Providing insights to a merchant

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016162913-A1
Application number	US-201414564530-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Dec 9, 2014
Priority date	Dec 9, 2014
Publication date	Jun 9, 2016
Grant date	—

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 method comprising:
maintaining, using at least one processor, a plurality of social networking profiles, each social networking profile comprising product preferences for a corresponding user; receiving an indication that one or more users from the plurality of users have visited a physical location associated with a merchant; identifying, based on social networking profiles associated with the one or more users, one or more product preferences for the one or more users; and providing merchant insights to the merchant based on the identified one or more product preferences.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein providing the merchant insights to the merchant comprises providing merchant insights corresponding to a particular product based on the one or more product preferences.

3 . The method of claim 2 , wherein providing the merchant insights to the merchant corresponding to a particular product further comprises providing a recommendation that the merchant carry the particular product at the physical location associated with the merchant.

4 . The method of claim 3 , wherein providing the merchant insights to the merchant corresponding to a particular product further comprises providing a recommendation to add the particular product to a specific area within the physical location associated with the merchant.

5 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the merchant insights corresponding to the particular product comprise purchasing behaviors of the one or more users for the particular product.

6 . The method of claim 5 , wherein providing the merchant insights to the merchant corresponding to a particular product further comprises providing a product purchasing frequency, a product purchase location, a mean product price, or a product sales total.

7 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising identifying a common preferred product category from the one or more product preferences associated with the one or more users.

8 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising identifying a common brand from the one or more product preferences associated with the one or more users.

9 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising identifying a common product interest from the one or more product preferences associated with the one or more users.

10 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more product preferences are based on at least one of a product purchase history, product interest, product ratings, or product recommendations.

11 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving product information from the merchant; and generating a merchant profile for the merchant based on the received product information.

12 . The method of claim 11 , further comprising determining a relevancy of the one or more product preferences to the merchant.

13 . The method of claim 12 , wherein determining the relevancy of the one or more product preferences to the merchant comprises identifying product preferences for the one or more users relevant to the merchant based on the merchant profile.

14 . The method of claim 12 , further comprising determining whether to provide the merchant insights to the merchant based on the relevancy of the one or more product preferences.

15 . The method of claim 1 , wherein receiving the indication comprises receiving an indication that one or more mobile devices associated with the one or more users have been present at the physical location associated with a merchant.

16 . The method of claim 1 , wherein receiving the indication further comprises receiving an indication that the one or more users have visited a specific area within the physical location associated with the merchant.

17 . A method comprising:
maintaining, using at least one processor, a plurality of social networking profiles, each social networking profile comprising product preferences for a corresponding; receiving a merchant profile from a merchant; receiving an indication that one or more users from the plurality of users have visited a physical location associated with the merchant; identifying, based on social networking profiles associated with the one or more users, one or more product preferences for the one or more users; identifying, from the identified product preferences for the one or more users, a product category that is of interest to the one or more users and is relevant to the merchant; and providing merchant insights to the merchant corresponding to the product category.

18 . The method of claim 17 , wherein providing the merchant insights corresponding to the product category comprises providing a recommendation that the merchant add one or more products from the product category to the physical location associated with the merchant.

19 . The method of claim 17 , wherein the merchant insights corresponding to the product category comprises a recommendation to add one or more products from the product category to a specific area within the physical location associated with the merchant.

20 . A system comprising:
one or more server devices storing instructions thereon that, when executed by at least one processor, cause the system to:
maintain a plurality of social networking profiles, each social networking profile comprising product preferences for a corresponding user;
receive an indication that one or more users from the plurality of users have visited a physical location associated with a merchant;
identify, based on social networking profiles associated with the one or more users, one or more product preferences for the one or more users; and
provide merchant insights to the merchant based on the one or more product preferences.

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

• G06Q50/01

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06Q30/0202 Primary

  Market predictions or forecasting for commercial activities · CPC title