SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING PERSONALIZED PROMOTIONS AT THE POINT OF SALE

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. 233067-1, entitled "System and Method for Delivering Promotions to the Consumer", concurrently filed herein; each of which are incorporated herein in their entirety by reference.

BACKGROUND

[0002] The invention relates generally to a technique of providing promotions to a consumer and, more particularly, to a technique of enabling the retailers or merchandisers to provide personalized promotions and discounts to their consumers at a point of sale (PoS).

[0003] In a retail envirorunent, 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 software 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 promotions are floated, it is difficult and inefficient to generate individual gift coupons as techniques for personalized promotion delivery 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. In short, it is difficult to float or operate personalized promotional schemes with the existing setup. Moreover, the personalization of promotions is mostly based on historic transactions and may be therefore of not much appeal to the consumer.

[0006] It is therefore desirable to provide an efficient and cost-effective technique for delivering personalized promotional offers to the consumer at the PoS so as to increase the sales and revenue without interfering with the existing PoS infrastructure and processes.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

[0007] Briefly, in accordance with one aspect of the technique, a transaction system is provided. The transaction system includes a transaction module configured to process a pending sale of merchandise or service to a consumer. The transaction system further includes a promotion module configured to detect data packets transmitted to or fi-om the transaction module, acquire consumer identification or transaction data from the data packets, access or generate one or more promotions personalized to the consumer based upon the acquired data, and provide the one or more personalized promotions to the consumer. The one or more promotions personalized to the consumer are based on a consumer purchase behavior.

[0008] In accordance with another aspect of the technique, a method is provided for providing personalized promotions to the consumer. The method provides for processing a pending sale of merchandise or service to a consumer via a transaction module, detecting data packets transmitted to or from the transaction module, acquiring consumer identification or transaction data from the data packets, accessing or generating one or more promotions personalized to the consumer based upon the acquired data, and providing the one or more personalized promotions to the consumer. The one or more promotions personalized to the consumer are 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 a further aspect of the technique, a method is provided for adapting a transaction system for providing personalized promotions. The method provides for installing promotion module in the transaction system that is configured to process a pending sale of merchandise or service to a consumer via a transaction module. The promotion module is configured to detect data packets transmitted to or from the transaction module, acquire consumer identification or transaction data from the data packets, access or generate one or more promotions personalized to the consumer based
upon the acquired data, and provide the one or more personalized promotions to the consumer. The one or more promotions personalized to the consumer are based on a consumer purchase behavior. Here again, systems and computer programs affording such functionality may be provided by the present technique.

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 conventional PoS system;

[0012] FIG. 2 is a schematic of a transaction system for providing personalized promotions or offers to the consumers in accordance with aspects of the present technique;

[0013] FIG. 3 is a schematic of a general-purpose computer system adapted to act as different components of the system of FIG. 2;

[0014] FIG. 4 is a schematic of a PoS system for
providing personalized promotions or offers to the consumers in accordance with one aspect of the present technique; and

[0015] FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary business process for providing personalized promotions or offers to the consumer in accordance with aspects of the present technique.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0016] 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.

[0017] Referring now to FIG. 2, a schematic diagram of an exemplary transaction system 24 for providing or 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. 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 terminals 26 may be in communication with a transaction server 28 via a secured communication channel 30. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the transaction terminal 26 and/or the transaction server 28 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 transaction server being in a remote geographical location). The transmission of information between the transaction terminal 26 and the transaction server 28 may be in real time. 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 28 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 28 such as RS232 cable, USB cable and so forth.

[0018] The transaction system 24 further includes a transaction module 32 (e.g., PoS software/module) for processing transactions (i.e., a pending sale of a merchandise or a service to a consumer or an ongoing transaction) and for transferring consumer and transaction details (i.e., data representative of the consumer and the pending sale of merchandise or a service to the consumer or the ongoing transaction) from the transaction terminal 26 to the transaction server 28. The transaction server 28 may store the details about each consumer (e.g., identification, behavior, preferences, and so forth) in a consumer database 36. The transaction server 28 further stores consumer identification details along with the associated transactions in a transaction database 36 for record keeping and other purposes. Additionally, the transaction server 28 may host a promotion database 38 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.

[0019] Additionally, the transaction system 24 includes a promotion module 34 for providing or delivering promotions to the consumers in accordance with aspects of the present technique. The promotion module 34 monitors or detects data packets transmitted to or from the transaction module 32 and acquires consumer identification and/or transaction data from the data packets traversing over the communication channel 30 upon detecting the data traffic. In certain embodiments, the promotion module is configured to detect data packets transmitted to or from the transaction module by continuously scanning a plurality of data or communication ports under promiscuous mode. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, promiscuous mode is a reception mode where a network device is configured to intercept and read each data packet that arrives in its entirety rather than just data packets addressed to that network device. The network device then passes all traffic it receives to the processing unit for subsequent analysis. This feature may be typically employed for packet sniffing. Thus, the promotion module 34 is provided access to all the queries that are sent from the transaction module to the transaction server 28. The data packets are sequential query language (SQL) data packets and the promotions module is configured to analyze the SQL 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.

[0020] The promotion module 34 may identify the person who is currently transacting based on the analysis of data packets (SQL queries), and fetch the appropriate promotions for that person. For example, the promotion module 34 may access, acquire and/or generate one or more promotions personalized to the consumer based upon the acquired data, and provide the one or more personalized promotions to the consumer. It should be noted that the one or more promotions personalized to the consumer are based on a consumer purchase behavior. The promotion module 34 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 34 then accesses one or more personalized promotions associated with the consumer from the promotion database 40. Alternatively, in certain embodiments, the promotion module 34 may access the one or more pre-delivered personalized promotions for the consumer from a readable device carried by the consumer. Further, in certain embodiments, the promotion module 34 is configured to access a transaction history or a promotion history of the consumer from a transaction database or a promotion database respectively. The promotion module 34 dynamically generates 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 provided to the consumer and/or stored in the promotion database 40. The personalized promotions are provided or delivered to the consumer by printing the one or more promotions, by writing or delivering the one or more promotions on a readable mobile device carried by the consumer (e.g., transaction card, cell phone, and so forth), 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), sending electronic mail or mobile message notification of the one or more promotions to the consumer, or applying the one or more promotions to the ongoing transaction. The promotions may be applied to the ongoing transaction by determining one or more promotions available to the consumer, comparing 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 applying the available promotions to the ongoing transaction based upon the comparison. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the promotion module may carry out its operation without interfering with normal legacy transaction system operation.

[0021 ] In certain embodiments, the promotion module 34 may include various sub-modules. In one implementation the promotion module may include three sub-modules.

The first sub-module may analyze the data packets (e.g., SQL data packets) travelling from transaction module 26 to the transaction server 28, 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 user. There may be additional sub-modules for performing other fiinctions. 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.

[0022] The transaction module 32 and the promotion module 34 are installable programs that may reside in the transaction terminal 26 and/or the transaction server 28 and may execute/run as service routines. For example, in certain embodiments, the transaction module 32 and the promotion module 34 may reside completely in the transaction terminal 26. Alternatively, in certain embodiments, the transaction module 32 may reside completely in the transaction terminal 26 while the promotion module 34 may reside completely in the transaction server 28. Further, in certain embodiments, the promotion module 34 may reside partially in the transaction terminal 26 and partially in the transaction server 28. In other words, various sub-modules (sub-routines) residing in the transaction terminal 26 and/or transaction server 28 may perform certain of the functionalities of the transaction module 32 and/or the promotion module 34. The installation of the transaction module 32 and/or the promotion module 34 includes installation of configuration codes corresponding to the modules or various sub-modules on transaction terminal 26 and/or the transaction server 28. Further, as will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, in certain embodiments, such modules may be a hardware, a software or a combination of hardware and software.

[0023] FIG. 3 illustrates a schematic diagram of a general-purpose computer system 42. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the computer 42 may be adapted to fiinction as the transaction terminal 26 or the transaction server 28. The computer 42 may generally include a processor 44, a memory 46, and input/output devices 48 (also referred as peripheral devices) connected via a data pathway (e.g., buses, cables and so forth) 50. The processor 44 accepts instructions and data from the memory 46 and performs various data processing functions of the computer 42. 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 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 promotional data acquired from a promotion database or a transaction card of the consumer, comparing the promotions against items being purchased, applying one or more promotions to the ongoing transaction or pending sale, analyzing consumer purchase behavior via an analytics engine, executing instructions, and so forth as will be discussed further below. The processor 44 includes an arithmetic logic unit (ALU) that performs arithmetic and logical operations, and a control unit that extracts instructions from memory 46 and decodes and executes them, calling on the ALU when necessary.

[0024] The memory 46 stores the transaction module and the promotion module as well as a variety of data computed by the various data processing fiinctions of the computer 42 or received from the input/output devices 48. The data may include, for example, transaction card data, transaction data, consumer data, promotional data related to the consumer and so forth. The memory 46 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 44. 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 46 might be conveyed to a human user through the input/output devices 48, the data pathway 50, or in some other suitable manner.

[0025] The input/output devices 48 may include a keyboard 52 and a mouse 54 that enables a user to enter data and instructions into the computer 42. Additionally, the input/output devices 48 may include a display device 56 that enables the user to view the available information and a printer 58 that enables the user to print any data for his reference. Further, the input/output devices 48 enable the transaction terminal 26 and/or the transaction server 28 to acquire identification data, promotion data and/or transaction data of the consumer. In particular, the input/output device 48 may include a reader configured to acquire information fi-om 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 48 may include a card read/write device 60 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 24. Alternatively, the input/output device 48 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 48 at the terminal 24 may further include a barcode scanner 62 for scanning the barcode fi-om the product or the coupons, thereby acquiring the information related to the product or the coupons.

[0026] The computer 42 may fiirther include a communication port 64 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 42 to access other computers and resources on the communication network 66. In particular, in certain embodiments, the communication port 64 enables the transaction terminal 26 and the transaction server 28 to access each other over the communication network 66.

[0027] The computer 42 may also include data acquisition circuitry 68 for acquiring data traversing over the communication channel (communication network 66 and/or the data pathway 50). 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). Additionally, the data acquisition circuitry may be configured to constantly monitor data traffic over the communication channel. Thus, the data acquisition circuitry 68 acquires data packets containing consumer identification, promotions, and/or transaction details upon detecting the data traffic on the communication channel. 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.

[0028] In certain embodiments, the promotion module is configured to acquire consumer data, promotion data and/or transaction data traversing over the communication channel through the data acquisition circuitry 68. Alternatively, as noted above, the promotion module may continuously scan various data or communication ports 64 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.

[0029] The computer 42 may also include a mass storage device 70 to allow the computer 42 to retain large amounts of data permanently. The mass storage device 70 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 42 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.

[0030] FIG. 4 illustrates a schematic diagram of a PoS system 72 for providing or delivering promotions or offers to the consumers in accordance with aspects of the present technique. The PoS system 72 includes a PoS terminal 74 and a PoS controller/server 76 communicatively coupled to the secured communication channel 78. The PoS terminal 72 includes a PoS module 80 (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 72 through various peripheral devices. For example, in the illustrated embodiment, a barcode scanner 82 is employed by the PoS system 72 to acquire the details of the items being purchased. The PoS terminal 74 may include or may be coupled to the barcode scanner 82 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 74 in general and PoS module 80 in particular as purchased items. Additionally, the PoS terminal 74 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 84 upon presentation of the transaction card at the PoS terminal 74. Alternatively, it should be noted that the consumer identification data may be entered into the PoS terminal 74 through other peripheral devices such as keyboard. The transaction data along with the consumer data may then be transmitted from the PoS terminal 74 to the PoS controller 76 over the communication channel 78 via the PoS module 80. 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 74 and capture details of a consumer along with details of the transaction performed by the respective consumer in the consumer and/or transaction database.

[0031] The PoS terminal fiirther includes a promotion module 86 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). The promotion module 86 may partially or completely reside within the PoS terminal 74. As noted above, the promotion module 86 may be as software or hardware or a combination of hardware and software. For example, the promotion module 86 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 74 and/or the PoS controller 76. The promotion module 86 is configured to receive/acquire a consumer data and/or transaction data (comprising details of items being purchased). For example, the promotion module 86 may sniff data from a communication channel 78 over which the data is being transmitted. Alternatively, the promotion module may detect and analyze SQL data packets transmitted to or from the PoS module by continuously scanning the communication ports under promiscuous mode. The promotion module 86 constantly monitors the PoS communication channel 78 or the PoS terminal communication ports and receives/acquires the data traversing to or from the PoS module. In one embodiment, the promotion module 86 may be hooked to a communication channel 78 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 SQL data packets or decipher the data transfer protocol and interpret the details of the acquired data (e.g., transaction in progress etc.).

[0032] The promotion module 86 further accesses memory of the PoS terminal 74 and/or the PoS controller 76 and acquire the personalized promotion data for the identified consumer from the promotion database. Alternatively, the promotion module 86 generates the personalized promotions or offers for the identified consumer based his purchase behavior, identified preferences, current/past transaction history, and/or promotion history. Alternatively, the promotion module 86 may acquire the pre-delivered personalized promotional data embedded in the transaction card via the transaction card reader 84 upon presentation of the transaction card at the PoS terminal 74. 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 device carried by the consumer and corresponding reader at the PoS terminal 74 for acquiring the details of the readable device. For example, the readable device may include 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) 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 transaction card carried by the consumer or in the promotion database. The promotion module 86 may therefore be adapted to decode the promotions from the encoded promotional data.

[0033] 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 86 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.

[0034] Further, as noted above, in certain embodiments, the promotion module 86 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 86. 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 86 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 86 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 'personal accessories and clothes' during festive seasons, the promotions to be offered to the consumer can be personalized to include promotions on 'personal accessories and 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 86 may maintain a consumer account for each consumer in the promotion database to store the one or more promotions associated with him/her. For example, 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. The promotion module 86 can access these promotions along with various other marketing or promotional offers from the memory.
[0035] The promotion module 86 may be fiirther configured to deliver the generated or extracted personalized promotions to the respective consumer. It should be noted that these personalized promotions may be provided or delivered to the consumer during an appropriate period (e.g., during festive seasons) when there are increased chances of promotions being used. In certain embodiments, the delivery of personalized promotions may be based on consumer preferences and may be carried out by a separate module. The promotion module 86 may be adapted to send these customized marketing or promotional offers along with various other marketing or promotional offers to the terminal 72 for being 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. In certain embodiments, the promotion module 86 may be adapted to compare the available promotions against the ongoing transaction, and/or apply the available promotions to the ongoing transaction based upon the comparison. The promotion module 86 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. Additionally, the promotion module 86 may check if the date and time of the ongoing transaction falls within the promotion period. The promotion module 86 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 promotion module 86 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 88 coupled to the PoS terminal 74. 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 scarmer 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 80 as a transaction entry for the ongoing transaction. Thus, the consumer can avail or redeem the available promotions at the point of sale.

[0036] 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 80 and subsequently the promotion module 86 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 86 may dynamically generate the promotions. Additionally, the promotion module 86 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 and processed by the PoS module 80. The promotion module 86 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 module 86 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 (scaiming 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 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.

[0037] 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.
[0038] As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, a variety of techniques may be employed to provide or 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 72, 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.

[0039] For example, referring now to FIG. 5, exemplary control logic 90 for providing or delivering personalized promotions or marketing offers to the consumer via merchandising systems, such as transaction system 24 and PoS system 72, is depicted via a flowchart in accordance with aspects of the present technique. As illustrated in the flowchart, the control logic 90 includes the steps of processing a pending sale of a merchandise or a service to a consumer via a PoS module at step 92, detecting data packets transmitted to or from the PoS module at step 94, acquiring consumer identification or transaction data fi'om the data packets at step 96, accessing or generating one or more promotions personalized to the consumer based upon the acquired data at step 98, and providing the one or more personalized promotions to the consumer at step 100. It should be noted that, the promotions personalized to the consumer are based on a consumer purchase behavior.

[0040] Further, in certain embodiments, the control logic 90 may include the step of continuously scanning a plurality of data ports under promiscuous mode for detecting data packets transmitted to or fi-om the PoS module. Further, it should be noted that,accessing one or more promotions personalized to the consumer includes the step of accessing one or more personalized promotions associated with the consumer form a transaction card carried by the consumer or from a promotion database. Alternatively, generating one or more promotions personalized to 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 performing an analysis on the consumer behavior based on a current or a past transaction data or promotion data to generate the one or more personalized promotions. Thus, 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). Moreover, providing the one or more personalized promotions to the consumer include the step of printing the one or more promotions via a printer coupled to the transaction terminal, writing or delivering 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.

[0041] 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.

[0042] 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.

[0043] 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 convey to the customer about their promotions in real time 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 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. 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.

[0044] 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 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.

[0045] 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 transaction module configured to process a pending sale of merchandise or service to a consumer; and

a promotion module configured to detect data packets transmitted to or from the transaction module, acquire consumer identification or transaction data from the data packets, access or generate one or more promotions personalized to the consumer based upon the acquired data, and provide the one or more personalized promotions to the consumer, wherein the one or more promotions personalized to the consumer are based on a consumer purchase behavior.

2. The transaction system of claim 1, wherein the promotion module is configured to detect data packets transmitted to or from the transaction module by continuously scarming a plurality of data ports under promiscuous mode.

3. The transaction system of claim 1, wherein the data packets are sequential query language (SQL) data packets and wherein the promotions module is configured to analyze the SQL data packets and interpret transaction details.

4. The transaction system of claim 1, wherein the promotion module is further configured to access one or more personalized promotions associated with the consumer form a readable device carried by the consumer or from a promotion database.

5. The transaction system of claim 1, wherein the promotion module is ftirther configured to access a transaction history or a promotion history of the consumer from a transaction database or a promotion database respectively and to perform an analysis on the consumer behavior based on a current or a past transaction data or promotion data to generate the one or more personalized promotions.

6. The transaction system of claim 1, wherein the promotion module is configured to the provide the one or more promotions to the consumer by printing the one or more promotions, by writing or delivering the one or more promotions on a readable device carried by the consumer, displaying the one or more promotions, sending electronic mail or mobile message notification of the one or more promotions to the consumer, or applying the one or more promotions to the ongoing transaction.

7. The transaction system of claim 6, wherein the promotion module is configured to apply the one or more promotions to the ongoing transaction by determining one or more promotions available to the consumer, comparing the available promotions against ongoing transaction, and applying the available promotions to the ongoing transaction based upon the comparison.

8. The transaction system of claim 1, wherein the promotion module comprises an installable program.

9. A method for providing personalized promotions to the consumer, the method comprising:

processing a pending sale of merchandise or service to a consumer via a transaction module;

detecting data packets transmitted to or from the transaction module;

acquiring consumer identification or transaction data from the data packets;

accessing or generating one or more promotions personalized to the consumer based upon the acquired data; and

providing the one or more personalized promotions to the consumer, wherein the one or more promotions personalized to the consumer are based on a consumer purchase behavior.

10. A method for adapting a transaction system for providing personalized promotions, the method comprising:

installing promotion module in the transaction system that is configured to process a pending sale of merchandise or service to a consumer via a transaction module, the promotion module configured to detect data packets transmitted to or from the transaction module, acquire consumer identification or transaction data from the data packets, access or generate one or more promotions personalized to the consumer based upon the acquired data, and provide the one or more personalized promotions to the consumer, wherein the one or more promotions personalized to the consumer are based on a consumer purchase behavior and wherein installing the promotion module comprises installing a configuration code on a transaction terminal, a transaction server, or a combination thereof.