Providing insights to a merchant

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11100520-B2
Application number	US-201916363783-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 25, 2019
Priority date	Dec 9, 2014
Publication date	Aug 24, 2021
Grant date	Aug 24, 2021

Abstract

Embodiments of the present disclosure relate generally to the generation and presentation of merchant insights to a brick-and-mortar merchant. More specifically, one or more embodiments of the present disclosure relate to detecting and identifying users visiting a merchant's retail location, determining product preferences of the identified users that relate to the merchant, and providing merchant insights to the merchant based on the determined product preferences.

First claim

We claim:

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
maintaining a plurality of social networking profiles for a plurality of users that comprise online purchases information;
receiving one or more indications that a subset of users from the plurality of users have visited a physical location associated with a merchant;
detecting, based on the one or more indications that the subset of users have visited the physical location associated with the merchant, a target area within the physical location associated with the merchant where the subset of users visited;
identifying online purchases by the subset of users from social networking profiles associated with the subset of users;
based on identifying the online purchases by the subset of users, comparing the online purchases to products carried at the physical location associated with the merchant to determine one or more additional products from the online purchases that are not carried at the physical location associated with the merchant;
generating merchant insights comprising a recommendation to add the one or more additional products from the online purchases that are not carried at the physical location associated with the merchant to the target area within the physical location associated with the merchant; and
providing the merchant insights comprising the one or more additional products to a client device associated with the merchant.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the merchant insights further comprise a purchase summary of the online purchases by the subset of users that have visited the physical location associated with the merchant.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein providing the merchant insights to the merchant comprises providing one or more product preferences of the subset of users from the social networking profile associated with the subset of users.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 3 , further comprising:
determining the products carried at the physical location associated with the merchant by analyzing a merchant profile associated with the merchant to determine that the merchant does not carry the one or more additional products of the online purchases at the physical location associated with the merchant; and
providing the merchant insights to the client device associated with the merchant by providing a recommendation that the merchant introduce the one or more additional products to the target area at the physical location associated with the merchant.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4 , further comprising:
analyzing the one or more product preferences for the subset of users to determine a common product category preferred by the subset of users that have visited the physical location associated with the merchant;
determine, based on analyzing the merchant profile, a specific area within the physical location associated with the merchant that corresponds to the determined common product category; and
providing the merchant insights to the merchant by providing a recommendation to add products from the common product category preferred by the subset of users to the specific area within the physical location associated with the merchant.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising detecting the target area within the physical location associated with the merchant where the subset of users have visited based on one or more presence detectors within the target area being triggered.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6 , further comprising providing merchant insights to the merchant to add the one or more additional products of the online purchases to the target area within the physical location associated with the merchant is based on detecting the subset of users visiting the target area for at least a threshold amount of time.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 7 , further comprising:
detecting, by the one or more presence detectors within the physical location associated with the merchant, one or more mobile devices associated with the subset of users at the physical location associated with the merchant; and
receiving the one or more indications that the subset of users have visited the physical location associated with the merchant based on the one or more presence detectors detecting the one or more mobile devices associated with the subset of users at the physical location associated with the merchant.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 8 , further comprising detecting, by a first presence detector of the one or more presence detectors within the physical location associated with the merchant, that the subset of users have lingered for at least the threshold amount of time in the target area of the physical location associated with the merchant.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising determining that a percentage of the subset of users have purchased the one or more additional products online.

11. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by at least one processor, cause a computer system to:
maintain a plurality of social networking profiles for a plurality of users that comprise online purchases information;
receive one or more indications that a subset of users from the plurality of users have visited a physical location associated with a merchant;
detect, based on the one or more indications that the subset of users have visited the physical location associated with the merchant, a target area within the physical location associated with the merchant where the subset of users visited;
identify online purchases by the subset of users from social networking profiles associated with the subset of users;
based on identifying the online purchases by the subset of users, compare the online purchases to products carried at the physical location associated with the merchant to determine one or more additional products from the online purchases that are not carried at the physical location associated with the merchant;
generate merchant insights comprising a recommendation to add the one or more additional products from the online purchases that are not carried at the physical location associated with the merchant to the target area within the physical location associated with the merchant; and
provide the merchant insights comprising the one or more additional products to a client device associated with the merchant.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11 , further comprising instructions that cause the computer system to:
receive product information from the merchant; and
generate a merchant profile for the merchant based on the received product information.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 12 , further comprising instructions that cause the computer system to determine a relevancy of the online purchases by the subset of users to the merchant.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 13 , wherein instructions cause the computer system to the determine the relevancy of the online purchases by the subset of users to the merchant by comparing the online purchases by the subset of users that have visited the physical location to the merchant profile.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 13 , further comprising instructions that cause the computer system to determine to provide the merchant insights to the merchant based on the relevancy of the online purchases by the subset of users.

16. A system comprising:
a processor; and
a non-t

Assignees

• Facebook Inc

Inventors

• Linden Lee Charles
• Lewis Benjamin
• Crow Dwight Ewing
• Shottan Jonathan
• Fan Peng

Classifications

• G06Q10/40

  Business processes related to social networking or social networking services · CPC title

• G06Q30/0202 Primary

  Market predictions or forecasting for commercial activities · CPC title

• G06Q50/01

  Physics · mapped topic