Techniques for retail location-aware services

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11120472-B2
Application number	US-201313955628-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 31, 2013
Priority date	Jul 31, 2013
Publication date	Sep 14, 2021
Grant date	Sep 14, 2021

Abstract

Techniques for retail location-aware services are provided. A consumer defines parameters in which it is acceptable to the consumer to receive an offer for a good or service. When the parameters are achievable for an enterprise and when the consumer is in a configured proximity to the desired good or service, the mobile device of the consumer is notified of the offer.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method, comprising:
identifying, by executable instructions executing on a hardware processor from a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium as a retail service, a good liked by a user on a social network;
presenting, by executable instructions selections to the user within an interface for defining under what set of circumstances the user is interested in purchasing the good, and wherein presenting further includes providing the user with the selections that include: specific retailers, a price range for the good, specific features associated with the good, and exclusion retailers that identify retailers for which the user has no interest in purchasing the good, and wherein at least one of the specific features comprises an indication as to whether the user would notify friends of the user of any subsequent made purchase of the good in exchange for a discount, wherein presenting further includes allowing the user to mark some selections mandatory and other selections optional, and wherein presenting further includes weighting the selections identified as optional;
receiving, by the retail service, values for the selections from the interface, wherein receiving further includes associating the user with the selections as a particular consumer that is interested in showrooming the good at retail locations associated with the specific retailers but willing to purchase the product from the specific retailers when the specific features and the price range are within a consumer-defined percentage match to corresponding features and price range provided by any of those specific retailers, wherein the consumer-defined percentage match comprising a calculated percentage match of the selections identified as mandatory and the selections that are weighted and identified as optional by the user against against the corresponding features and the price ranges offered for the good by the specific retailers;
recording, by the retail service, the values along with a user identifier for the user and a mobile device identifier for a mobile device of the user, wherein the device is the mobile device;
detecting, by the retail service, the mobile device of the user within a configured proximity to the retailers based on coordinates tracked by the retail service;
forwarding, by the retail service, the values to systems of retailers based on the detecting of the mobile device within the configured proximity, and wherein forwarding further includes excluding from the values the user identifier and any personally identifiable information associated with the user when forwarding the values to the systems of the retailers and avoiding sharing any of the personally identifiable information associated with the user with the systems of the retailers when forwarding the values; and
providing, by the retail service, a proximity-based alert on the mobile device when any of the retailers located within the configured proximity indicate that the set of circumstances associated with the values are acceptable for the good or the service and those retailers provide offers for the good or the service.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein presenting further includes allowing the user to define the configured proximity via at least one selection.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein receiving further includes permitting specific comments of the user to be entered with the values that are forwarded to the retailers.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein receiving further includes acquiring some of the values as fixed numbers and others of the values as ranges of numbers.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein receiving further includes permitting some of the values to be coupons or discounts held by the user for the good.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein forwarding further includes tracking the retailers for which the values are sent and the user to identify a transaction for the good or the service.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein tracking further includes periodically sending reports to selective ones of the retailers when the user purchased the good or the service from those selective retailers.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein periodically sending further includes automatically collecting a referral fee from those selective retailers based on purchases of the user.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein forwarding further includes forwarding the values based on a direction of travel identified for the user based on position coordinates sent for the mobile device.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein forwarding further includes detecting a speed for the travel when determining the retailers to send the values to in addition to the direction of the travel.

Assignees

• Ncr Corp

Inventors

• Kobres Erick
• Dipietro Philip

Classifications

• G06Q10/40

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

• G06Q20/321

  using wearable devices · CPC title

• G06Q30/0203

  Market surveys; Market polls · CPC title

• G06Q30/0281

  Customer communication at a business location, e.g. providing product or service information, consulting · CPC title

• G06Q20/3224

  Transactions dependent on location of M-devices · CPC title