HK1140293A - Point-of-sale system implementing criteria-based transaction totals - Google Patents

Abstract

The Present Invention comprises the steps of determining a first transaction total price and a second transaction total price, for which the consumer is eligible upon the satisfaction of certain criteria. The first total transaction price is sent from a cashier terminal to a payment interface. Further information, such as an indication of the method of payment presented to the payment interface, is sent from the payment interface to the cashier terminal. The Present Invention then determines whether the consumer is eligible for the second total transaction price by using the further information to determine if the required criteria is satisfied. If the criteria is satisfied, the cashier terminal then sends the second total price to the payment interface.

Description

Point-of-sale system for implementing standards-based transaction totals

Cross Reference to Related Applications

The following co-pending and commonly assigned U.S. patent applications relate to and further describe other aspects of the present invention and are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety:

U.S. non-provisional patent application No. 10/772,631 entitled "coupling System" filed on 5.2.1994;

PCT patent application No. PCT/US2004/040539 entitled "coupling System" filed 12/12 of 1994;

U.S. provisional patent application No. 60/864,719 entitled "System And Method For Processing of electronic couplings" filed on 7.11.2006;

U.S. non-provisional patent application No. 11/893,479 entitled "Couponing System" filed on 16.8.2007; and

U.S. non-provisional patent application No. ______ entitled "System And Method For Processing of electronic couplings" filed on 7.11.2007.

Further, the present invention claims priority from previously filed U.S. provisional patent application No. 60/864,727 entitled "Point-Of-Salesystem Implementing Criteria-Based transactions tools", filed on 7.11.2006.

Technical Field

The present invention relates generally to consumer point of sale (POS) systems. The present invention is particularly useful in the context of an electronic discount and coupon processing system.

Background

Most retailers conduct consumer transactions pursuant to electronic point of sale (POS) systems. These systems typically have a cashier terminal that includes a scanner and a display that displays the sale price of the product. Scanners commonly used with these POS systems typically scan bar codes or other similar indicia identifying products through the use of laser reading devices. Typically, the display will show the individual product cost and the current total cost. Once each product is processed or read in this manner, the consumer can typically pay for the product through a payment interface.

The payment interface generally allows the consumer to "swipe" a payment card, such as a credit card or debit card, with an appropriate mechanism on the payment interface. The card swiping process more particularly includes sliding the payment card through a receiving slot provided on the payment interface so that the payment interface can obtain relevant information from a readable tape strip located on the back of the payment card.

Oftentimes, the payment interface also has a Personal Identification Number (PIN) interface, typically in the form of a typing keypad (typepad), that allows the consumer to enter a PIN, verifying whether the consumer is the correct holder of the payment card. The payment interface then receives the total transaction amount from the cashier terminal and processes payment for that amount directly over the network of the payment card issuer. The payment interface then sends an approval message back to the cashier terminal confirming a successful payment transaction. Alternatively, the processing of the payment may occur at a cashier terminal.

Such POS devices are often configured to allow the use of conventional paper coupons. The use of conventional paper coupons to promote and promote specific products is well known in the consumer sales industry. Conventional paper coupons are typically distributed by various means, such as newspaper inserts, mail, etc., and are typically designed to provide a consumer with an incentive to purchase a particular product.

The coupon provides a discount on the purchase price of a particular product that the manufacturer wishes to promote. The discount may be offered directly, such as by listing the monetary value of the discount on the face of the coupon, or indirectly, such as by a percentage or other reduction or reward where the consumer purchases a product (or, in some cases, a collection of products). The reward may be the free offering of a second or subsequent product, or the offering of another related (or unrelated) product.

Coupons are sometimes used by manufacturers to promote products that may be overstocked or out-of-date. In addition, coupons can be used to promote new products and establish brand recognition or share. Finally, coupons allow a manufacturer of a product to offer a particular product at a reduced price without actually changing the pricing of the product.

Typically, a merchant provides a coupon incentive to a consumer immediately upon, for example, the completion of a sale/purchase transaction for a particular product. In most cases, the coupon award is authorized by the manufacturer of the particular product. Alternatively, the coupon incentive may be authorized by a third party specializing in the origination of the coupon. Once the merchant accepts the coupon associated with the product from the consumer, the merchant may then redeem the coupon for cash or other consideration from the manufacturer. Because merchants typically redeem a large number of coupons with a large number of manufacturers, coupon clearinghouses are typically used to sort, segregate, count and authenticate coupons, as well as to submit each coupon to its authorizer/sponsor for reimbursement, and to distribute at least a portion of the reimbursement back to the merchant. In many cases, the coupon clearinghouse typically collects a commission based on the value of the redeemed coupons and subtracts the commission from the reimbursement.

Unfortunately, currently known paper coupon redemption systems include very labor intensive processes for both the manufacturer and the seller. In addition, the merchant must accept and grant credit to the coupon, as well as the responsibility for physically transferring the coupon to the coupon clearinghouse.

Moreover, while conventional paper coupons may be effective in helping manufacturers handle merchandise, promote the sale of overstocked or outdated products, promote new products, and/or establish brand recognition, handling such conventional paper coupons is burdensome and often subject to fraud because conventional paper coupons may be easily duplicated and current systems are unable to satisfactorily audit whether a conventional paper coupon is actually used by a consumer in connection with a sale/purchase transaction for which the conventional paper coupon was issued.

Further, currently known paper coupon redemption systems used in most merchant/retailer transactions validate conventional paper coupons by verifying that the Universal Product Code (UPC) associated with a product belongs to a product family (defined by the manufacturer). In this case, the vendor is ultimately responsible for maintaining an accurate family code on its POS system. It is known that due to this burden, some vendors typically bypass the family code portion of the verification process and only verify whether the product is from the relevant manufacturer.

Finally, in the event that the brand of a particular product changes ownership from one manufacturer to another, the associated UPC needs to be changed. This leads to a situation that the consumer may confuse: two different coupons are issued for a product, one coupon for each manufacturer. Optionally, to avoid such consumer confusion (and any account reconciliation), new manufacturers need to wait until the distribution channels are cleared before providing coupons.

It is therefore desirable to provide coupons or other product-based discounts that are not directly tied to the provision and redemption of conventional paper coupons. For example, it may be desirable to provide product-based discounts that are automatically applied based on various criteria, such as the form of payment provided by the consumer. This can be used, for example, to encourage consumers to use forms of payment that are less costly to the vendor. Payment method discount eligibility may also be used by Payment card issuers to encourage consumers to pay with the issuer's card. However, in the conventional POS system, the payment interface cannot enable the total amount of payment to be automatically corrected according to a standard such as a payment form, thereby preventing a seller from reliably and transparently using the payment type as a discount standard.

Summary of the invention

In general, the present invention relates to methods and systems for completing retail transactions involving the purchase of one or more products by a consumer. The invention includes the step of determining a first total transaction price and a second total transaction price, the second total transaction price being eligible for by the consumer when certain criteria are met. The first total transaction price is sent from the cashier terminal to the payment interface. Further information, for example an indication of the payment method provided to the payment interface, is sent from the payment interface to the cashier terminal. The present invention then determines whether the consumer is eligible for the second total transaction price by using the further information to determine whether the required criteria are met. If the criteria are met, the cashier terminal sends the second total price to the payment interface.

Alternatively, the step of determining the first total transaction price may be performed by processing a plurality of products by retrieving prices associated with the products and summing the prices to arrive at the first total transaction price. The step of determining the second total transaction price may be accomplished by retrieving a plurality of individual discounts associated with the purchased product and subtracting the sum of the one or more discounts from the first total transaction price to arrive at the second total transaction price.

In some embodiments, the step of sending further information from the payment interface to the cashier terminal may be accomplished by swiping the payment card in a slot interface located on the payment interface, receiving payment method information encoded on the payment card, and sending the payment method information to the cashier terminal.

In some implementations, the eligible payment form may be selected from a plurality of payment forms consisting of the eligible payment form and a payment form having a transaction cost greater than the eligible payment form. In such embodiments, the consumer receives an incentive to utilize a particular form of payment with a lower transaction cost than other forms of payment.

As described herein, the present invention may be implemented by a system including various means for performing the above-described steps. In one embodiment, the system may include a payment interface for obtaining payment information from a consumer, a communication channel for sending information describing a payment method to a cashier terminal, which in turn sends a first total price to the payment interface and a second total price according to the consumer satisfying a predetermined criterion. The system also includes a data interface, a POS backend, and a display.

In some embodiments, the POS backend may be used to retrieve prices and discounts for products purchased by the consumer. In addition, the POS backend may also be used to generate an electronic file containing an indication of the products purchased by the consumer, the price associated with each product, and any discounts applied in association with each product.

Brief description of the drawings

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a point-of-sale system implementing a standards-based transaction total; and

FIG. 2 is a flow chart detailing a method of processing discounts for a consumer at a billing station.

Detailed description of the invention

While this invention is susceptible of embodiment in many different forms, there is shown in the drawings and will herein be described in detail several specific embodiments, with the understanding that the present disclosure is to be considered as an exemplification of the principles of the invention and is not intended to limit the invention to the embodiments illustrated.

As shown in FIG. 1, discount processing system 3 includes a consumer display 6, a payment interface 9, a cashier terminal 12, and a POS backend 21. Cashier terminal 12 may additionally include a scanner, keyboard, and data interface to interact with POS backend 21. Further, while the POS backend 21 will be described in detail below, it should be noted that the POS backend 21 may be used to generate an electronic file or database containing the product purchased by the consumer, the individual prices associated with the product, and any discounts associated with the product.

FIG. 2 illustrates one embodiment of the operation of discount processing system 3 of FIG. 1. As shown in FIG. 2, discount processing system 3 allows discounts to be applied to products purchased by a consumer based on the type of payment selected by the consumer. The discount is applied through a series of communications between cashier terminal 12 and payment interface 9. In particular, when a product purchased by a consumer is processed at cashier terminal 12 (block 100), cashier terminal 12 tabulates the total price of the product in two separate determinations via POS backend 21, in one determination the total price using any criteria-based discount that may be applied to the transaction, and in one determination the total price without using such a discount (block 110).

Preferably, the determination of each total price is made according to the following steps: first, as the consumer scans or has scanned each product, discount processing system 3 retrieves the price for each product by utilizing a database in which an identification tag corresponds to each product. In this example, a database or other similar entity may be located on POS backend 21, and POS backend 21 may be accessed through a discount controller. Second, the price of each product is aggregated. This results in a first total price, i.e. the total price determined without any possibly applied criteria-based discount. To obtain the second total price, discount processing system 3 retrieves one or more individual discounts associated with the product and subtracts the sum of the discounts from the first total price to obtain the second total price. As with the database identified above, the retrieval aspect of the second total price may include accessing the POS backend 21.

After all products have been processed, the consumer is provided two total prices, preferably via the consumer display 6: a first total price without a discount and a second total price at which the discount is applied, the discount being available if the consumer meets any applicable criteria, such as a eligible form of payment (block 120).

In block 130, the first total price is sent to the payment interface 9. After the consumer selects the payment form and initiates the payment transaction, payment interface 9 sends information indicative of the payment form to cashier terminal 12 (block 140). The sending of the information may take place by means of swiping a payment card in a slot located on the payment interface 9. Payment interface 9 then preferably sends this information to cashier terminal 12. Alternatively, the slot may be located on cashier terminal 12. In this case, payment interface 9 need not send this information to cashier terminal 12.

In block 150, cashier terminal 12 determines whether the transaction is eligible for a discount based on the type of payment provided. For example, if a vendor can process a debit card transaction less expensively than a credit card transaction, the vendor may only offer discounts to consumers who pay using the debit card.

If the form of payment is not eligible for the discount, cashier terminal 12 sends a second total price to payment interface 9 (block 160). The payment is then processed over the appropriate network using the second total price (block 170). If the consumer chooses not to pay using a qualified payment form, cashier terminal 12 does not send back a revised total, and the first total price is then processed (block 180). After the payment is processed, payment interface 9 sends a confirmation of the payment back to cashier terminal 12 (block 190), completing the transaction.

The foregoing description and drawings merely explain and illustrate the invention, and the invention is not limited thereto, since modifications and changes will occur to those skilled in the art upon an understanding of the present disclosure without departing from the scope of the invention.

Claims (13)

1. A method for completing a retail transaction involving a consumer purchasing one or more products, the method comprising the steps of:

determining a first total transaction price;

determining a second total transaction price; wherein the consumer is eligible for the second total price when the discount criteria is met;

sending the first total transaction price from a cashier terminal to a payment interface;

sending information about the discount criteria from the payment interface to the cashier terminal;

determining whether the consumer is eligible for the second total price by using information related to the discount criteria to determine whether the discount criteria are met; and

sending the second total price to the payment interface if the discount criteria are met.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the discount criteria is met if the consumer utilizes a eligible form of payment.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein said step of determining a first total transaction price comprises the steps of:

processing the one or more products purchased by the consumer by retrieving a separate price associated with each of the one or more products; and

aggregating the individual prices to obtain the first total transaction price;

wherein said step of determining a second total transaction price comprises the steps of:

retrieving one or more individual discounts associated with the one or more products; and

subtracting the sum of the one or more discounts from the first total transaction price to obtain the second total transaction price.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of sending the information comprises:

swiping a payment card in a slot located on the payment interface;

receiving payment type information, the payment type information being encoded on the payment card indicating the form of payment; and

and sending the payment type information to the cashier terminal.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the eligible payment form is selected from a plurality of payment forms consisting of the eligible payment form and one or more other payment forms having a transaction cost greater than a transaction cost of the eligible payment form, whereby the consumer receives an incentive to utilize a payment form having a lower transaction cost than the other payment forms.

6. A system for completing a retail transaction involving a consumer purchasing one or more products, the system comprising:

means for determining a first total transaction price;

means for determining a second total transaction price, wherein the second total price is eligible for by the consumer when the discount criteria is met;

means for sending the first total transaction price from a cashier terminal to a payment interface;

means for sending information about the discount criteria from the payment interface to the cashier terminal;

means for determining whether the consumer is eligible for the second total price by using information related to the discount criteria to determine whether the discount criteria are met; and

means for sending the second total price to the payment interface if the discount criteria are met.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the discount criteria is met if the consumer utilizes a eligible form of payment.

8. The system of claim 6, wherein the means for determining a first total transaction price comprises:

means for processing one or more products of a consumer by retrieving one or more individual prices associated with the one or more products; and

means for aggregating the one or more individual prices to arrive at the first total transaction price;

wherein the means for determining a second total transaction price comprises:

means for retrieving one or more individual discounts related to the one or more products; and

means for subtracting the sum of the one or more discounts from the first total transaction price to obtain the second total transaction price.

9. The system of claim 6, wherein the means for sending the information comprises:

means for receiving payment type information encoded on a payment card indicating a form of payment; and

a communication interface for sending the payment type information to a cashier terminal.

10. A system for completing a retail transaction involving a consumer purchasing one or more products, the system comprising:

a payment interface for obtaining payment information from a consumer and sending information on a payment type to a cashier terminal;

the cashier terminal is used for sending a first total price to the payment interface, sending a second total price according to the condition that a consumer meets a first standard, and comprises a data interface for the rear end of a point of sale;

the point of sale back end; and

a display.

11. The system of claim 4, wherein the point of sale back end is to retrieve one or more individual prices and one or more individual discounts for one or more products purchased by a consumer.

12. The system of claim 5, wherein the point-of-sale backend is also to generate an electronic file containing the one or more products purchased by the consumer, the one or more individual prices associated with the one or more products, and the one or more discounts associated with the one or more products.

13. The system of claim 6, further comprising a discount controller having a data interface to the point of sale back end.