Systems and methods for use in forecasting changes in sales

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10140624-B2
Application number	US-201715492499-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 20, 2017
Priority date	Apr 20, 2016
Publication date	Nov 27, 2018
Grant date	Nov 27, 2018

Abstract

In some embodiments, apparatuses and methods are provided to forecast expected sales and/or demand for one or more products at one or more retail shopping facilities. Some embodiments include systems to forecast retail sales, comprising: a network transceiver; a forecast control circuit; and a memory storing computer instructions executed by the control circuit that receives, via the network transceiver from at least one third party service unassociated with retail shopping facilities and accessed over a distributed computer network, reservation data corresponding with people traveling during a future period of time to a geographic region that is within a threshold distance from a first retail shopping facility; and forecasts expected sales, during the future period of time associated with the reservation data, of at least a first set of products at the first retail shopping facility as a function of the reservation data.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system to forecast retail sales, comprising:
a network transceiver coupled to communicate over a distributed computer network;
a forecast control circuit; and
a memory coupled to the forecast control circuit and storing computer instructions that when executed by the forecast control circuit cause the forecast control circuit to:
receive reservation data corresponding with people traveling during a future period of time via the network transceiver from third party services that are separate from the forecast control circuit, unassociated with retail shopping facilities and accessed over the distributed computer network;
receive, at the forecast control circuit via the distributed computer network, additional data from multiple different and geographically distributed Internet of Things;
access a first set of rules to be applied to the reservation data;
apply the first set of rules to the reservation data to identify a forecasted geographic region corresponding to a subset of the reservation data and identify at least a first retail shopping facility corresponding to the geographic region;
access a second set of rules and apply the second set of rules to identify a portion of the additional data obtained from the Internet of Things that are associated with the geographic region corresponding to the first retail shopping facility;
access a third set of rules and apply the third set of rules to the reservation data and the portion of the additional data to identify historic periods of time having similar historic reservation data to the subset of the reservation data corresponding to the geographic region;
access a fourth set of rules applied in forecasting sales;
apply the fourth set of rules to identify historic actual sales of at least a first set of products at the first retail shopping facility during the historic periods of time, and forecast expected sales, during the future period of time associated with the reservation data, of at least the first set of products, including at least expected sales of a first product, at the first retail shopping facility as a function of the subset of the reservation data, the portion of the additional data and the historic actual sales; and
an inventory system communicatively coupled over the distributed computer network to access the forecasted expected sales during the future period of time and comprising memory storing inventory information of available inventory of the first retail shopping facility, wherein the inventory system receives the forecasted expected sales, accesses an inventory set of rules, applies the inventory set of rules and causes an adjustment to an order of the first product of the first set of products as a function of the expected sales of the first product and inventory information corresponding to the first product resulting in an adjustment of inventory of the first product at the first retail shopping facility corresponding to the future period of time.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the forecast control circuit further defines a cluster of multiple retail shopping facilities that are within the geographic region that includes multiple specific locations specifically associated with the subset of the reservation data, and forecasts expected sales for each of the multiple retail shopping facilities of the cluster as a function of the subset of the reservation data corresponding to the multiple specific locations.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the forecast control circuit further predicts an end to a season as a function of the reservation data and causes a change in inventory ordering based on the predicted end to the season.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the inventory system is configured to adjust orders of at least the first set of products as a function of the forecasted expected sales of at least the first set of products and the inventory information corresponding to the first set of products thereby adjusting inventory of each product of the first set of products during the future period of time.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the inventory system is configured to modify a sales strategy of at least the first product of the first set of products based on the expected sales of the first product and the inventory information corresponding to at least the first product.

6. The system of claim 1 , further comprising: a worker scheduling circuit coupled with the forecast control circuit to receive the expected sales, wherein the worker scheduling circuit is configured to adjust numbers of workers scheduled during at least a portion of the future period of time associated with the forecasted expected sales.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the reservation data comprises cancellation data of previous reservations, and the forecast control circuit in forecasting the expected sales reduces previously forecasted expected sales as a function of the cancellation data.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the forecast control circuit is further configured to determine based on the reservation data a date of an expected event, and incorporate the event into an events schedule.

9. The system of claim 1 , wherein the forecast control circuit in applying the third set of rules confirms one or more reservations of the reservation data based on the portion of the additional data received from one or more of the Internet of Things.

10. A method to forecast retail sales, comprising:
by a forecast control circuit:
receiving reservation data corresponding with people traveling during a future period of time from third party services that are separate from the forecast control circuit, unassociated with retail shopping facilities and accessed over a distributed computer network;
receiving, at the forecast control circuit via the distributed computer network, additional data from multiple different and geographically distributed Internet of Things;
accessing a first set of rules to be applied to the reservation data;
applying the first set of rules to the reservation data to identify a forecasted geographic region corresponding to a subset of the reservation data and identifying at least a first retail shopping facility corresponding to the geographic region;
accessing a second set of rules and applying the second set of rules to identify a portion of the additional data obtained from the Internet of Things that are associated with the geographic region corresponding to the first retail shopping facility;
accessing a third set of rules and applying the third set of rules to the reservation data and the portion of the additional data to identify historic periods of time having similar historic reservation data to the subset of the reservation data corresponding to the geographic region;
accessing a fourth set of rules applied in forecasting sales;
applying the fourth set of rules to identify historic actual sales of at least a first set of products at the first retail shopping facility during the historic periods of time, and forecasting expected sales, during the future period of time associated with the reservation data, of at least the first set of products, including at least expected sales of a first product, at the first retail shopping facility as a function of the subset of the reservation data and the historic actual sales; and
accessing an inventory set of rules, applying the inventory set of rules and adjusting an order of the first product of the first set of products as a function of the expected sales of the first product and inventory information corresponding to the first product resulting in an adjustment of inventory of the first product at the first retail shopping facility corresponding to the fu

Assignees

• Walmart Apollo Llc

Inventors

• Jones Nicholaus A
• Vasgaard Aaron J
• Jones Matthew A
• Mattingly Todd D

Classifications

• G06Q30/0202 Primary

  Market predictions or forecasting for commercial activities · CPC title

• G06Q10/02

  Reservations, e.g. for tickets, services or events · CPC title

• G06Q10/0631

  Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations · CPC title

• G06Q10/087

  Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders · CPC title