Authors:
Gerald Hintermeister
Abstract:
This disclosure proposes extending TGCS TCx Amplify to be able to use the information gathered on what a customer has scanned and plans to buy to promote other products through ads either on a display in the store or on the customer’s mobile device.
Background:
We currently have a product at TGCS called TCx Amplify in which the customer scans the barcodes of products as they shop and can then put them into their own bags and eventually suspend that transaction on their phone and retrieve it at a self-checkout pay station to pay for their purchase. Because the store would know what the customer has in their carts and intends to purchase this knowledge could be used to have in store video signs to deliver personalized content to that customer. I'm sure there are already many beacon related patents but this may be differentiated in that the store knows precisely what the customer is planning to purchase via the mobile phone app (or a similar case could be made for shopping list software). The signs could also be just applied on the phone as well. We currently have alerts in Amplify but this would push the alert when the customer is in a specific location.
An example would be that a shopper scans hot dog buns and places that in their cart if they came up to a sign in the meat department that knows that this phone is nearby the sign could alert the shopper to a specific brand of hot dogs (presumably a revenue generator for the store). Other uses of the sign in conjunction with the application with current COVID habits in many stores could be to alert a customer if they appear to be walking in the wrong direction on one-way aisles.
Description:
TCx Amplify already exists but changes could be made to communicate with beacons or signs (the signs could just be on the phone as well).
User has items in their cart and TCx Amplify receives a notice from a beacon that the user is near an advertised product that would be useful to the customer based on purchases they plan to be making during this shopping trip. (Example customer has hot dog buns and they can be alerted to specific brands or sales on hot dogs when in the meat aisle.)
This can be used by stores to increase revenue by either receiving ad revenue from a vendor or to possibly convince the customer to purchase more expensive items. The difference with this concept is that the store knows exactly what the customer is planning to purchase.
TGCS Reference 2269
