Patent ID: 6321210
Filing Date: 2001-11-20
Classification: G06Q,G07F,G07G

Abstract:
For use in a retail store point-of-sale system having one or more terminals at customer checkout locations, each of said one or more terminals comprising means for reading product codes on purchased items in a customer order, a method for generating a printable discount coupon, said method comprising the steps of:(a) storing conditions of at least one discount coupon deal in a condition storing means;(b) uniquely identifying the customer whose order is being processed by scanning a scannable identification card;(c) identifying triggering products in the customer order while the customer is at one of the customer checkout locations, said triggering products being products upon which at least one of said conditions depends;(d) determining whether the customer order of the customer has satisfied all of the conditions of a discount coupon deal while the customer is at the customer checkout, said conditions including whether a triggering product that was previously purchased by the customer was purchased in a time period that spans a specified time prior to the present time of purchase by the customer;(e) storing data pertaining to the purchase of triggering products in the customer order in a customer purchase data file, for use in determining whether the customer satisfies conditions of present and future coupon deals;(f) generating data defining a discount coupon while the customer is at the customer checkout if the conditions are satisfied by the customer order of the customer; and(g) printing the discount coupon from the generated coupon data; wherein:(h) one of said conditions pertains to the present customer order of the customer,(i) the step of determining whether the customer has satisfied all of the conditions comprises determining whether the customer has met the coupon deal conditions pertaining to the present customer order; and(j) the step of identifying the purchase of triggering products in the customer order includes,(1) creating a list in which each entry corresponds to a different triggering product identified in the customer order,(2) adding to the list when a triggering product is identified that does not already have an entry in the list, and(3) incrementing an item count in the list when a triggering product is identified that already has an entry in the list.