Patent Application
20060038008
The present application relates generally to scales used to weigh perishable food products in supermarkets, and more particularly to a scale that automatically identifies specials, new items and other price and product information based upon product and pricing data communicated to the scale.
Scales have been used in stores such as supermarkets and groceries to weigh and price food items and to generate a pricing label for such food items. Stores commonly change prices, add new food items to their offerings or remove food items from their offerings. It would be advantageous to provide a simple technique for communicating some of this information to customers.
In one aspect, in a perishables department of a store, a self-service scale for weighing food products and printing labels includes a weighing station for receiving food products to be weighed, a user interface including a display screen for communicating information to users, and a controller operatively connected with the weighing station to receive weight indication and operatively connected with the display screen for controlling information displayed thereon. The controller has access to memory storing existing product information for multiple products available in the store. When updated product information is provided to the memory the controller automatically compares the updated product information to the existing product information to identify whether the updated product information includes a certain change.
In another aspect, a scale for weighing food products includes a weighing station for receiving food products to be weighed, a user interface including a display screen for communicating information to users and a controller operatively connected with the weighing station to receive weight indication and operatively connected with the display screen for controlling information displayed thereon. The controller has memory storing existing product information, including price, for products to be weighed by the scale. The controller includes a communication input for electronically receiving updated product information. When the controller receives updated product information the controller automatically compares the updated product information to the existing product information to identify whether the updated product information includes a change.
In a further aspect, a method for marketing special price information to consumers in a store using a scale is provided where the scale includes a display for displaying information to consumers and a controller with access to memory storing existing product information, including price information, for products to be weighed by the scale. The method includes the steps of receiving at the memory updated product information; the scale controller compares the updated product information with the existing product information to identify whether the updated product information includes a price reduction for a product and, if so, the scale controller automatically effects display of a special price alert on the display to communicate the price reduction to consumers.
In still another aspect, a scale for weighing food products includes a weighing station for receiving food products to be weighed, a user interface including a display screen for communicating information to users and a controller operatively connected with the weighing station to receive weight indication and operatively connected with the display screen for controlling information displayed thereon. The controller has memory storing product information records for products to be weighed by the scale, the product information records including multiple fields including at least a price field and an alert field. In connection with each product record for which the alert field contains a special price indicator, the controller operates to display a special price alert for the product associated with each such product record.
Referring to
Referring now to
When a user places a food item on the weighing station 12, the food item is identified to the controller via the user input device 16. For example, the user may input a product lookup (PLU) number assigned to the product. In another example, the display 14 may generate a list of food products or a series of pictures of food products from which the user can select. In still another example, the scale 10 may include technology, such as vision technology or RFID technology, enabling the scale to identify the food product merely from its placement on the weighing station. After the food product is identified to the controller 30, the controller 30 then retrieves from memory 38 price information for the identified food product and calculates a price for the item based upon its weight. Additionally, some food items may be priced according to count, in which case the user also identifies to the controller 30 the count so that the controller can calculate price from the count. Once price is calculated, the controller effects printing of a pricing label for the weighed product so that the pricing label can be applied to the product. Such label printing may be automated or may be triggered through the user input 16. Notably, information in addition to price may also be retrieved from memory 38 for the purpose of defining the label that is printed.
In one example, a store 50 may include a fruit and vegetable department 52 with multiple scales 10, in the form of self-service scales, located therein for use by customers in weighing items they select. Similarly, a fish department 54, meat department 56 and deli department 58 may include respective scales 10, which typically are not self-service, as they are controlled by store personnel. A store computer 60 may be connected for communication with the scales 10 to provide them with up-to-date product information. A remote computer 62 may also be connected, either through the store computer 60 or directly, to the scales 10. Typically, when price or product changes are made for a particular department of the store 50, updated product information is uploaded to the scales 10 affected by such changes. Advantageously, in the case of such an upload, and prior to discarding the existing product information in memory 38, the controllers 30 in the scales 10 contemplated herein compare the updated product information with the existing product information in order to identify whether the updated product information includes a certain change or certain changes. The controllers 30 of the scales 10 can then take certain actions, including alerting customers to changes in which the customers might be particularly interested.
For the sake of exemplary discussion, consider self-service scales 10 in the fruit and vegetable department 52 of store 50. Assume the memory in scale 10 in the fruit and vegetable department 52 stores existing product information for products in the department 52. When the store desires to make a change, the store computer 60, or remote computer 62, delivers updated product information to the scale for replacing the existing product information stored in the scale memory 38. When the updated product information is received by the scale 10, the scale controller 30 checks to determine whether certain changes have been made.
For example, assuming the product information associated with each product is stored in association with a record according to PLU number for the product, with a simple exemplary record for a product shown in
In addition to checking for price changes, the scale controller 30 may also compare the updated product information with the existing product information to identify the removal of a product or the addition of a new product. In the case of newly added products, in one example the controller may effect display of a message advising customers of new products as reflected in the lower half of the representative display of
In another example the product information stored in memory of the scale may include coupons available to be printed by the scale. For example, when a particular product is weighed the scale may automatically print a coupon for another product. The scale controller 30 compares the updated product information against the existing product information to identify any products that previously had no associated coupon but will have an associated coupon printed going forward, in which case the controller 30 may effect display of a message communicating the products having newly available coupon(s), and/or the coupon(s) themselves, to customers.
It is to be clearly understood that the above description is intended by way of illustration and example only and is not intended to be taken by way of limitation. For example, while the illustrated example assumes all necessary product information is stored directly in memory of each scale, it is recognized that distributed scale systems exist in which a primary or master scale stores the product information and other, secondary scales in the store are connected to the master scale to retrieve product information from that scale. In such cases, the master scale might be configured to perform the above-mentioned comparisons and to subsequently direct the secondary scales to display price alerts and new product alerts etc. Further, it is possible that the store computer 60 or remote computer could simply instruct (by way of the updated product information data records communicated to a scale) the scale to display a special price alert or new item alert so that the scale controller does not need to perform a comparison of the updated product information with the existing product information. In such a case, the product records for each product may include a field for designating an alert, and that field may be set prior to the store computer or remote computer sending the updated product information to the scale. For example, the product records may include an ‘alert’ field, as per
