Patent Application
20180253752
The present invention relates generally to digital marketing, and especially to mobile applications for advertising local deals and promotions.
Large size retailers use sophisticated sales management systems to add, update, delete and maintain deals and promotions for the items in their stores. These systems are also used to categorize inventory and manage cash registry at the point of sale. Medium size retailers are not able to compete with either large or small retailers. They excel in niche markets and are challenged to promote their deals to the consumers and attract them to their stores. On the other hand, large chain retailers might not be able to localize their deals based on the demographics of individual neighborhoods. They administer their deals either countrywide or province-wide by the distribution of flyers and coupons. Their deals are not generally inclined to, nor customized by, geographical differences based on the demographics of the population.
Consumers are deal hunters, but they do not have a centralized platform wherein they can search and manage deals by item name, number, brand, discount percentage or retailer. They have to wade through generic flyers and coupons from different retailers. They also do not receive customized notifications for their sought merchandise, or wish lists.
The present invention is focused on small to medium sized retail businesses to give them accessibility to promote their businesses on mobile devices (cell phones and hand-held devices). The present invention simplifies the workloads of businesses and helps consumers to find deals and promotions in their neighbourhood.
The present invention is a computer-implemented program for advertising local deals and promotions. It comprises of a retailer portal and an end-user portal, which are uniquely integrated to provide rapid advertising platforms. The retailer portal comprises of a real-time inventory tracking in a virtual store; an online ordering platform, where an end-user can put the orders; a mobile advertising platform that has the ability to create a flyer for deals and promotions; a learning program to detect the demographic difference and buying habits using statistics and big data analytics to promote the deals which attract the end-user, a computer-implemented program to review the end-users behavior and prepare a report for the retailer, and a P.O.S system to manage the sales in both the physical and the virtual store. The present system also provides a real-time tracking of the inventory of the items of the retailer.
The present invention is designed to eliminate the hassle of wading through paper flyers and coupons, where consumers do not always find what they need.
The present invention enables retailers and businesses to post special offers and deals and attract more customers. The present invention can solve the struggles of the businesses for promoting their business.
The small retailers can have an inventory of the items that are available in a store and can create a virtual store in their profiles. The present invention also has an online ordering platform for the retailers, and the end-user can order the items in the virtual store.
The present invention incorporates barcode technology tied to its database to capture and save selected items. Exclusive coupons are also tied to the database of the present invention.
The deals and promotions from the flyers, which the retailers created, are available in the end-user mobile phones or handheld devices. The flyers can be viewed and searched by the end-user. The application of the present invention has access to the previously searched flyers without having access to the internet. The end-users can view and search the deals in the offline mode of the application.
The end-users (shoppers) can create their own personal profile; save items of their interests; receive deal recommendations based on other users' interests; view stores details and deals; navigate to the closest stores; share offers they liked to their network, and receive notifications according to their preferences.
The present invention offers user-friendly protocol for navigation, searching, matching, setting, viewing, saving information, and sharing information for the retailers and end-users.
The present invention also provides a mobile advertising platform that can list retailers' deals with their GPS locations. The present invention is not only convenient, personal, and relevant to the end-users but is also a reasonably priced mobile advertising solution for retailers. It provides a low cost and efficient solution for small to medium sized retailers enabling them to remain competitive to attract end-users. Retailers can advertise up-to-the-minute deals and send out unique offers to certain segments of customers without a need to print and distribute paper flyers door-to-door.
The present invention presents deals from end-users' favorite brand name stores; collects deals from the retail stores in their neighborhood; enables users to search for closest local deals, and enables retailers to manage their promotions and deals.
Shopping application of the present invention sends personalized alerts for items on-sale in stores of interest of the user. The user can set the alerts to be sent out according to the item price, a specific item and/or brand, and proximity of the store. A user can either use predesigned templates available on the system.
Matching the end-users purchase preferences with local promotions is the key function of the present invention, since it lets the end-users to find what they want at the right price and the right location. The whole idea of the present invention is to bring end-users to the physical location wherein the retailer is still running their business inside the brick and mortar store. One objective of the present invention is to minimize printing and distribution of the paper form of advertisement. Another objective of the present invention is to maximize the impact of the live advertisement of great deals and promotions using a real time mobile advertising platform via mobile devices.
Embodiments herein will hereinafter be described in conjunction with the appended drawings provided to illustrate and not to limit the scope of the claims, wherein like designations denote like elements, and in which:
The figures are not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the present invention to the precise form disclosed. It should be understood that the invention can be practiced with modification and alteration, and that the disclosed technology be limited only by the claims and equivalents thereof.
The technology disclosed herein, in accordance with one or more various embodiments, is described in detail with reference to the following figures. The drawings are provided for purposes of illustration only and merely depict typical or example embodiments of the disclosed technology. These drawings are provided to facilitate the reader's understanding of the disclosed technology and shall not be considered limiting of the breadth, scope, or applicability thereof. It should be noted that for clarity and ease of illustration these drawings are not necessarily made to scale.
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The mobile advertising platform 23 of the present system has the ability to create flyers for deals and promotions for any retailer. The platform contains non-static digital images. A user-friendly system allows retailers to create flyers dynamically and interactively. Through the mobile advertising platform 23 of the present system, the retailer can upload images to the retailer portal. The flyers can also be easily modified and updated. The retailers can create flyers and post or share them in their profiles or other social media applications, and change or delete them at any time. The platform has a plurality of pre-designed flyers that the retailers can choose from. The platform can also create professional flyers for low budget retailers.
The flyer created by the mobile advertising platform of the present invention is searchable by end-users. The information inside the flyer, such as the item name, price and the description is searchable by any program that has a search engine.
The computer-implemented program in the retailer platform reviews and screens the end-users' behavior 24 based on the items purchased and the location at which the items are purchased (data collection based on history) 72, and also data collection from the end-user preferences thru a survey 71. The program 24 also analyses the data collection 73 and preparing a pattern 74 based on the collected data and the analyzed data. The system 24 stores 75 the patterns in a database and matches and compares the patterns by the data collections 76. The system 24 sends notifications 77 to the end-user and also stores the feedback 78 in the database. The system 24 also prepares a report 79 for the retailer. The report can be used by retailers to manage their store inventory according to the end-users' behavior. The report further has information such as successful promotions based on the quantity of purchased deals, age of end-users, gender, and the location of the end-users.
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The location-based notification platform 31 monitors the geographic location of the end-user's mobile and communicates with the end-user with notifications when the geographic location of the end-user's mobile meets geo-location criteria related to the end-user's preference.
The end-user can set a certain distance range that he/she wants to receive possible type of deals. When the user is within the predefined distance to a retailer, the location-based notification platform 31 notifies the user if there is a matched deal.
The present location-based notification platform 31 notifies the end-user of (i) stores located close to the end-user and have items of his/her preference, and (ii) stores located within the end-users' future location and have items of his/her preference. Prediction of the preferred deals can be used for future locations based on geographical reference that have matched the similar characteristics of the deals.
In addition, a computer-implemented program searches throughout the list of the shopping preferences based on the past history of the end-user. It analyses the shopping preferences of the end-user based on the items and the location and creates a behavioral pattern to use in future matching.
The end-user portal 12 also comprises of a behavioral program for the end-user 32 to learn and understand the end-user consumption behavior. The behavioral program has the capacities of storing the attributes of the shopping behavior of the users based on the histories of usage. A method of demographic and psychographic profiling will include individual's likes and dislikes as well as preferences in retail items like price, brands, stores, sizes, proximity, etc. The profile of the users is indexed by the user's residence or work location and the user's shopping behaviour and preference based on pricing, branding, proximity and convenience of locations. The system has a built in artificial intelligence analyses system for marketing based user tracker statistics. The learning program is a statistical model and constantly evolving based on the profile indexes of the users.
The computer-implemented program of the present invention analyzes the end-user's location consumable behavior and favorite. The program uses of statistical algorithms to analyse the geographical location in consumable behaviour based on the past experience and predict the next multiple moves in their choices. It involves psychological research and artificial intelligence.
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The computer-implemented program of the present invention searches throughout the shopping preference of the end-user to find discount coupons and barcodes 34 for the end-user from the sellers or manufacturers website. It has the ability to search for coupons both on the websites and databases. The program can add the discount coupons and barcodes to the item in order to reach to the user's desired price. The program of the present invention automatically searches for coupons when item is scanned or searched. A pop-up is created with a bar code or QR code that is scanable and when scanned at the register deducts the coupon amount. The retailers can then collect all these coupon barcodes in their data bases and collect the money from the vendor/manufacturer. The bar codes are generated based on the manufacturer and their campaign for tracking purposes. Barcodes are used by manufactures and the present invention uses the barcodes to develop its unique barcodes that match to the genuine ones used by the manufacturers.
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A navigation program 35 is used in the end-user portal to find the nearest locations to the end-user. The navigation program 35 navigates the end-user to the nearest location for the shopping preferences. The program uses GPS for accessing proximity and it is designed to offer and enhance the navigation by providing specific directions to the target location.
A method of setting up profiles: using the functional demographic and psychographic data screen through the account manager or filtering or by typing in key words. The present invention captures the profile of the users by planting cookies in the mobile device to gather information about the usage and choices for selecting deals.
Customer-based web mobile application using customer profiling selection technology. The profile is an indexing algorithm that summarizes and describes the end-user.
The foregoing is considered as illustrative only of the principles of the invention. Further, since numerous modifications and changes will readily occur to those skilled in the art, it is not desired to limit the invention to the exact construction and operation shown and described, and accordingly, all suitable modifications and equivalents may be resorted to, falling within the scope of the invention.
With respect to the above description, it is to be realized that the optimum relationships for the parts of the invention in regard to size, shape, form, materials, function and manner of operation, assembly and use are deemed readily apparent and obvious to those skilled in the art, and all equivalent relationships to those illustrated in the drawings and described in the specification are intended to be encompassed by the present invention.
