Patent Application
20080010165
The present invention is now explained in more detail with reference to the appended drawing, which shows a block diagram of a system based on the invention.
The exemplary embodiment outlined in more detail below is a preferred embodiment of the present invention.
As the figure shows, a plurality of manufacturers 1A, 1B, . . . , 1n are connected to a manufacturer configuration server 2. There, they can put together various supply packages alone or together. These are finally stored in a supply database 3. A portal server 4 presents the items supplied for customers. It is therefore used to show the supply packages from the point of view of the customer, whereas the manufacturer configuration server 2 is used to show or to create the supply packages from the point of view of the manufacturer.
The items supplied which are presented by the portal server 4 are then forwarded to purchasing communities 6, 7 via the Internet 5 or any other data network. For the sake of clarity, the figure shows only two purchasing communities. However, there may also be just one purchasing community or any higher number of purchasing communities. The first purchasing community 6 contains three customers 61, 62 and 63 in this case. Similarly, the second purchasing community 7 contains the customers 71, 72, 73 and 74. Each of these purchasing communities 6, 7 is a virtual group which has got together in a “virtual room” to form an interest community.
Within a purchasing community, the purchases and enquiries are bundled or channeled and arrive at the portal server 4 with the sender of the respective purchasing community. A bundled enquiry from one of the virtual purchasing communities is forwarded via the Internet 5 and the portal server 4 to an order database 8 and is stored. This database is accessed by an order distribution server 9 which sends the orders to the respective manufacturers 1A, 1B, . . . , 1n.
The trade portal illustrated above thus allows a quota of hearing instruments or hearing aids, possibly organized thematically, to be provided. As a specific example, a supply package may be a “hearing aid package for comparative adjustment” which respectively contains five behind-the-ear hearing aids from a plurality of manufacturers. The quota comprises fifty of these packages. The starting price is fixed. For every package purchased, the price is reduced by 0.1%.
Providing an infrastructure having virtual rooms for individual appearance, having thematically organized product quotas and appropriate marketing platforms (marketing investments) allows an effective aid to be provided for the self-organization of purchasing groups. By way of example, the supply packages can also be formed for the following subjects: “six monthly turnover”, “most popular accessory”, “six monthly consumables package (batteries, printing material, etc.)”, “new exhibition products”, “children's package”, etc.
The purchasing community can jointly send orders for all or some of the members. Alternatively, all individual members can send individual orders to the manufacturers via the system.
Advantageously, the inventive trade portal provides the purchaser with the impression that he has purchased with significant discounts. The reason for this is, inter alia, that the purchasing communities have access to price models which a single business cannot have on its own. In addition, the trade portal can be combined with other marketing promotions, such as partner preference programs, frequent user programs, marketing material, consultancy service, market studies, Internet seminars (webinars) etc. The manufacturer thus benefits from cross-selling opportunities and cross-promotion between a plurality of brand companies, a plurality of product families and products from a plurality of performance classes. For acoustic engineers, for example, it is thus possible to put together packages with hearing aids from different manufacturers and/or hearing aids on different price levels.
Similarly, what are known as “separees” can be set up for already existing purchasing communities or business chains. In these separees it is possible to install the same principle with limited access and individualized offers and price lists.
As a specialty, it is possible to introduce the supply of accessories which are expensive when purchased in a shop at an individual price because of the high fixed costs. When they are supplied in a quota, however, it is possible to provide large discounts on account of the synergic effects.
In addition, the inventive trade portal allows hearing aids from a first manufacturer, for example, to be combined with hard-of-hearing telephones from a second manufacturer and cleaning material for hearing instruments from a third manufacturer to form a package. This provides the purchaser with additional benefit, so that the attractiveness of such packages increases.
The present application claims the benefit of the provisional patent application filed on Jul. 5, 2006, and assigned application No. 60/818,650 which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60818650 | Jul 2006 | US |
