Patent Application
20100293032
The present invention is related generally to personal communications devices and, more particularly, to using such devices to share commercial information.
As compared with traditional (“bricks and mortar”) shopping venues, on-line shopping presents several advantages to customers such as convenience, range of selection beyond what any traditional venue could reasonably provide, and easy price comparison among vendors. On-line vendors, too, reap several advantages including especially the opportunity to gather marketing data about their actual and potential customers such as product-viewing history, purchasing history, customer preferences, and demographics. Customers and vendors both benefit from newer social-network tools that allow a customer to bookmark and share information about preferred products (and services) with the customer's friends and family. The sharing of this information exposes the vendor's offerings to a larger community of potential customers which may result in increased sales and an increased gathering of marketing data. To encourage customers to share product information, a vendor may track the proliferation of product information and then reward loyal customers when their referrals result in increased sales to the vendor.
Attempting to compete with the on-line vendors, traditional vendors are beginning to apply some of these same techniques. When entering a retail outlet, a customer may be given a “shopping device” (e.g., a Motorola MC17). The shopping device provides retail customers with features, such as product bar-code scanning, that enhance the shopping experience. Some shopping devices also provide expanded product information when queried, suggest that the customer may wish to purchase additional products related to the products already in the customer's shopping cart, and alert the customer to special sales offers. At the same time, the shopping device identifies the customer to the vendor, tracks the customer's purchasing patterns, updates the vendor's inventory, and gathers marketing data. The traditional vendor can implement a loyalty program based on this gathered data.
The above considerations, and others, are addressed by the present invention, which can be understood by referring to the specification, drawings, and claims. According to aspects of the present invention, a vendor provides a shopping device to a customer. When the shopping device presents commercial information to the customer that the customer finds interesting (e.g., a special-price offer for a product that the customer wants), the customer may choose to share the commercial information. The information is sent from the vendor's shopping device to a personal communications device (e.g., a cellular telephone or personal digital assistant) of the customer. The customer then uses his personal communications device to share the information.
The customer may send the commercial information to any of a number of “socialization media.” For example, the customer may e-mail the information to a friend or post it on-line. In some embodiments, the customer's personal communications device analyzes the commercial information, compares it against information that the customer has stored about certain of his contacts (e.g., Bob and Marie have a very young child or Isaac raises horses), and then chooses appropriate contacts with whom to share this particular piece of commercial information. Specifics about the contacts and about the socialization medium chosen by the customer remain on the customer's personal communications device and need not be shared with the vendor, thus providing a high level of privacy protection.
In some embodiments, the vendor sends tracking information along with the commercial information. If someone is interested in the commercial information shared by the original customer and goes to the vendor to, for example, redeem a coupon, the tracking information provides the vendor with important marketing data. The vendor may use that data to reward the customer who originally shared the commercial information.
In some embodiments, the original customer may also share content that he generates and then associates with the commercial information. For example, the customer may send his own rating of a product or provide hints on how to better use it.
While the appended claims set forth the features of the present invention with particularity, the invention, together with its objects and advantages, may be best understood from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings of which:
a and 4b are schematics of an exemplary personal communications device usable with the present invention.
Turning to the drawings, wherein like reference numerals refer to like elements, the invention is illustrated as being implemented in a suitable environment. The following description is based on embodiments of the invention and should not be taken as limiting the invention with regard to alternative embodiments that are not explicitly described herein.
In
While the shopping device 106 is illustrated in
Some stores 100 include a server 108. (The physical location of the server 108 is not important to the present discussion.) The server 108 communicates with the shopping device 106 to, for example, provide the device 106 with up-to-date product and pricing information and to update the vendor's inventory as products are purchased. If the shopper 102 identifies himself to the vendor, then the server 108 can send targeted information to the shopper 102 and can accumulate specific marketing information (e.g., how often this particular shopper 102 comes into the store 100 and how much and what he usually buys).
In some situations, the shopper 102 may wish to share commercial information gathered during his shopping trip. As one example, he may be impressed with the selection of products available in the store 100 or in their prices. In another example, he may wish a friend of his to review product information in order to vet a potential purchase. According to some aspects of the present invention, information provided by the shopping device 106 is transferred to the personal communications device 104 of the shopper 102. (The information may also be transferred directly from the server 108 to the personal communications device 104.) The shopper 102 then uses the communications capabilities of his personal communications device 104 to share this information. In
Because the shopper 102 uses his own personal communications device 104 to share the commercial information, the shopper 102 does not divulge his contact lists or other personal information to the vendor of the store 100. Also, the shopper 102 does not need to learn how to use a new device to share this information. The vendor of the store 100 benefits from increased traffic generated by the shopper's sharing of the information with his friends. To encourage information sharing, the vendor may reward the shopper 102 whenever the shopper's sharing generates a sale.
More examples and details are presented with reference to the flowcharts of
In optional step 202, the personal communications device 104 also receives tracking information associated with the received commercial information. This information may encode the date that the commercial information was generated and may include an identification of the shopper 102. Usually, the tracking information is used by the vendor of the store 100 to evaluate information-distribution channels and to associate the commercial information with the particular shopper 102. The use of this tracking information is discussed below in relation to step 306 of
The shopper 102 may choose to generate his own information and, in optional step 204, associate it with the received commercial information. For example, the shopper 102 can include a review of the associated product or a simple message saying why he cares to share this information. In more elaborate scenarios, the shopper 102 can include a photograph or video (e.g., of the new puppy he just bought) or his views on how to better use the product.
In step 206, a “socialization medium” is chosen. Some possible media are discussed above in relation to
In the example of
Then in step 208, the commercial information is sent to the selected socialization media. Tracking information and user-generated content, if available, are also sent. Note that there is no requirement that this sending happens while the shopper 102 is still at the store 100. The personal communications device 104 can store the commercial information until, for example, the shopper 102 brings the product home, tries it, writes a review or captures a short video relevant to the product, and then decides where to send it. Note also that all aspects of sending need not occur at one time. In particular, the shopper 102 may choose to add user-generated content to commercial information that he has already shared. In many embodiments, the tracking information is not seen by the shopper 102 and is automatically sent whenever the commercial information itself is shared.
In step 306, the friend 114 (or any recipient of the shared commercial information) decides to act on the information by visiting the store 100. For example, the shared information can include a special-price offer, and the friend 114 visits the store 100 to take advantage of the offer. If the vendor included tracking information along with the original commercial information, then the receipt of this tracking information when the friend 114 visits the store 100 provides valuable marketing information to that vendor. The vendor may choose to reward the original shopper 102 for bringing his friend 114 into the store 100. The more visits generated by the sharing of the shopper 102, the more valuable the reward. Note that the “visit” of the friend 114 need not be a physical visit to the store 100: The vendor of the store 100 may also support a presence on the web, and the friend 114 may choose to redeem the commercial information via a web transaction.
a and 4b show a personal communications device 104 (e.g., a cellular telephone, personal digital assistant, or personal computer) that incorporates an embodiment of the present invention.
b illustrates some of the more important internal components of the personal communications device 104. The device 104 includes at least one communications transceiver 402, a processor 404, and a memory 406 for storing, among other things, a list of contacts.
In view of the many possible embodiments to which the principles of the present invention may be applied, it should be recognized that the embodiments described herein with respect to the drawing figures are meant to be illustrative only and should not be taken as limiting the scope of the invention. For example, any combination of short-range and long-range communications capabilities are contemplated for use by the personal communications device 104. Therefore, the invention as described herein contemplates all such embodiments as may come within the scope of the following claims and equivalents thereof.
