System and Method for Incorporating Packaging and Shipping Ramifications on Net Profit/Loss When Up-Selling

Abstract

An up-sell and down-sell method and system that considers a ranking of the individual marginal profit / loss of adding every product SKU of a merchant to an order (or a certain subset of SKU's based on other criteria), considering not only certain traditional fixed metrics the merchant may define such as product gross margins, credit card fees and labor costs (the cost of the pick)—but most importantly, variable packaging and shipping costs as well. In particular, the invention focuses on the packaging and shipping ramifications of up-selling every potential merchant SKU (or a certain subset of SKU's based on other criteria) to customer's order and down-selling each item already in customer's order. Once an adjusted net profit / loss ranking by SKU is available that considers variable shipping and packaging ramifications of up-selling such SKU to an existing order, a merchant can then determine to factor such ranking in how it up-sells or down-sells—including but not limited to up-selling certain SKU's and not others, structuring different discounts on different SKU's and potentially incentivizing customers to delete certain items in their order.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application is a continuation (and claims the benefit of priority under 35 USC 120) of U.S. application Ser. No. 12 / 126,435, filed May 23, 2008, now allowed, which claims the benefit to U.S. Provisional Application No. 60 / 940,132, filed on May 25, 2007. Both of these prior applications are incorporated by reference in their entirety.STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT[0002]The present invention was not developed with the use of any Federal Funds, but was developed independently by the inventor.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0003]Up-selling is a cornerstone practice of most catalog and e-commerce merchants. In many instances, especially low margin industries, the art of up-selling may comprise most of the profit made by a merchant. During the ordering process online merchants have traditionally sought to up-sell products to the customer on a range of metrics. These include, but are not limited to, product pref...

Images