SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DELIVERING
PROMOTIONS
BACKGROUND
[0001] The invention relates generally to a technique of delivering promotions to a consumer at a point of sale (PoS) and, more particularly, to a technique of enabling the retailers or merchandisers to provide personalized promotions and discounts to their consumers at the point of sale (PoS). .
[0002] In a retail environment, a point of sale (PoS) system typically includes one or more PoS terminals at the checkout counter and a centrally located PoS controller or server. The transactions occur at PoS terminals and are then communicated to the PoS controller for storage and processing. Each of the terminals has attached peripheral devices for recording transactions. The consumers generally check out after their purchase.
[0003] While traditional PoS systems were primarily intended for tracking and record keeping of sales, there is considerable interest in offering promotions and discounts to customers based on certain parameters such as sales volume. Such promotional schemes are expected to encourage sales and ultimately increase profits. Current techniques to offer promotional schemes at PoS terminals include operating group promotions or product promotions. Such group or product promotions are pre-determined and stored in the memory of the PoS systems (in particular, networked PoS controllers). For example, all the group promotion programs are operated by use of standard gift coupons. These gift coupons are generated with general discounts and given to the consumers. This information is also hard-coded inside the POS system. Thus, when the consumer brings the coupon appropriate entries are made in the POS system to invoke those pre-entered discount details.
[0004] However, in the retail world, individual personalized promotions are not in use. In other words, promotions/offers are not tailor made for each

individual consumer. When individual promotions are floated, it is difficult and inefficient to generate individual gift coupons. Thus, these individual promotions are either stored in a common database or written on the transaction cards (store/credit cards) carried by the consumers. However, the existing PoS software/hardware platform of the retailer needs to be modified to enable the consumer to avail these promotions at the PoS. Additionally, there is no technique to determine the promotions available to the consumer from his/her transaction card and to apply those promotions to the ongoing transactions. In short, it is difficult to float or operate personalized promotional schemes with the existing setup.
[0005] It is therefore desirable to provide an efficient and cost-effective technique for delivering personalized promotional offers to the consumer at the PoS without interfering with the existing PoS infrastructure and processes.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION
[0006] Briefly, in accordance with one aspect of the technique, a system is provided for delivering personalized promotions to a consumer. The system includes promotion delivery circuitry configured to receive data representative of a consumer and a pending sale of merchandise or a service to the consumer, to access promotional data personalized to the consumer based upon the consumer data, and to apply one or more promotions to the pending sale based upon the promotional data. The promotional data personalized to the consumer is based on a consumer purchase behavior.
[0007] In accordance with another aspect of the technique, a point of sale (PoS) system is provided. The PoS system includes a PoS terminal configured to process a pending sale of merchandise or a service to a consumer. The PoS system also includes promotion delivery circuitry coupled to the PoS terminal and configured to receive data representative of the consumer and the pending sale, to access promotional data personalized to the consumer based upon the

consumer data, and to apply one or more promotions to the pending sale based upon the promotional data. The promotional data personalized to the consumer is based on a consumer purchase behavior.
[0008] In accordance with a further aspect of the technique, a method is provided for delivering personalized promotions to a consumer. The method provides for receiving data representative of a consumer and a pending sale of merchandise or a service to the consumer, accessing promotional data personalized to the consumer based upon the consumer data, and applying one or more promotions to the pending sale based upon the promotional data. The promotional data personalized to the consumer is based on a consumer purchase behavior. Systems and computer programs that afford such functionality may be provided by the present technique.
[0009] In accordance with an additional aspect of the technique, a method is provided for adapting a point of sale (PoS) system for delivering personalized promotions to a consumer. The method provides for installing promotion delivery circuitry in the PoS system. The promotion delivery circuitry is configured to receive data representative of a consumer and a pending sale of merchandise or a service to the consumer, to access promotional data personalized to the consumer based upon the consumer data, and to apply one or more promotions to the pending sale based upon the promotional data.
DRAWINGS
[0010] These and other features, aspects, and advantages of the present invention will become better understood when the following detailed description is read with reference to the accompanying drawings in which like characters represent like parts throughout the drawings, wherein:
[0011] FIG. 1 is a schematic of a system for delivering promotions or offers to the consumers in accordance with aspects of the present technique;

[0012] FIG. 2 is a schematic of a general-purpose computer system adapted to act as different components of the system of FIG. 1;
[0013] FIG. 3 is a schematic of a PoS system for delivering promotions or offers to the consumers in accordance with aspects of the present technique; and
[0014] FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary process for delivering promotions or offers to the consumer in accordance with aspects of the present technique.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0015] The present techniques are generally directed to providing or delivering marketing and/or promotional offers to consumers at the point of sale (PoS). Such promotion and delivery techniques may be useful in a variety of contexts, such as retail outlets, banking companies, airlines industries, hotel industries, and others. Though the present discussion provides examples in context of retail outlets, one of ordinary skill in the art will readily apprehend that the application of these techniques in other contexts, such as for airlines, hotel industries or banking companies, is well within the scope of the invention.
[0016] Referring now to FIG. 1, a schematic diagram of an exemplary system 10 for delivering promotions or offers to the consumers is illustrated in accordance with aspects of the present technique. The system 10 includes one or more transaction terminals 12 for processing consumer transactions. Each of the transaction terminals 12 includes one or more peripheral devices for recording transactions, generating and printing bill, identifying consumer, and so forth. The system 10 further includes promotion delivery subsystem 14 for receiving consumer and transaction data (i.e., data representative of a consumer and a pending sale of merchandise or a service to the consumer), accessing, acquiring, or generating personalized promotions for the consumer, and applying the personalized promotions to the ongoing transaction in accordance with aspects of the present technique. The transaction terminals 12 and the promotion delivery

subsystem 14 may be communicatively coupled to each other via a secured communication channel 16. Additionally, the transaction terminals 12 may be in communication with a transaction server 18 via the secured communication channel 16. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the transaction terminal 12, the promotion delivery subsystem 14 and/or the transaction server 18 may be placed locally with respect to each other (e.g., in a store) or may be remotely located with respect to each other (e.g., the transaction terminals being in a store while the promotion delivery subsystem and the transaction server being in a remote geographical location). It should be noted that the transaction terminal 12 may be a PoS terminal, a kiosk, a portable device, an ATM, or a computer terminal. The transaction server 18 may be a PoS controller, a transaction bank server, or a merchant server. The secured communication channel 16 may be a wired or a wireless communication network such as Internet, local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), transaction network and so forth. Alternatively, the secured communication channel 16 may include a data pathway (e.g., data transfer buses of the transaction terminal or the transaction server) such as a serial bus, a parallel bus, a PCI (peripheral component interconnect) bus, and so forth. In certain embodiments, the data pathway may also include data cables connecting one or more peripheral devices and the transaction terminal 12 or the transaction server 18 such as RS232 cable, USB cable and so forth.
[0017] The promotion delivery subsystem 14 may be a processing device (e.g., a computer, a server, a microcontroller, and so forth) communicatively coupled to the secured communication channel. For example, the promotion delivery subsystem 14 may be a microcontroller communicatively coupled to the data pathway (e.g., PCI bus, RS232 cable) or a server communicatively coupled to the communication network (e.g., PoS LAN). Alternatively, circuitry or module residing in the transaction terminal 12, transaction server 18 and/or promotion delivery subsystem may perform certain of the functionalities of the promotion delivery subsystem 14. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the

art, such circuitry and modules may be a hardware, a software or a combination of hardware and software. The promotion delivery subsystem 14 monitors data traffic on the communication channel 16, acquires the consumer and transaction data traversing over the communication channel 16 upon detecting the data traffic, access and extract promotions or processes the data to generate promotions, compare the promotions against items being purchased, apply the promotions to ongoing transaction, and so forth. The transmission of information between the transaction terminal 12, the promotion delivery subsystem 14 and/or the transaction server 18 may be in real time. It should be noted that the transaction server 18 may store the consumer details along with the associated transactions details in a transaction database 20 for record keeping and other purposes. Similarly, the promotion delivery subsystem 14 may host a promotion database 22 where the consumer details along with details of one or more promotions offered to or availed by the respective consumer may be stored for record keeping and other purposes.
[0018] FIG. 2 illustrates a schematic diagram of a general-purpose computer system 24. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the computer 24 may be adapted to function as the transaction terminal 12, the promotional subsystem 14, or the transaction server 18. The computer 24 may generally include a processor 26, a memory 28, and input/output devices 30 (also referred as peripheral devices) connected via a data pathway (e.g., buses, cables and so forth) 32. The processor 26 accepts instructions and data from the memory 28 and performs various data processing functions of the computer 24. These data processing functions may include receiving/acquiring data representative of a consumer and a pending sale of merchandise or a service to the consumer, accessing promotional data personalized to the consumer from a memory or a transaction card of the consumer, dynamically generating one or more personalized promotions for the consumer, extracting one or more promotions from a promotional data, comparing the promotions against items being purchased, applying one or more promotions to the pending sale, analyzing

consumer purchase behavior via an analytics engine, executing instructions, and so forth as will be discussed further below. The processor 26 includes an arithmetic logic unit (ALU) that performs arithmetic and logical operations, and a control unit that extracts instructions from memory 28 and decodes and executes them, calling on the ALU when necessary.
[0019] The memory 28 stores a variety of data computed by the various data processing functions of the computer 24 or received from the input/output devices 30. The data may include, for example, transaction card data, transaction data, consumer data, promotional data related to the consumer and so forth. The memory 28 generally includes a random-access memory (RAM) and a read-only memory (ROM); however, there may be other types of memory such as programmable read-only memory (PROM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM) and electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM). Also, the memory preferably contains an operating system, which executes on the processor 26. The operating system performs basic tasks that include recognizing input, sending output to output devices, keeping track of files and directories and controlling various peripheral devices. The information in the memory 28 might be conveyed to a human user through the input/output devices 30, the data pathway 32, or in some other suitable manner.
[0020] The input/output devices 30 may include a keyboard 34 and a mouse 36 that enables a user to enter data and instructions into the computer 24. Additionally, the input/output devices 30 may include a display device 38 that enables the user to view the available information and a printer 40 that enables the user to print any data for his reference. Further, the input/output devices 30 enable the transaction terminal 12, the promotion delivery subsystem 14 and/or the transaction server 18 to acquire consumer data, promotion data and/or transaction data of the consumer. In particular, the input/output device 30 may include a reader configured to acquire information from a readable device such as a transaction card, a mobile telephone and/or a personal digital assistant (PDA) carried by the consumer. For example, the input/output device 30 may include a

card read/write device 42 configured to read information from a transaction card and to write information on the transaction card when the transaction card is swiped or presented to the terminal 12. Alternatively, the input/output device 30 may include a data cable, a Bluetooth port and/or an infrared port to read consumer and/or promotional data from the mobile telephone and/or the personal digital assistant (PDA). The input/output devices 30 at the terminal 12 may further include a barcode scanner 44 for scanning the barcode from the products or the coupons, thereby acquiring the information related to the products or the coupons.
[0021] The computer 24 may ftirther include a communication port 46 such as a telephone, cable or wireless modem; a network card such as an Ethernet adapter, local area network (LAN) adapter, integrated services digital network (ISDN) adapter, or Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) adapter; a USB port; IEEE 1394 port; and so forth, that enables the computer 24 to access other computers and resources on the communication network 48. In particular, in certain embodiments, the communication port 46 enables the transaction terminal 12, the promotion delivery subsystem 14 and the transaction server 18 to access each other over the communication network 48.
[0022] The computer 24 may also include data acquisition circuitry 50 for acquiring data traversing over the communication channel (communication network 48 and/or the data pathway 32). As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the data acquisition circuitry 50 may employ any packet sniffing technologies to acquire the data being transferred over the communication channel. In one embodiment, sniffer cards may be employed based on the communication channel to which the data acquisition circuitry is plugged (e.g., PCI sniffer card on the PCI bus of the PoS terminal). In particular, the promotion delivery subsystem 14 is configured to acquire consumer data, promotion data and/or transaction data traversing over the communication channel through the data acquisition circuitry 50. Additionally, the data acquisition circuitry may be configured to constantly monitor data traffic over the communication channel.

Thus, the data acquisition circuitry 50 acquires data packets containing consumer identification, promotions, and/or transaction details upon detecting the data traffic on the communication channel. Moreover, in certain embodiments, the promotion delivery subsystem 14 may receive data from the one or more peripheral devices or from the transaction terminal 12 and relay it to the transaction terminal 12 or to the transaction server 18 respectively. It should be noted that such relaying is a type of data sniffing as discussed above. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the acquisition of data packets is carried out without interfering with normal legacy PoS operation.
[0023] The computer 24 may also include a mass storage device 52 to allow the computer 24 to retain large amounts of data permanently. The mass storage device 52 may include all types of disk drives such as floppy disks, hard disks and optical disks, as well as tape drives that can read and write data onto a tape that could include digital audio tapes (DAT), digital linear tapes (DLT), or other magnetically coded media. The above-described computer 24 may take the form of a hand-held digital computer, personal digital assistant computer, notebook computer, personal computer, workstation, mini-computer, mainframe computer or supercomputer.
[0024] FIG. 3 illustrates a schematic diagram of a PoS system 54 for delivering promotions or offers to the consumers in accordance with aspects of the present technique. The PoS system 54 includes a PoS terminal 56 and a promotion delivery circuitry/module 58 such as those described above for enabling the retailers or merchandisers to provide personaHzed promotions and discounts to their consumers at the point of sale (PoS). The PoS terminal 56 is adapted to process consumer transactions such as a pending sale of merchandise or a service to the consumer through one or more peripheral devices. The transaction data (comprising information related to products purchased, number of quantity purchased for each product, cost per piece, and so forth) along with consumer data (comprising consumer identification information) may be entered into the PoS terminal 56 through various peripheral devices. For example, in the

illustrated embodiment, a barcode scanner 58 is employed by the PoS system 54 to acquire the details of the items being purchased. The PoS terminal may include or may be coupled to the barcode scanner 58 via a data cable such as RS232 cable to scan barcodes from different product being purchased and presented to the scanner, thereby acquiring details of the items being purchased. These scanned barcodes from the product are entered into the PoS terminal 50 as purchased items. Additionally, the transaction data along with the consumer data may be transmitted from the PoS terminal 56 to a PoS controller (not shown) over a communication channel. As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, the PoS controller may receive the consumer data and the transaction data from the PoS terminal 56 and capture details of a consumer along with details of the transaction performed by the respective consumer in a transaction database.
[0025] The promotion delivery circuitry/module 58 may partially or completely reside within the PoS terminal 56. As noted above, the promotion delivery circuitry/module 52 may be as software or hardware or a combination of hardware and software. For example, the promotion delivery circuitry/module 58 may be programmed circuitry implemented by a configuration code. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the configuration code may be stored, installed, or uploaded on the PoS terminal, the PoS controller and/or a separate promotion delivery subsystem. The promotion delivery circuitry/module 58 is configured to receive/acquire a consumer data, a promotion data, and/or transaction data (comprising details of items being purchased). For example, the promotion delivery circuitry/module 58 may sniff data from a communication channel over which the data is being transmitted. The promotion delivery circuitry/module 58 constantly monitors the PoS communication channel and receives/acquires the data traversing the PoS communication channel by employing any packet sniffing technologies. In one embodiment, the promotion delivery circuitry/module 58 may be hooked to a communication channel of the PoS terminal. The promotion delivery circuitry/module 58 may further decipher

the data transfer protocol and interpret the details of the acquired data (e.g., transaction in progress etc.).
[0026] Additionally, the PoS terminal 56 may be provided with a transaction card reader 62 (e.g., magnetic card reader) to read information from a transaction card carried by the consumer. The transaction card data (comprising consumer identification data and/or promotional data personalized to the consumer) embedded in the transaction card is read via the transaction card reader 62 upon presentation of the transaction card at the PoS terminal 50. The promotion delivery circuitry/module 58 may therefore acquire the consumer identification data and/or personalized promotion data from the transaction card. Alternatively, it should be noted that the consumer identification data may be entered into the PoS terminal 50 through other peripheral devices such as keyboard. The promotion delivery circuitry/module 58 may acquire the input consumer identification data from the PoS terminal 50. Moreover, the promotion delivery circuitry/module 58 may access memory of PoS terminal, promotion delivery subsystem and/or PoS controller and acquire the personalized promotional data for the respective consumer form a promotion database. As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, the one or more promotions may be uniquely encoded in a pre-specified format within the transaction card or in the memory.
[0027] As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the data reception/acquisition may be carried out without interfering with normal legacy PoS operation and processes. Thus, the promotion delivery circuitry/module 58 obtains information related to the consumer (consumer identification and/or promotions available to the consumer) and the transaction details (product identification, transaction volume and so forth) without interfering with normal legacy PoS operation and processes.
[0028] Further, in certain embodiments, the promotion delivery circuitry/module 58 is configured to dynamically generate personalized promotional offers for the consumers based on the consumer profile (consumer

identification, consumer transaction history, past promotions offered or availed by the consumer, and so forth) and/or the transaction details of the ongoing transaction. It should be noted that some or all of the data required for the generation of the promotional offers may be acquired or sniffed. As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, the promotions may be personalized for each consumer based on consumer purchase behavior and interest. The promotion delivery circuitry/module 58 may access the transaction and/or promotion history of the consumer from a transaction and/or promotion database respectively (residing in the transaction server and/or the promotion subsystem) to facilitate the generation of new promotions. The promotion delivery circuitry/module 58 may then perform analysis on each consumer purchase behavior based on his/her current and/or a past transaction and/or promotion data via an analytics engine to generate the one or more personalized promotions. The analysis may be performed periodically or in real time. For example, if an analysis of transactions carried by a consumer in past two months reveals purchase of 'cosmetic products' in most of the transactions, the promotions to be offered to the consumer can be personalized to include promotions on 'cosmetic products'. Similarly, if an analysis of transactions carried by a consumer for past six months reveals a sudden inclusion of 'baby products' in most of the transactions carried in past two months, the analytics engine will know that the promotions being offered to the consumer needs to be updated and personalized to now include promotions on 'baby products'. Thus, personalization of promotions can be done based on the consumer purchase behavior or buying pattern of the consumer. The generated and personalized marketing and promotional offers for a specific consumer may be stored in the memory in a promotion database for subsequent use or tallying. The promotion delivery circuitry/module 58 can access these promotions along with various other marketing or promotional offers from the memory.
[0029] The promotion delivery circuitry/module 58 may be further configured to determine or extract one or more promotions available to the consumer from

the promotion data personalized to the consumer, compare the available promotions against items being purchased, and/or apply the available promotions to the items being purchased. The promotion delivery circuitry/module 58 may check if any of the items being purchased qualifies for the one or more promotions available to the consumer and identify a set of items from the list of items being purchased that qualifies for one or more of the available promotions. The promotion delivery circuitry/module 58 may then apply the one or more of the available promotions to the qualified items. It should be noted that the promotion delivery circuitry/module 58 may apply the one or more promotions to the ongoing transactions in a variety of ways. For example, in certain embodiments, the redeemable promotions may be printed via a printer 64 coupled to the PoS terminal 56. The details of the printed promotional offers may then be entered into the PoS terminal through the peripheral devices (e.g., barcode scanner or keyboard) to avail the discount. In one embodiment, discount coupons may be printed as barcode that may then be immediately scanned via the barcode scanner to avail the discount. Alternatively, the redeemable promotions may be directly applied to the qualified items by making an appropriate entry in the ongoing transaction. This can be achieved by relaying the redeemable promotions over the communication channel as a transaction entry for the ongoing transaction. Thus, the consumer can avail or redeem the available promotions at the point of sale.
[0030] In one illustrative example, a user (consumer or attendee at the point of sale) swipes the transaction card in the transaction card reader. The promotion delivery circuitry/module 58 receives the consumer identification details and/or promotion data from the transaction card. The promotion delivery circuitry/module 58 will then retrieve the promotions available to the consumer based on the promotion data obtained form the transaction card. Additionally, the promotion delivery circuitry/module 58 will start tracking the items being purchased by the consumer as the items are scanned via the barcode scanner or as the details of the items being purchased are entered at the PoS terminal. The

promotion delivery circuitry/module 58 will then check if the items bought are eligible for promotions and generate a list of products for which the consumer is eligible for offers. The promotion delivery circuitry/module 58 will then apply the promotions to the items that qualify for promotions either by making an appropriate entry directly into the ongoing transaction or by printing a discount coupons that can then be entered into the PoS application (scanning the barcodes of the discount coupon or entering the details of the discount coupons). For example, the consumer may be entitled to a 30% discount on buying a dozen pieces of product 'X". The promotion delivery system will keep a track of the items being purchased and check if the product 'X' is bought and if so then how many pieces of product 'X' are bought. If a dozen or more pieces of product 'X' are bought then the promotion delivery system will apply a discount of 30% on product 'X' either by making an appropriate entry into the PoS application or by printing a discount voucher worth 30% of the value of product 'X' that may then be availed at the PoS terminal.
[0031] As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, the transaction card may include any card having a data storage medium. For example, the transaction card may include a magnetic stripe card, a RFID card, an optical card, a contact or contactless smart card and so forth. These cards may be used as a debit card, a credit card, a PLCC card, a bank card, a loyalty card (for facilitating loyalty based promotions carried out by a specific retailer or promoter), reward card (for facilitating reward points based promotions generally carried out by a retailer or transaction bank), and so forth. It should be noted that the information such as promotional data may be written or embedded on one of the available read/write tracks of the magnetic stripe card. In one embodiment, the available read/write track may be track 2 and/or track 3 of the magnetic stripe card. The promotional data may include one or more promotions such as a discount coupon, a cash back offer, a product discount, a credit card APR discount, a reward point based promotion, a loyalty point based promotion and so forth. Additionally, the

one or more promotions may include general information or offers related to product and services such as cross sell offers.
[0032] As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, a variety of techniques may be employed to deliver promotional or marketing offers to the consumers. In particular, as will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art, control logic and/or automated routines for performing the techniques and steps described herein may be implemented by the system 10 and/or 54, either by hardware, software, or combinations of hardware and software. For example, suitable code may be accessed and executed by the processor to perform some or all of the techniques described herein. Similarly application specific integrated circuits (ASICs) configured to perform some or all of the techniques described herein may be included in the processor.
[0033] For example, referring now to FIG. 4, exemplary control logic 66 for delivering personalized promotions or marketing offers to the consumer via promotion delivery systems, such as promotion delivery system 10 and PoS system 54, is depicted via a flowchart in accordance with aspects of the present technique. As illustrated in the flowchart, the control logic 66 includes the steps of receiving data representative of a consumer and a pending sale of merchandise or a service to the consumer at step 68, accessing promotional data personalized to the consumer based upon the consumer data at step 70, and applying one or more promotions to the pending sale based upon the promotional data at step 72. It should be noted that, the promotional data personalized to the consumer is based on a consumer purchase behavior. Further, in certain embodiments, accessing promotional data may include the step of generating one or more personalized promotions to be offered to the consumer based on the data representative of the consumer purchase behavior and the pending sale (acquired consumer and transaction data). Further, it should be noted that applying one or more promotions to the pending sale may include the steps of determining/extracting one or more promotions available to the consumer from the promotional data, comparing the available promotions against the items being

purchased, identifying a set of items from the pending sale that qualifies for the one or more promotions, and applying the one or more promotions to the qualified items. The control logic 66 may also include the step of monitoring data traffic over the communication channel so as to acquire consumer data, promotion data and/or transaction data upon detecting the data traffic.
[0034] As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, comparing the available promotions against the items being purchased comprises identifying a set of items from the items being purchased that qualifies for one or more of the available promotions. The one or more available promotions may then be applied to the qualified items. Further, as will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, applying the available promotions to the items being purchased comprises printing the one or more promotions as a coupon via a printer and entering the details of the coupon via peripheral devices (e.g., barcode scanner, keyboard, etc.) along with the details of items being purchased. Alternatively, applying the available promotions to the items being purchased comprises sending the one or more available promotions to the transaction terminal and making an appropriate entry in an ongoing transaction.
[0035] As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the promotion delivery system and techniques described in various embodiments discussed above provide an efficient and cost-effective way of delivering various promotional or marketing offers to the consumer so as to increase the sales and revenue. For example, the availability of promotional offers at the time of processing a transaction will increase the probability of usage of these offers, thereby increasing the volume of transactions and sales revenue. Additionally, the ability to customize promotional offers for each user via the analytics system will increase the effectiveness of the promotions. The technique further allows a business entity (retailer) to provide personalized promotions and discounts to their consumers at the point of sale (PoS) on each and every consumer purchase. This will enhance the capability of business entities to provide the personalized promotions in real time and at the point of sale. Moreover, the techniques enable

the consumers to use their entitled offers at the point of sale resulting in increased effectiveness of the promotions.
[0036] Further, as will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, the techniques as described in various embodiments discussed above may be easily integrated with a legacy PoS system, thereby allowing non-intrusive integration of promotion incentives and schemes into a legacy PoS system (conventional PoS system). This in part is enabled by employing passive packet sniffing technologies to acquire the consumer, promotion, and/or transaction information. Further, the promotion delivery techniques can be easily deployed in the market using the invention irrespective of their current hardware or software platforms. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the promotion delivery circuitry/module described in the embodiments discussed above may be installed or uploaded in any legacy PoS system, thereby enabling the legacy PoS system to deliver personalized promotions to the consumers. The technique can also be later improved/modified without affecting the functionality of the PoS system. Thus, the technique provides real-time personalized promotions with minimal or no disruption to the existing infrastructure or process. Additionally, marketing and promotional offers can be in made electronic form, thereby reducing or eliminating the traditional and more expensive print based promotion techniques and wastage associated with them. Moreover, promotional values can be netted against transaction values electronically and immediately.
[0037] While only certain features of the invention have been illustrated and described herein, many modifications and changes will occur to those skilled in the art. It is, therefore, to be understood that the appended claims are intended to cover all such modifications and changes as fall within the true spirit of the invention.

We claim:
1. A system for delivering personalized promotions, the system comprising:
promotion delivery circuitry configured to receive data representative of a consumer and a pending sale of merchandise or a service to the consumer, to access promotional data personalized to the consumer based upon the consumer data, and to apply one or more promotions to the pending sale based upon the promotional data, wherein the promotional data personalized to the consumer is based on a consumer purchase behavior.
2. The system of claim 1, wherein the promotion delivery circuitry is
configured to receive data representative of the consumer and the pending sale from a transaction terminal.
3. The system of claim 2, wherein the data representative of the consumer is encoded in a readable device and acquired via a reader coupled to the transaction terminal.
4. The system of claim 2, wherein the data representative of the consumer and the pending sale is input via one or more peripheral devices coupled to the transaction terminal.
5. The system of claim 1, wherein the promotion delivery circuitry is further configured to receive data representative of a profile of the consumer from

a transaction server and/or a promotion delivery subsystem, the profile of the consumer comprising transaction history of the consumer and/or promotion history of the consumer.
6. The system of claim 1, wherein the promotion delivery circuitry is
configured to access the promotional data from a transaction terminal, a transaction server, promotion delivery subsystem, or a combination thereof.
7. The system of claim 6, wherein the promotional data is encoded in
a readable device and acquired via a reader coupled to the transaction terminal.
8. The system of claim 1, wherein the promotion delivery circuitry is configured to access the promotional data by generating one or more personalized promotions based upon the data representative of the consumer purchase behavior and the pending sale.
9. The system of claim 8, wherein the one or more personalized promotions are generated based on a behavioral analysis of a current or a past transaction performed by the consumer, a current or a past promotion offered to or availed by the consumer, or a combination thereof.
10. The system of claim 1, wherein the promotion delivery circuitry is configured to apply the one or more promotions to the pending sale by extracting the one or more promotions from the promotional data, identifying a set of items

from the pending sale that qualifies for the one or more promotions, and applying the one or more promotions to the qualified items.
11, The system of claim 10, wherein the one or more promotions are applied to the qualified items by making an appropriate entry to the pending sale of merchandise or a service or by printing a coupon via a printer coupled to a transaction terminal and entering the details of the coupon through one or more peripheral devices coupled to the transaction terminal.
12. The system of claim 1, wherein the promotion delivery circuitry includes programmed circuitry implemented by a configuration code, the configuration code being stored on a transaction server, a transaction terminal, a promotion delivery subsystem, or a combination thereof.
13. A point of sale (PoS) system, comprising:
a PoS terminal configured to process a pending sale of merchandise or a service to a consumer; and
promotion delivery circuitry coupled to the PoS terminal and configured to receive data representative of the consumer and the pending sale, to access promotional data personalized to the consumer based upon the consumer data, and to apply one or more promotions to the pending sale based upon the promotional data, wherein the promotional data personalized to the consumer is based on a consumer purchase behavior.

14. A method tor adapting a point ot sale (PoS) system for delivering
personalized promotions, the method comprising:
installing promotion delivery circuitry in the PoS system, the promotion delivery circuitry configured to receive data representative of a consumer and a pending sale of merchandise or a service to the consumer, to access promotional data personalized to the consumer based upon the consumer data, and to apply one or more promotions to the pending sale based upon the promotional data.
15. The method of claim 14, wherein installing promotion delivery
circuitry comprises installing programmed circuitry implemented by a
configuration code, the configuration code being installed on a PoS terminal, a
PoS controller, a promotion delivery subsystem, or a combination thereof