SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DELIVERING PROMOTIONS TO THE CONSUMER

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

[0001] This application is related to the following: U.S. Patent Application No. 11/612,834, entitled "System and Method for Providing Promotions", filed on December 19, 2006; U.S. Patent Application No. 11/612,843, entitled "System and Method for Providing Promotions", filed on December 19, 2006; India Patent Application No. 2186/CHE/2007, entitled "System and Method for Providing Promotions", filed on September 27, 2007; India Patent Application No. 3088/CHE/2007, entitled "System and Method for Delivering Promotions", filed on December 24, 2007; India Patent Application No. 3106/CHE/2007, entitled "System and Method for Delivering Promotions", filed on December 26, 2007; and co-pending India Patent Application designated by docket no. 233029-1, entitled "System and Method for Providing Personalized Promotions at the Point of Sale", concurrently filed herein; each of which are incorporated herein in their entirety by reference.

BACKGROUND

[0002] The invention relates generally to a technique of delivering promotions to a consumer and, more particularly, to a technique of enabling the retailers or merchandisers to deliver personalized promotions and discounts to their consumers.

[0003] 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. For example, as shown in FIG. 1, a conventional PoS system 10 includes PoS terminals 12 communicatively coupled to the PoS controller or server 14. The sales transactions are first fed into the PoS terminal 12. Each of the terminals 12 has attached peripheral devices 16 for recording transactions and a PoS circuitry or module 18 for processing the transactions. The terminal 12 then transfers the sales information to the PoS controller 14 over the communication network 20. The PoS controller 14 stores the transactions in a transaction database 22. Additionally, the PoS terminal may process the transaction information for accounting, maintaining records, or other purposes. The consumers generally check out after their purchase.

[0004] 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. Further, running a new promotional campaign or offering new promotions requires rewriting the PoS software with new promotional schemes built-in. However, this software rewrite can be expensive and intrusive to existing operations.

[0005] However, in the retail world, individual customized promotions are not in use. In other words, promotions/offers are not tailor made for each individual consumer. When individual or personalized promotions are floated, it is difficult and inefficient to generate individual gift coupons, as techniques for personalized promotion delivery to the retail consumers are limited. 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. Moreover, the personalized promotions are not effectively communicated to the consumer on a regular basis. In short, it is difficult to float or operate personalized promotional schemes with the existing setup.

[0006] There exist various communication modules as stand-alone applications that are programmed to send across messages to individual users based on the input provided. For example, some of the transaction based banking activities employs such communication modules for informing the consumer status/completion of the activity. However, such communication modules do not exist or are not integrated with the promotion or loyalty management systems so as to deliver the promotion offers to the consumers or to touch base with the consumers in real time. Further, it is difficult to adapt, alter or sustain such communication modules for loyalty applications or other new requirements.

[0007] It is therefore desirable to provide an efficient and cost-effective technique for delivering personalized promotional offers to the consumer so as to increase the sales and revenue without interfering with the existing PoS infrastructure and processes. It is also desirable to effectively communicate the promotional offers to the consumers in a
manner easily understandable by them and in a medium convenient for them when implementing a loyalty solution.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

[0008] Briefly, in accordance with one aspect of the technique, a transaction system is provided. The transaction system includes a promotion module configured to access or generate one or more promotions for a consumer. The transaction system further includes a delivery module configured to receive consumer details along with the associated one or more promotions from the promotion module, determine consumer delivery preferences based on the consumer details, and deliver the one or more promotions to the consumer based on the consumer delivery preferences.

[0009] In accordance with another aspect of the technique, a method is provided for delivering promotions to a consumer. The method provides for accessing or generating one or more promotions for a consumer, accessing consumer details from a consumer database, determining consumer delivery preferences based on the consumer details, and delivering the one or more promotions to the consumer based on the consumer delivery preferences. Systems and computer programs that afford such functionality may be provided by the present technique.

[0010] In accordance with a further aspect of the technique, a method is provided for adapting a transaction system for delivering promotions to a consumer. The method provides for installing a promotion module and a delivery module in the transaction system. The promotion module is configured to access or generate one or more promotions for a consumer. The delivery module configured to receive consumer details along with the associated one or more promotions from the promotion module, determine consumer delivery preferences based on the consumer details, and deliver the one or more promotions to the consumer based on the consumer delivery preferences. Here again, systems and computer programs affording such functionality may be provided by the present technique.

DRAWINGS

[0011] These and other features, aspects, and advantages of the present invenfion 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;

[0012] FIG. 1 is a schematic of a conventional PoS system;

[0013] FIG. 2 is a schematic of a transaction system for delivering personalized promotions or offers to the consumers in accordance with aspects of the present technique;

[0014] FIG. 3 is a schematic of a delivery module in greater detail;

[0015] FIG. 4 is a schematic of a general-purpose computer system adapted to act as different components of the system of FIG. 2;

[0016] FIG. 5 is a schematic of a PoS system for delivering personalized promotions or offers to the consumers in accordance with one aspect of the present technique; and

[0017] FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary business process for delivering personalized promotions or offers to the consumer in accordance with aspects of the present technique,

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0018] The present techniques are generally directed to delivering marketing and/or promotional offers to consumers at the point of sale (PoS). Such 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.
[0019] Referring now to FIG. 2, a schematic diagram of an exemplary transaction system 24 for delivering promotions and/or offers to the consumers is illustrated in accordance with aspects of the present technique. The transaction system 24 includes one or more transaction terminals 26 for processing consumer transactions (i.e., a pending sale of a merchandise or a service to a consumer or an ongoing transaction). Each of the transaction terminals 26 includes one or more peripheral devices for recording transactions, generating and printing bills, identifying consumers, and so forth. The transaction system 24 further includes promotion subsystem 28 for receiving consumer and transaction data (i.e., data representative of the consumer and the pending sale of merchandise or a service to the consumer or the ongoing transaction), accessing, acquiring, or generating personalized promotions for the consumer, and delivering the personalized promotions to the consumer in accordance with aspects of the present technique. The transaction terminals 26 and the promotion subsystem 28 may be communicatively coupled to each other via a secured communication channel 30. Additionally, the transaction terminals 26 may be in communication with a transaction server 32 via the secured communication channel 30. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the transaction terminal 26, the promotion subsystem 28, and/or the transaction server 32 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 subsystem and the transaction server being in a remote geographical location). It should be noted that the transaction terminal 26 may be a PoS terminal, a kiosk, a portable device, an ATM, or a computer terminal. The transaction server 32 may be a PoS controller, a transaction bank server, or a merchant server. The secured communication channel 30 may be a wired or a wireless communication network such as the Internet, a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), a transaction network and so forth. Alternatively, the secured communication channel 30 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 26 or transaction server 32 such as RS232 cable, USB cable and so forth.

[0020] The promotion subsystem 28 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 subsystem 28 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 26 and/or the transaction server 32 may perform certain or all of the functionalities of the promotion subsystem 28. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, such circuitry and modules may be hardware, software or a combination of hardware and software. The promotion subsystem 28 monitors data traffic on the communication channel 30, acquires the consumer and transaction data traversing over the communication channel 30 upon detecting the data traffic, access promotions or processes the data to generate promotions, deliver the promotions to an intended consumer based on delivery preferences, and so forth. The transmission of information between the transaction terminal 26, the promotion subsystem 28, and/or the transaction server 32 may be in real time.
[0021] The transaction system 24 further includes a transaction module 34 (e.g., PoS software/module) for processing transactions and for transferring consumer and transaction details from the transaction terminal 26 to the transaction server 32. The transaction server 32 may store the details about each consumer (e.g., identification, behavior, preferences, and so forth) in a consumer database 36. The transaction server 32 may further store consumer identification details along with the associated transaction details in a transaction database 38 for record keeping and other purposes. Additionally, the promotion subsystem 28 may host a promotion database 40 where the consumer identification details along with details of one or more promotions associated with, offered to, or availed by the respective consumer may be stored for record keeping and other purposes. It should be noted that each of these databases 36, 38 and 40 may be linked with each other through a primary key such as consumer identification. Further, in certain embodiments, these databases may be hosted partially or completely in the transaction terminal 26, the promotion subsystem 28 and/or the transaction server 32.

[0022] Additionally, the promotion subsystem 28 includes a promotion module 42 for accessing or generating promotions for the consumers and a delivery module 44 for delivering the accessed or generated promotions to consumer in accordance with aspects of the present technique. The promotion module 42 monitors or detects data packets transmitted to or from the transaction module 34 and acquires consumer identification and/or transaction data from the data packets traversing over the communication channel 30 upon detecting the data traffic by employing packet sniffing techniques. In certain embodiments, the promotion module 42 is configured to detect data packets transmitted to or from the transaction module by continuously scanning a plurality of data or communication ports. Thus, the promotion module 34 is provided access to all the information that is sent from the transaction module 34 to the transaction server 32. The promotions module 42 is further configured to decipher or analyze the data packets and interpret transaction details. The transaction data includes information related to products purchased, cost of the respective products, quantity of respective products, a date and a time stamp for the ongoing transaction, and so forth.

[0023] The promotion module 42 may identify the person who is currently transacting based on the analysis of data packets, and fetch the appropriate promotions for that person. For example, the promotion module 42 may access and/or generate one or more promotions personalized to the consumer based upon the acquired data, and deliver the one or more personalized promotions to the consumer via the delivery module 44. It should be noted that the one or more promotions personalized to the consumer are based on a consumer purchase behavior. The promotion module 42 accesses the details of the consumer, his behavior and preferences in the consumer database 36 based on the acquired consumer identification data. The promotion module 42 then accesses one or more personalized promotions associated with the consumer from the promotion database 40. Alternatively, in certain embodiments, the promotion module 42 may be configured to access a transaction history or a promotion history of the consumer from the transaction database or the promotion database respectively. The promotion module 42 may then dynamically generate the one or more personalized promotions for the consumer by performing an analysis on the consumer behavior based on a current or a past transaction data or promotion data. The generated personalized promotions associated with each consumer is relayed to the consumer via the delivery module 44 and/or stored in the promotion database 40. In certain embodiments, the promotion module 42 may include various sub-modules. In one implementation the promotion module may include three sub-modules. The first sub-module may monitor and acquire the data packets travelling from transaction module 26 to the transaction server 32, the second sub-module may acquire the user and transaction details from the data packets, while the third sub-module may seek the appropriate promotions for that user and subsequently provide the same to the delivery module 44. It should be noted that there may be additional sub-modules for performing other functions. For example, there may be a sub-module for analyzing the consumer behavior based on the above-discussed parameters and generating the personalized promotions based on the analysis.

[0024] The delivery module 44 receives consumer details along with the associated promotions from the promotion module 42, determines the consumer delivery preferences based on the consumer details, and delivers the promotion to the intended consumer based on the consumer delivery preferences. In certain embodiments, the delivery module 44 may be activated by one or more components (e.g., promotion module 42) of the transaction system 24. Thus, the delivery module 44 delivers various promotions to the consumers on any or all the available delivery mediums or channels based on the communication received from other components of the transaction system 24. The consumer delivery preferences may include a preferential delivery of the promotions over one or more of various available delivery mediums. The delivery medium may be an email, a text message, a delivery over a transaction card, a graphical display, a printed coupons, and so forth. It should be noted that the delivery module 44 is configured to determine the consumer delivery preferences by accessing pre-reported or pre-determined delivery preference of a consumer from a consumer database 36. Alternatively, the delivery module 44 is configured to determine the consumer delivery preferences by analyzing consumer responses to promotions sent over various delivery mediums in the past. For example, the delivery module 44 may have sent same or similar promotions over an email, a text message, and in print. The delivery module 44 may then keep track of favorable consumer response (through purchase or expressed interest) from one or more of these delivery mediums. If the consumer responses had been predominantly over email then email delivery is recorded as his delivery preference. Similarly, if the consumer responses to promotional text messages had been more than promotional printed coupons or promotional emails then a text message delivery is recorded as his delivery preference. The recorded delivery preferences may then be stored in the consumer database. Thus, the delivery module is configured to the deliver the one or more promotions to the consumer based on consumer delivery preferences by printing the one or more promotions, by writing the one or more promotions on a readable mobile device carried by the consumer (e.g., transaction card, cell phone, and so forth), by displaying the one or more promotions to the consumer (e.g., on a public display device placed generally at the retailer's location, through a pop¬up window on the transaction terminal, and so forth), and/or by sending an electronic mail or a mobile message notification of the one or more promotions to the consumer. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the promotion subsystem 28 may carry out its operation through the promotion module 42 and the delivery module 44 without interfering with normal legacy transaction system operation.

[0025] FIG. 3 illustrates a schematic of the delivery module 44 in greater detail. As illustrated, in certain embodiments, the delivery module 44 may include various sub-modules. In one implementation, the delivery module may include a network interface 46 for receiving data from the promotion module or other modules or components. The data received may include information related to consumer identification and the promotions that need to be delivered to the consumer. Additionally, the data may include consumer delivery preference extracted from the consumer database 36 and other delivery related information, The delivery module 44 may further include a processing module 48 for processing or interpreting the data received over the network interface 46 and taking appropriate actions. Additionally, the delivery module 44 may include various modules to deliver the promotions to the consumer over various delivery mediums. For example, an email module 50 may be configured to deliver the promotions over an email, a message module 52 may be configured to deliver the promotions over a mobile text message, and so forth. The delivery module may additionally include a graphic user interface (GUI) 54 for displaying or flashing the promotions to the consumer. Additionally, in certain embodiments, the delivery module 44 may interact with a consumer over the GUI 54 and determine consumer delivery preferences for subsequent use. Further, it should be noted that, in certain embodiments, there is a two-way communication between the consumer and the delivery module, thereby enabling the retailer or the merchandiser to touch base with their consumers on a real time basis. Such two-way communication may be enabled by through the email module 50, the message module 52, the GUI 54, and so forth. For example, the consumer may be sent a text message or an email and may be prompted to respond. In certain embodiments, the prompt may be a certain base promotion or offerings. The delivery module 44 may then receive and record the consumer response for subsequent analysis and generation of promotions. Further, in certain embodiments, the delivery module 44 may generally communicate or touch base with the consumer on a regular
basis either when they are in the store or outside the store. For example, the delivery module may send a 'thank you' note to the consumer for performing a transaction or responding to a survey question, update the consumer about his or her promotions and reward points, send a 'welcome' note for entering the store, invite the consumer for visiting the store on special occasions (e.g., arrival of new range of various products or launch of new product), and so forth. It should be noted that there may be additional sub-modules for performing other fiinctions. For example, there may be a sub-module for delivering web based pop-up promotions on the retailer's website when the consumer visit the website.

[0026] As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the transaction module 34, the promotion module 42, and/or the delivery module 44 may be software or hardware or a combination of hardware and software. For example, the transaction module, the promotion module and/or the delivery module 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 transaction terminal 26, the transaction server 28 and/or the promotion subsystem 28. Alternatively, the transaction module, the promotion module and/or the delivery module may be installable programs that may reside in the transaction terminal 26, the promotion subsystem 28 and/or the transaction server 32 and may execute/run as service routines. For example, in certain embodiments, the transaction module 34, the promotion module 42 and the delivery module 44 may reside completely in the transaction terminal 26. Alternatively, in certain embodiments, the transaction module 34 may reside completely in the transaction terminal 26 while the promotion module 42 and the delivery module 44 may reside completely in the promotion subsystem 28 or the transaction server 32. Further, in certain embodiments, the promotion module 42 and the delivery module 44 may reside partially in the transaction terminal 26 and partially in the promotion subsystem 28 and/or the transaction server 32. In other words, various sub-modules (sub-routines) residing in the transaction terminal 26, the promotion subsystem 28, and/or transaction server 32 may perform certain of the functionalities of the transaction module 32, the promotion module 42, and/or the delivery module 44. The installation of the transaction module 34, the promotion module 42, and/or the delivery module 44 includes installation of configuration codes corresponding to the modules or various sub-modules on transaction terminal 26, the promotion subsystem 28, and/or the transaction server 32.

[0027] FIG. 4 illustrates a schematic diagram of a general-purpose computer system 56. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the computer 56 may be adapted to function as the transaction terminal 26, the promotion subsystem 28, or the transaction server 32. The computer 56 may generally include a processor 58, a memory 60, and input/output devices 62 (also referred as peripheral devices) connected via a data pathway (e.g., buses, cables and so forth) 64. The processor 58 accepts instructions and data from the memory 60 and performs various data processing functions of the computer 58. These data processing functions may include acquiring data representative of a consumer and a pending sale of merchandise or a service to the consumer from the data packets being transmitted to or from the transaction module, deciphering or analyzing the data packets for interpreting details of the acquired data, accessing promotional data personalized to the consumer from the memory, dynamically generating one or more personalized promotions for the consumer, extracting one or more promotions from promotional data acquired from a promotion database, analyzing consumer purchase behavior via an analytics engine, executing instructions, and so forth as will be discussed further below. The processor 58 includes an arithmetic logic unit (ALU) that performs arithmetic and logical operations, and a control unit that extracts instructions from memory 60 and decodes and executes them, calling on the ALU when necessary.
[0028] The memory 60 may store the transaction module, the promotion module, and the delivery module as well as a variety of data computed by the various data processing functions of the computer 58 or received from the input/output devices 62. The data may include, for example, transaction card data, transaction data, consumer data, promotional data related to the consumer and so forth. The memory 60 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 that executes on the processor 58. 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 60 might be conveyed to a human user through the input/output devices 62, the data pathway 64, or in some other suitable manner.

[0029] The input/output devices 62 may include a keyboard 66 and a mouse 68 that enables a user to enter data and instructions into the computer 56. Additionally, the input/output devices 62 may include a display device 70 that enables the user to view the available information and a printer 72 that enables the user to print any data for his reference. Further, the input/output devices 62 enable the transaction terminal 26, the promotion subsystem 28, and/or the transaction server 32 to acquire identification data, promotion data and/or transaction data of the consumer. In particular, the input/output device 62 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 62 may include a card read/write device 74 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 26. Alternatively, the input/output device 62 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 62 at the terminal 24 may further include a barcode scanner 76 for scanning the barcode from the product or the coupons, thereby acquiring the information related to the product or the coupons.

[0030] The computer 56 may further include a communication port 78 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 56 to access other computers and resources on the communication network 80. In particular, in certain embodiments, the communication port 78 enables the transaction terminal 26, the promotion subsystem 28, and the transaction server 32 to access each other over the communication network 80.

[0031] The computer 56 may also include data acquisition circuitry 82 for acquiring data traversing over the communication channel (communication network 80 and/or the data pathway 64). As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, in certain embodiments, the data acquisition circuitry 68 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 transaction terminal). In particular, the promotion subsystem 28 is configured to acquire consumer data, promotion data and/or transaction data traversing over the communication channel through the data acquisition circuitry 82. Additionally, the data acquisition circuitry 82 may be configured to constantly monitor data traffic over the communication channel. Thus, the data acquisition circuitry 82 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 subsystem 28 may receive data from the one or more peripheral devices or from the transaction terminal 26 and relay it to the transaction terminal 26 or to the transaction server 32 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 may be carried out without interfering with normal legacy transaction operation.

[0032] In certain embodiments, the promotion module 42 is configured to acquire consumer data, promotion data and/or transaction data traversing over the communication channel through the data acquisition circuitry 82. Alternatively, the promotion module 42 may continuously scan various data or communication ports 78 under promiscuous mode to acquire data packets (containing consumer data and transaction data) transmitted to the transaction module by the peripheral devices or from the transaction module to the transaction server.

[0033] The computer 42 may also include a mass storage device 84 to allow the computer 56 to retain large amounts of data permanently. The mass storage device 84 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 56 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.

[0034] FIG. 5 illustrates a schematic diagram of a PoS system 86 for delivering promotions or offers to the consumers in accordance with aspects of the present technique. The PoS system 86 includes a PoS terminal 88 and a PoS controller/server 90 communicatively coupled to the secured communication channel 92, The PoS terminal 88 includes a PoS module 94 (similar to the transaction module described above) 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 88 through various peripheral devices. For example, in the illustrated embodiment, a barcode scanner 96 is employed by the PoS system 88 to acquire the details of the items being purchased. The PoS terminal 88 may include or may be coupled to the barcode scanner 96 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 88 in general and PoS module 94 in particular as purchased items. Additionally, the PoS terminal 88 may be provided with a transaction card reader 84 (e.g., magnetic card reader) to read information from a transaction card carried by the consumer. The transaction card data (comprising consumer identification data) embedded in the transaction card is read via the transaction card reader 98 upon presentation of the transaction card at the PoS terminal 88. Alternatively, it should be noted that the consumer identification data may be entered into the PoS terminal 88 through other peripheral devices such as a keyboard. The transaction data along with the consumer data may then be transmitted from the PoS terminal 88 to the PoS controller 90 over the communication channel 92 via the PoS module 94. As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, the PoS controller 90 may receive the consumer data and the transaction data from the PoS terminal 88 and capture details of a consumer along with details of the transaction performed by the respective consumer in the consumer and/or transaction database.

[0035] The PoS terminal fiirther includes a promotion module 100 such as those described above for enabling the retailers or merchandisers to provide personalized promotions and discounts to their consumers at the point of sale (PoS) or otherwise. The promotion module 100 may partially or completely reside within the PoS terminal 88. As noted above, the promotion module 100 may be as software or hardware or a combination of hardware and software. For example, the promotion module 100 may be a configuration code or a programmed circuitry implemented by a configuration code. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the configuration code or the programmed circuitry implemented by the configuration code may be stored, uploaded or installed on the PoS terminal 88 and/or the PoS controller 90. The promotion module 100 is configured to receive/acquire a consumer data and/or transaction data (comprising details of items being purchased). For example, the promotion module 100 may sniff data from a communication channel 92 over which the data is being transmitted. Alternatively, the promotion module 100 may detect and analyze data packets transmitted to or from the PoS module 94 by continuously scanning the communication ports under promiscuous mode. The promotion module 100 constantly monitors the PoS communication channel 92 or the PoS terminal communication ports and receives/acquires the data traversing to or from the PoS module 94. In one embodiment, the promotion module 100 may be hooked to a communication channel 92 of the PoS terminal and may acquire data traversing over the communication channel 78 by employing any packet sniffing technologies. The promotion module 86 may further analyze the data packets or decipher the data transfer protocol and interpret the details of the acquired data (e.g., transaction in progress etc.).

[0036] The promotion module 100 further accesses memory of the PoS terminal 88 and/or the PoS controller 90 and acquires the personalized promotion data for the identified consumer from the promotion database. Alternatively, the promotion module 100 generates the personalized promotions or offers for the identified consumer based on his purchase behavior, identified preferences, current/past transaction history, and/or promotion history. Alternatively, the promotion module 100 may acquire the pre-delivered personalized promotional data embedded in the transaction card via the transaction card reader 98 upon presentation of the transaction card at the PoS terminal 88. The transaction card data may therefore include the consumer identification data as well as pre-delivered personalized promotion data. It should be noted that there may be other readable devices carried by the consumer and the corresponding reader at the PoS terminal 88 for acquiring the details of the readable device. For example, the readable device may include a cell phone or a PDA that may transmit the consumer identification and/or the pre-delivered personalized promotional data over a wireless communication (e.g., Bluetooth, RF) to the PoS module and subsequently to the promotion module. It should be noted that the one or more promotions may be uniquely encoded in a pre-specified format within the readable device carried by the consumer or in the promotion database. The promotion module 100 may therefore be adapted to decode the promotions fi-om the encoded promotional data.

[0037] As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, such data reception/acquisition may be carried out without interfering with normal legacy PoS operation and processes. Thus, the promotion module 100 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.

[0038] Further, as noted above, in certain embodiments, the promotion module 100 is configured to dynamically generate personalized promotional offers for the consumers based on the consumer profile (consumer identification, consumer preferences, 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 or accessed by the promotion module 100. 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 module 100 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 module 100 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 determine that the promotions being offered to the consumer needs to be updated and personalized to now include promotions on 'baby products.' Further, if an analysis of transactions carried by a consumer reveals an increase in spending pattern of the consumer on clothes during festive seasons, the promotions to be offered to the consumer can be personalized to include promotions on 'clothes' during festive seasons. 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. For example, in certain embodiments, the promotion module 100 may maintain a consumer account for each consumer in the promotion database to store the one or more promotions associated with him/her. The promotion module 100 can access these promotions along with various other marketing or promotional offers from the memory. Further, as will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, in certain embodiments, the consumer may use his mobile device or computer terminal to write the selected promotions on his/her transaction card via a card read/write device installed in or coupled to the mobile device or the computer terminal.

[0039] The promotion module 100 may be further configured to deliver the generated or extracted personalized promotions to the respective consumer. It should be noted that these personalized promotions may be delivered to the consumer during an appropriate period (e.g., during festive seasons) when the chances of promotions being used is maximum. In certain embodiments, the delivery of personalized promotions may be based on consumer preferences and may be carried out by a separate delivery module 102 such as those described above. The promotion module 100 may be adapted to send these customized marketing or promotional offers along with various other marketing or promotional offers to the delivery module 102 for being delivered to the consumer based on his delivery preferences. The one or more promotions may therefore be written on the transaction card, delivered on a mobile readable device carried by the consumer, displayed on a display device of the consumer or transaction terminal (e.g., through pop¬up window), printed via a printer, delivered via an electronic mail or a mobile message notification to the consumer, and/or applied on an ongoing transaction based on pre¬recorded or pre-determined delivery preferences of the consumer. In certain embodiments, the delivery module 102 may be adapted to compare the available promotions against the ongoing transaction (e.g., items being purchased, date and time of making the purchase, quantity being purchased, related products being purchased, and so forth), and/or apply the available promotions to the ongoing transaction based upon the comparison. The delivery module 102 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 fi'om the list of items being purchased that qualifies for one or more of the available promotions. Additionally, the delivery module 102 may check if the date and time of the ongoing transaction falls within the promotion period. The delivery module 102 may then apply the one or more of the available promotions to the qualified items if the available promotions are valid. It should be noted that the delivery module 102 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 104 coupled to the PoS terminal 88. 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 to the PoS module 100 as a transaction entry for the ongoing transaction. Thus, the consumer can avail or redeem the available promotions at the point of sale.

[0040] In one illustrative example, a user (consumer or attendee at the point of sale) swipes the transaction card in the transaction card reader. The PoS module 94 and subsequently the promotion module 100 receive the consumer identification details from the transaction card. The promotion may further obtain the promotion data from the promotion database or the transaction card and will then retrieve the promotions available to the consumer based on the obtained promotion data. Alternatively, the promotion module 100 may dynamically generate the promotions. The one or more promotions may then be relayed to the delivery module 102 for being delivered to the consumer based on consumer delivery preferences. The delivery module may then deliver the promotions over the preferred delivery medium of the consumer. Alternatively, if the consumer has preferred his or her promotions to be directly applied to the transactions, the delivery module 102 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 88 and processed by the PoS module 94. The delivery module 102 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 delivery module 102 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 coupon 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 delivery module will keep 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 delivery module 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 88.

[0041] 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.

[0042] 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 24 and/or 86, 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.

[0043] For example, referring now to FIG. 6, exemplary control logic 106 for delivering personalized promotions or marketing offers to the consumer via merchandising systems, such as transaction system 24 and PoS system 86, is depicted via a flowchart in accordance with aspects of the present technique. As illustrated in the flowchart, the control logic 106 includes the steps of accessing or generating one or more promotions for a consumer at step 108, accessing consumer details from a consumer database at step 110, determining consumer delivery preferences based on the consumer details at step 112, and delivering the one or more promotions to the consumer based on the consumer delivery preferences at step 114.

[0044] It should be noted that, accessing one or more promotions for the consumer includes the step of accessing one or more promotions associated with the consumer form a promotion database. Alternatively, generating one or more promotions for the consumer includes the step of accessing a transaction history or a promotion history of the consumer from a transaction database or a promotion database respectively and generating the one or more promotions based on a behavioral analysis of a current or a past transaction performed by the consumer and/or a current or a past promotion offered to or availed by the consumer. It should be noted that, in certain embodiments, the promotions to be offered to the consumer may be personalized for each consumer and generating one or more such personalized promotions is based on the data representative of the consumer purchase behavior and the pending sale (acquired consumer and transaction data).
[0045] Further, in certain embodiments, determining consumer delivery preferences includes accessing pre-reported or pre-determined delivery preference of a consumer from a consumer database. Alternatively, in certain embodiments, consumer delivery preferences are determined by analyzing past consumer responses to promotions sent over various delivery mediums. Moreover, delivering the one or more promotions to the consumer include the step of printing the one or more promotions via a printer coupled to the transaction terminal, writing the one or more promotions on a readable device carried by the consumer through a read/write machine coupled to the transaction terminal (e.g., on a transaction card via a card read/write device coupled to the transaction terminal), displaying the one or more promotions via a display device coupled to the transaction terminal, sending electronic mail or mobile message notification of the one or more promotions to the consumer, and/or applying the one or more promotions to an ongoing transaction..

[0046] 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 ongoing transaction, and applying the one or more promotions to the qualified items based upon the comparison. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, comparing the available promotions against the ongoing transaction comprises identifying a set of items from the pending sale (i.e., the items being purchased that qualifies for one or more of the available promotions. Additionally, comparing the available promotions against the ongoing transaction may include determining if the date and time of the ongoing transaction falls within the promotion period. The one or more available promotions may then be applied to the qualified items based upon the comparison. 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.

[0047] 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 ability to effectively convey to the customer about their promotions in real time and over their preferred delivery medium coupled with 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 deliver personalized promotions and discounts to their consumers at the point of sale (PoS) on each and every consumer purchase based on their delivery preferences. This will enhance the capability of business entities to provide the personalized promotions in real time and/or at the point of sale and in a manner easily understandable by the consumer and in a medium convenient for the consumer when implementing a loyalty solution. Moreover, the techniques enable the consumers to use their entitled offers at the point of sale resulting in increased effectiveness of the promotions. Additionally, the techniques enable generation and delivery of personalized promotions for the current transactions as compared to conventional techniques that are equipped to provide promotions based on historical transactions.

[0048] 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 data acquisition 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 and/or delivery 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. An important advantage provided by this technique is its ability to integrate well with existing/new loyalty solutions or with existing/new CRM systems to target consumer with the appropriate marketing campaigns. The technique can also be later improved/modified without affecting the functionality of the PoS system and is therefore easy to maintain. Thus, the technique provides real-time personalized promotions to the consumers in a manner in which they prefer with minimal or no disruption to the existing infrastructure or process. The real-time promotions may be delivered to the consumer at the time of transactions or otherwise either at the point of sale, or at a kiosk, or over various delivery mediums. This will help to touch base with the consumer on a regular basis within or outside the store. Further, the retailer or merchandiser may touch base with the consumer in real¬time by leveraging various available electronic delivery mediums such as telephones, emails, mobile text messages, web based messages, and so forth. 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.

[0049] Further, as will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the delivery techniques may be configurable for different loyalty campaign scenarios, including one time marketing activities and ongoing loyalty solutions. It should be noted that the delivery techniques may also be employed as a stand-alone technique with other technology applications. For example, the delivery techniques discussed above may be easily employed for any event-driven generic delivery applications.

[0050] 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 transaction system, comprising:
a promotion module configured to access or generate one or more promotions for a consumer; and

a delivery module configured to receive consumer details along with the associated one or more promotions from the promotion module, determine consumer delivery preferences based on the consumer details, and deliver the one or more promotions to the consumer based on the consumer delivery preferences.

2. The transaction system of claim 1, wherein the promotion module is configured to access the one or more promotions associated with the consumer form a promotion database.

3. The transaction system of claim 1, wherein the promotion module is configured to access a transaction history or a promotion history of the consumer from a transaction database or a promotion database respectively and to generate the one or more promotions 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

4. The transaction system of claim 1, wherein the delivery module is configured to determine the consumer delivery preferences by accessing pre-reported or pre-determined delivery preference of a consumer from a consumer database.

5. The transaction system of claim 1, wherein the delivery module is configured to determine the consumer delivery preferences by analyzing consumer responses to promotions sent over various delivery mediums in the past.

6. The transaction system of claim 1, wherein the consumer delivery preferences comprise an email delivery, a text message delivery, a delivery on a transaction card, a delivery via graphical display, a delivery via printed coupons, or a combination thereof

7. The transaction system of claim 1, wherein the delivery module is configured to the deliver the one or more promotions to the consumer by printing the one or more promotions, by writing the one or more promotions on a readable device carried by the consumer, displaying the one or more promotions, or sending electronic mail or mobile message notification of the one or more promotions to the consumer.

8. The transaction system of claim 1, wherein the delivery module is
further configured to touch base with the consumer by establishing a two-way
communication with the consumer.

9. A method for delivering promotions to a consumer, the method comprising:

accessing or generating one or more promotions for a consumer; accessing consumer details from a consumer database; determining consumer delivery preferences based on the consumer details; and delivering the one or more promotions to the consumer based on the consumer delivery preferences.

10. A method for adapting a transaction system for delivering promotions to
a consumer, the method comprising:

installing a promotion module and a delivery module in the transaction system, the promotion module configured to access or generate one or more promotions for a consumer and the delivery module configured to receive consumer details along with the associated one or more promotions from the promotion module, determine consumer delivery preferences based on the consumer details, and deliver the one or more promotions to the consumer based on the consumer delivery preferences, wherein installing the promotion module or the delivery module comprises installing a respective configuration code or a respective programmed circuitry implemented by a configuration code on a transaction terminal, a transaction server, a promotion subsystem, or a combination thereof.