249 results about "Purchasing decision" patented technology

Various systems for collecting individual post-sale market data for products or services, and determining aggregate post-sale market data therefrom, are provided. In such systems, a sale of a product or service may trigger a third party, such as a payment provider, to arrange for the collection of individual post-sale market data from the consumer. Dependent upon the type of product or service involved, a schedule for continuously submitting post-sale market data for the product or service may be provided and the consumer may be encouraged to submit post-sale market data in accordance therewith through a variety of incentives. The received, individual, post-sale market data may be aggregated by one or more sources to determine aggregate post-sale market data for the product or service. The submitted individual data and/or the determined aggregate post-sale market data may then be provided to consumers in order to assist them in making purchasing decisions.

The present invention is a method and system for measuring human response to retail elements, based on the shopper's facial expressions and behaviors. From a facial image sequence, the facial geometry—facial pose and facial feature positions—is estimated to facilitate the recognition of facial expressions, gaze, and demographic categories. The recognized facial expression is translated into an affective state of the shopper and the gaze is translated into the target and the level of interest of the shopper. The body image sequence is processed to identify the shopper's interaction with a given retail element—such as a product, a brand, or a category. The dynamic changes of the affective state and the interest toward the retail element measured from facial image sequence is analyzed in the context of the recognized shopper's interaction with the retail element and the demographic categories, to estimate both the shopper's changes in attitude toward the retail element and the end response—such as a purchase decision or a product rating.

To assist in patent searching a description includes a consumer purchasing behavior profiling system having aspects including consumer profiles formed and updated based on a variety of data. Advertisers access to send targeted advertising messages to the consumers. Aspects include advertising information together with incentive level and mix being correlated with the consumer profile to produce a measure of the applicability of the ad to that consumer and the probability of converting that consumer. Other aspects include determining the mix of ad information, incentive level and type, and product offering that will be required to convert an ad viewer to a buyer. Aspects focus on using wireless devices with consumers. Other aspects reside in methods of using electronic coupons distribution and redemption to collect additional data points necessary to understand the consumer's purchasing decision process and factors that influence the purchasing decision.

An apparatus to generate a playlist of media created by emerging artists for use by a media distribution center in response to purchasing decisions stored on a website comprises a storage unit configured to receive and store a plurality of media titles from a plurality of emerging artists, an interface for communicating data associated with at least a portion of the stored media titles, and a processor in communication with said storage unit and said interface. The processor is configured to permit a plurality of users to purchase a media title from the emerging artists, record sales data associated with the media titles, generate a playlist of selected media titles in response to parameters associated with the media titles and selected by a media distribution center, wherein at least one of the parameters is related to a the sales data, and transmit data associated with the selected media titles to the interface.

A computer-aided decision-making system and method that is applicable to a variety of decision-making contexts and applications such as, but not limited to, automobile or home purchase decisions. The computer-aided decision-making system provides immediate, useful, and relevant information to a person in a decision-making context, overcoming common human cognitive problems that occur in decision-making, and enabling consumer purchases in an on-line sales environment. In particular, aspects of the invention that aid a person in decision-making include, but are not limited to: managing all the sub-decisions, educating the decision-maker, highlighting the most important sub-decisions, offering the most viable proposals for evaluation, distinguishing significant differences between proposals, supplying various evaluation tools, preventing blind spots, assisting the decision-maker's memory, gauging the progress of the decision process, and learning about the decision maker from the decision process.

A system and method is provided for increasing purchase conversion rates for prospective online buyers of products and services by offering an incentive to encourage a quicker decision to complete the purchase. In those cases when a trial is offered, the present invention incentivizes the prospective buyer to skip the trial and proceed immediately to purchase the product or service being offered. The system includes a timer that is visible to the customer and counts the elapsed time since the offer was made and an offer statement that describes the incentive being offered in order to proceed with the purchase. The timer in turn counts down a time until the incentive offer expires. There may further be a hidden prize offered by the seller, to be won by the potential purchaser if they make the decision to buy at a specific time during the offer period.

To help customers make purchasing decisions, metrics can be measured and displayed to a user. In one embodiment, the metrics displayed include at least a portion of a measured metric over a first period of time, at least a portion of a current metric, and at least a portion of a projected future metric over a second period of time. In one embodiment, a system receives information relating to a target audience or advertisement delivery preferences of an advertiser. The system can display to the user an interface comprising a chart showing at least some historical impressions over a first period of time, at least some current impressions, and at least some projected future proposed impressions over a second period of time. In one embodiment, the user can use the interface to purchase and/or to bid for advertisement placements.

A method (and system) of providing an interactive visual analysis of business expenditure, includes using an interactive graphical view to gain insight into purchase information for assisting in understanding purchase activities and making decisions on purchasing.

Apparatus according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention comprises a contract repository (200) in which details of each of a plurality of contracts established with a supplier of a good or service is stored. Similarly, each of a plurality of purchase orders (30) submitted by one or more buyers are stored in a purchase order repository 300. A subsystem (1) for linking purchase orders (30) to contracts (20) and for aggregating information is provided. The subsystem (1) employs a linking table (10) for recording links between contracts (20) and purchase orders (30). The linking table (10) in an exemplary embodiment of the present invention includes a column (101) for recording contract identifiers (201) in respect of contracts (20) used to realise purchase orders (30) a column (102) for recording in respect of each contract identifier (201) a list of purchase order identifiers denoting purchase orders realised using that particular contract, and a table (103) of aggregate attributes in respect of all realised purchase orders. In a described example, the table (103) of aggregate attributes includes the total quantity (501) of goods purchased using each contract, and the current discount level (502) in respect of each contract. At any time, when a link between a contract identifier and a purchase order identifier is generated, the table (103) of aggregated attributes is also updated. Thus, the aggregated quantity (501) (which comprises the total quantity of goods purchased using a particular contract) is updated to reflect the additional quantity of goods purchased in respect of the contract. This value (501) is then used to determine the current discount level (502) which applies to that contract.

A system and methodology for providing timely information regarding an automobile or other vehicle from one or more sources linked by a global computer network such as the Internet to a device such as a hand-held portable wireless device (cellular or LAN), whereby the vehicle information may be displayed to a user and utilized by the user for making a purchase decision regarding that automobile or class of automobiles in a real time fashion.

The present invention is a system and method for determining the hierarchical purchase decision process of consumers in front of a product category. The decision path of consumers is obtained by combining behavior data with the category layout and transaction data based on observed actual in-store purchase behavior using a set of video cameras and software for extracting sequence and timing of each consumer's decision process. A hierarchical decision tree structure comprises nodes and edges, wherein a node represents the state-of-mind of the consumer, the number of nodes is predefined, and an edge represents the transition of the decision. The decisions for each product group are captured down to the product attribute level and analyzed by demographic group. The outcome provides relative importance of each product attribute in the purchase decision process, and helps retailers and manufacturers to evaluate the layout of the category and customize it for key segment.

The present invention relates to a system and method for generating business decisions. Embodiments of this system and method receive customer transaction data and additional information (cumulatively referred to as ‘modeling data’). This data is utilized to generate a product decision tree which models consumer purchasing decisions as a tree structure. The product decision tree may be utilized by the system to analyze demand for a given leaf (product) in association with other related products. In some embodiments, customers are segmented into groupings of customers who have similar attributes, including similar shopping behaviors. Customer insights are generated for the customer segments. The customer insights and the product decision tree are used to generate business plans, which may then be provided to a store for implementation. These plans may include a product assortment plan, an everyday pricing plan, a promotional plan, and a markdown plan.

The subject invention is directed to a method and system for selecting and purchasing media advertising in a user/server environment accessed through a Web site. The method includes accessing a server system through a Web site by an advertiser in which the advertiser provides information relating to buying criteria and customer data through a form on the Web page in order to select and purchase media advertising. The server system receives and processes the information in order to create at least one media advertising rate request. The server system transmits the rate request to at least one media outlet for processing. The media outlet processes the rate request and transmits the processed rate request to the server system. The server system manipulates the processed rate request to create a media advertising schedule and then transmits the advertising schedule to the advertiser. The advertiser receives the schedule, makes a media advertising purchase decision and transmits the purchase decision back to the server system. Thereafter, the server system transmits the media advertising purchase decision to the media outlet for reserving the purchased advertising.

A data display comprises a window that shows a tree map display having menu information surrounding a field array of differently sized and colored or shaded areas that represent product offering possibilities that conform with user criteria entered through the surrounding menu windows. A Web site that uses the display technique may receive user criteria and retrieve a portion of collected data and display it to the user, so that the retrieved data describes a data subset that is responsive to the user criteria. The retrieved Web pages may be viewed to facilitate review of product offering information, and to facilitate purchase decisions that are transmitted from the Web site visitors.

A method, system and computer program product for providing relevant product reviews to a user. A user's session on a website is monitored to gather information related to reviewing and writing product reviews as well as to buying and browsing habits. The actions performed by the user in connection with the monitored user session are populated in a database. Once populating the database is completed, the personality report of the user, which includes personality traits, is generated using the populated database. Also, a list of reviewers that are favored by the user is generated. By using the personality traits of the user to match reviews of interest as well as providing reviews from those reviewers favored by the user, the user can have more confidence in the usefulness or relevance of these reviews.

A request for information (RFI) system is provided for use in communications networks including broadcast networks and the Internet. In one implementation, a code identifying an item of media content of interest (e.g. television, newspaper, magazines, billboards, radio) is captured and input to an RFI system that includes stored media tags and a search tool for matching inputs to the stored media tags. Upon receipt of the captured code, the RFI system matches the captured code with the stored media tags and provides a response to the user based on the match. The response may include or relate to follow-on or premium information relating to the content of interest. Using this information, an RFI data center or an RFI platform may credit value to a rewards account established for the network user based on the user's verified consumption of assets and/or data requests. Further, the RFI data center or RFI platform may be used to collect consumer behavior information, including purchasing decisions made by the user after consumption of assets, and correlate the consumer behavior information with the user's verified asset consumption.

Consumer-generated product reviews are a mainstay of electronic commerce and a key factor in the consumer decision process. A shopper's typical online purchase decision can involve tedious reading of multiple reviews written by previous purchasers in order to find and compare products for purchase. Disclosed herein is an automated system, and associated methods, that identifies the product attributes discussed in consumer reviews and summarizes consumer sentiment for each attribute for each product thus, offering immense value to consumers and retailers alike.

Methods and systems for a fuzzy logic engine (FLE) for an interactive product selector. In an embodiment, the interactive product selector provides a user with purchase decision questions (PDQs) regarding a product/service specified by the user. The PDQs can attempt to measure the user's product/service requirements. In an embodiment, the PDQs can be presented in radio button or check-box format, and as the user selects different options within the radio button or check-box PDQs, information is provided to the user and the options are recorded or otherwise tracked by the FLE. The FLE computes individual fuzzy sets for the PDQs according to the user's option chronology, and assigns membership grades to individual options. In an embodiment, the individual membership grades are associated with products/services based on feature, scaled, and thereafter averaged to compute a master fuzzy membership grade for a product/service. Higher master fuzzy membership grades can indicate a product/service more closely related to the user's requirements. The user can be presented with products/services in descending order of master fuzzy membership grade.

The invention is an electronic shelf (eShelf). The eShelf uses highly conductive electrodes to solve the long-line addressing problems using very-simple, low-cost manufacturing processes to build very-long, reflective, “no-power”, full-color, liquid crystal displays (LCDs) with perfect image retention. The electronic shelf is composed of an eSheet cholesteric LCD attached to a shelf product sensor pad that can turn a normal store aisle into an interactive, full-color, fun and informative shopping experience. The eShelf is the next generation of in-store smart technology combining product management with customer interaction and advertising. The true success of the eShelf will depend on the countless apps that will run on or interact with the eShelf to help customers make their purchasing decisions. These software applications will allow the eShelf to interact with the customers smart mobile device, such as, a tablet, smartphone, smartwatch, or Google Glass.

A request for information (RFI) system is provided for use in communications networks including broadcast networks and the internet. In one implementation, a viewer of a cable television network enters an RFI input (1) to a digital set top box using a user remote. Based on this RFI input, the digital set top box transmits a data request (2) to an RFI data center. The RFI data center also receives asset data (3) from an asset database so as to associate the RFI input (1) with a particular asset. An RFI request (4) can then be transmitted to the appropriate asset provider. The asset provider can then provide a report such package of assets or follow-on information (5) back to the RFI data center. The RFI data center may then, in turn, provide the package of assets or follow-on information to a user data terminal, for example, of the cable television network viewer, via access through a web-portal or e-mail (6). The digital set top box may also record inputs from the user to verify consumption of assets and track data requests. Using this information, the RFI data center or an RFI platform may credit value to a rewards account established for the network user based on the user's verified consumption of assets and/or data requests. Further, the RFI data center or RFI platform may be used to collect consumer behavior information, including purchasing decisions made by the user after consumption of assets, and correlate the consumer behavior information with the user's verified asset consumption.

An interface device fits between a point-of-sale terminal and a peripheral element, for example, the UPC scanner, to permit a rapid checkout of groceries or the like by simulating rapid scanning of a stored grocery list accumulated by a consumer in a roaming checkout through the store. The consumer scans items as he or she shops to create the stored grocery list. A promotional system for providing coupons at the point of purchase decision and the novel method of handling items that need to be weighed are also provided.

A system for automatically preparing customized replies in response to communications from a plurality of clients. To facilitate automation and tracking, each original communication to the client (or each original response from the client) is tagged with a unique label, and replies to client responses are each correspondingly labeled. The system provides individualized replies to each of a variety of response options that a client might exercise in response to a received communication, whether an original communication or a reply to a previous response. The system is applicable to mass marketing communications, and is particularly well suited to the generation of personalized replies to each and every one of a multitude (tens of thousands and up to millions) of communications from clients. The system is also capable of continuing to generate replies to follow-up responses from clients and to thereby maintain an ongoing “conversation” until the client makes a purchase decision, or no longer responds. Communications may be delivered through a variety of means, such as the internet, the mails, by facsimile, on a host communication, etc.