated with each of the one or more merchants to obtain sales information for each of the merchants; and

providing the sales information for the merchants to the customer.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the sales information includes:

revenue over a period of time, profitability, number of sales, seasonal sales, and sales by location or sales during an offer campaign.

11. The method of claim 9, further comprising analyzing the metadata or transaction data to determine one or more of:

the geographic location of the merchant, the category of the merchant, online sales versus in store sales, and individual products sold by the merchant.

12. The method of claim 9, further comprising analyzing the sales information to understand an individual offer-campaign performance.

13. The method of claim 9, further comprising analyzing the sales information to evaluate the performance of one or more salespeople associated with the one or more merchants.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein the transaction data is anonymized to protect the security of the transaction data.