Abstract:
An automated system for making an offer over a distributed data network comprises a first processor and a second processor in communication over the distributed data network. The first processor receives purchase information related to a purchase being made by a consumer. There is an offer engine on the second processor. The offer engine associates the goods and services available for purchase by the consumer with a warranty and additional goods and services. A computer program executed by the first processor triggers the offer engine to make an offer to the consumer based on the goods and services being purchased when the purchase is being made by the consumer

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
       [0001]    1. Field of the Invention 
         [0002]    The present invention relates to a system for making an offer to a consumer and, in particular, to a system for making an offer to a consumer over a distributed data network at a point-of-sale. 
         [0003]    2. Description of the Related Art 
         [0004]    United States Patent Application Publication Number 2001/00442022 which was published on Nov. 15, 2001 in the name of Kirkpatrick et al. discloses systems and methods that allow retail entities to let consumers register a product or warranty at a point-of-sale. The systems and methods allow a retailer to identify a point during a purchasing transaction wherein the consumer has completed a transaction. The retailer may then present to the consumer an interface that the consumer may easily complete to allow the consumer to participate in a product or warranty registration process. The systems and methods make the product registration process part of the purchase transaction and therefore make the product registration process seamless and more facile. Consequently it is understood that consumer participation within the product registration process increases. 
         [0005]    United States Patent Application Publication Number 2002/0128851 which was published on Sep. 12, 2002 in the name of Chefalas et al. discloses systems and methods for automating product registration of one or more products by transmitting product registration information generated at the time of purchase respectively to one or more manufacturers for subsequent completion of the registration of the one or more products automatically by the one or more manufacturers or by the customer. 
         [0006]    There is however a need for automated systems and methods to allow a third party warranty provider to offer a warranty at a point-of-sale and allow a third party to offer additional goods and services at the point-of-sale. 
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
       [0007]    There is provided an automated system for offering a warranty over a distributed data network. The system comprises a first processor and a second processor in communication over the distributed data network. The first processor receives purchase information related to a purchase being made by a consumer. There is an offer engine on the second processor. The offer engine associates the goods and services available for purchase by the consumer with a warranty. A computer program executed by the first processor triggers the offer engine to offer the consumer a warranty based on the goods and services being purchased when the purchase is being made by the consumer. 
         [0008]    The first processor may be part of an e-commerce store and the computer program may be a code inserted into a webpage of the e-commerce store. The first processor may be part of a point-of-sale system for a brick and mortar store. There may be a database on the second processor which contains the goods and services available for purchase by the consumer and the warranty associated with each of the goods and services available for purchase by the consumer. There may be a categorization engine on the second processor which categorizes the goods and services available for purchase by the consumer to allow the offer engine to associate the goods and services available for purchase by the consumer with the warranty. 
         [0009]    There is also provided an automated system for offering additional goods and services over a distributed data network. The system comprises a first processor and a second processor in communication over the distributed data network. The first processor receives purchase information related to a purchase being made by a consumer. There is an offer engine on the second processor. The offer engine associates the goods and services available for purchase by the consumer with additional goods and services. A computer program executed by the first processor triggers the offer engine to offer the consumer additional goods and services based on the goods and services being purchased when the purchase is being made by the consumer. 
         [0010]    The first processor may be part of an e-commerce store and the computer program may be a code inserted into a webpage of the e-commerce store. The first processor may be part of a point-of-sale system for a brick and mortar store. There may be a database on the second processor which contains the goods and services available for purchase by the consumer and the additional goods and services associated with each of the goods and services available for purchase by the consumer. There may be a categorization engine on the second processor which categorizes the goods and services available for purchase by the consumer to allow the offer engine to associate the goods and services available for purchase by the consumer with the additional goods and services. 
         [0011]    There is further provided a method of making an offer over a distributed data network. The method comprises:
       providing a first processor which receives purchase information related to a purchase being made by a consumer;   providing a second processor with an offer engine which associates goods and services available for purchase by the consumer with an offer;   placing the first processor and the second processor in communication over the distributed data network; and   executing a computer program on the first processor to trigger the offer engine to make the consumer an offer based on the goods and services being purchased when the purchase is being made by the consumer.       
 
         [0016]    The method may further include categorizing the goods and services available for purchase by a consumer and associating the goods and services available for purchase by a consumer with an offer. The method may further include modifying the offer if the offer is rejected by the consumer. The method may further include following up with the consumer if the consumer rejects the offer. The method may further include providing text or ranked text to encourage the consumer to accept the offer. Making the consumer the offer may include offering the consumer a warranty. Modifying the offer if the offer is rejected by the consumer may include offering another warranty. Making the consumer the offer may include offering the consumer additional goods and services. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS 
         [0017]    The invention will be more readily understood from the following description of embodiments thereof given, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: 
           [0018]      FIG. 1  is a schematic illustrating a distributed data processing system in which an improved system for a third party warranty provider to offer a warranty at a point-of-sale may be implemented; 
           [0019]      FIG. 2  is a schematic illustrating architecture of a processor of the data processing system of  FIG. 1 ; 
           [0020]      FIG. 3  is a flow chart of the logic of the system for offering a warranty when a purchase is made at an e-commerce store; 
           [0021]      FIG. 4  is a screenshot of an e-commerce website showing a warranty being offered when a purchase is made at an e-commerce store; 
           [0022]      FIG. 5  is a screenshot of an e-commerce website showing the warranty being accepted when a purchase is made at an e-commerce store; 
           [0023]      FIG. 6  is a screenshot of an e-commerce website showing additional goods and services being offered when a purchase is made at an e-commerce store; 
           [0024]      FIG. 7  is a flow chart of the logic of the system for a third party warranty provider to offer a warranty when purchase orders are being fulfilled; 
           [0025]      FIG. 8  is a flow chart of the logic of the system for a third party warranty provider to offer a warranty when a personalized offer is being made; and 
           [0026]      FIG. 9  is a schematic showing different platforms on which the system for a third party warranty provider to offer a warranty may be deployed. 
       
    
    
     DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
       [0027]    Referring to the drawings and first to  FIG. 1  this shows a distributed data processing system  100 . The distributed data processing system  100  is given by way of example only, and is typical of a data processing system in which an improved system for offering a warranty may be implemented. The data processing system  100  includes networks  102  and  104  which provide communication links between various processors. The communication links may be permanent connections including, but not limited to, wires  106 ,  108  and  110  or fiber optic cables  112  and  114 . The communication links may also be temporary connections including, but not limited to, connections made through telephone  116  or wireless communication  118  and  120 . In the data processing system  100  one of the networks  102  is the Internet and the other one of the networks is an intranet such as a wide area network (WAN) or a local area network (LAN). It will be understood by a person skilled in the art that the data processing system  100  may further include additional networks and various different types of networks which have not been shown. 
         [0028]    The data processing system  100  further includes a plurality of processors.  FIG. 2  illustrates an exemplary architecture  200  of a processor in the data processing system  100 . An internal bus system  202  interconnects a central processing unit (CPU)  204  with a memory  206 , an input/output adapter  208 , a communications adapter  210 , a user interface adapter  212 , and a display adapter  214 . The memory  206  may include one or more types of random access memory (RAM) and read only memory (ROM). The memory  206  may also include one or more types of volatile and non-volatile memory. The input/output adapter  208  may support various input/output devices including, but not limited to, a disk unit, a printer, and a scanner. The communications adapter  210  may provide access to a communication link  216  such as a fiber optic cable which may connect the CPU  204  to the data processing system  100  of  FIG. 1 . The user interface adapter  212  may support various user interface devices, including but not limited to, a touch screen, a keyboard, and a mouse. The display adapter  214  may support various display devices such as a monitor.  FIG. 2  is provided by way of example only and is in no way intended to imply architectural limitations to any processor in the distributed data processing system  100  of  FIG. 1 . Furthermore, it will be understood by a person skilled in the art that the hardware of  FIG. 2  may vary between processors. 
         [0029]    Furthermore, in addition to being implemented on a variety of hardware platforms, the warranty management system may also be implemented on a variety of software platforms, i.e. the operating system used may vary between processors. For example, a server may run on a Linux® operating system, while a mainframe computer runs on an IBM z/OS® operating system and desktop computer runs on a Microsoft® operating system. Other processors in the data processing system  100  may run on other operating systems. The processors in the data processing system  100  may further support a typical browser application or another suitable application for retrieving HTTP documents in a variety of formats. It will be understood by a person skilled in the art that the data processing system  100  may further include additional processors and various different types of processors which have not been shown. 
         [0030]    Referring back to  FIG. 1 , in this example, the data processing system  100  includes a server  122  and a mainframe computer  124 . The server  122  is a database server running MongoDB® in this example. The mainframe computer  124  supports an e-commerce store. There is also a barcode or Universal Product Code (UPC) scanner  126  which is part of a brick and mortar store point-of-sale (POS) system  128  associated with the e-commerce store. Consumers  130 ,  132  and  134  may connect to the data processing system  100  and make online purchases at the e-commerce store using a processor such as a desktop computer  136 , a laptop computer  138  or a smart phone  140 . A consumer  142  may also be connected to the data processing system  100  when making a purchase using the brick and mortar store point-of-sale (POS) system  128 . 
         [0031]    There is a database  144  on the server  122 . The database  144  contains a list of goods and services offered by a merchant which are categorized by a categorization engine  146 . The database  144  may be populated by uploading or downloading a merchant database or manually inputting data. The goods and services may be categorized by algorithms or a manual filter process. The categorization engine  146  will also learn from mistakes as feedback is identified from corrections. This continuous learning process will improve categorization of the goods and services. An offer engine  148  supported by the server  122  cross-references the database  144  to determine an appropriate warranty to offer to a consumer based on the goods and services being purchased as will be described below. 
         [0032]      FIG. 3  shows a flow diagram of the logic of a system  300  when a purchase is made at an e-commerce store. The goods and services offered by the e-commerce store are categorized by the categorization engine  146  at step  310  or may alternatively be categorized in real time. Warranty stock keeping units (SKUs) are loaded onto the e-commerce store website at step  320  and a computer program in the form of JavaScript® code is inserted into the e-commerce store website at step  330 . The JavaScript® code triggers the offer engine  148  on the server  122  to offer a warranty when a consumer clicks an icon, for example, ADD TO CART, to purchase goods or services at step  340 . In other examples however the JavaScript® code could be developed with code for the e-commerce store and pull data from the server  122 . The warranty offer appears on the e-commerce store website, as shown in  FIG. 4 , despite the warranty offer being made by a third party warranty provider and not a merchant operating the e-commerce store. If the consumer accepts the warranty offer then the warranty SKU is inserted into the consumer&#39;s cart, as shown in  FIG. 5 , before the consumer proceeds to check out at step  350  in  FIG. 3 . If the consumer declines the warranty offer then the consumer proceeds to check out as usual at step  360  in  FIG. 3 . The entire transaction occurs on the website of the e-commerce store. In other examples, the categorization engine  146  may categorize the goods or services being purchased at the time of purchase and the offer engine may offer a warranty after a plurality of goods and/or services have been added to the consumer&#39;s cast and the consumer clicks an icon, for example, CHECKOUT, to purchases the plurality of goods and/or services. 
         [0033]    The offer engine  148  offers a warranty based on the categorization of the goods and services being purchased. The warranty offer may be based on a price range or selling price of the goods and services being purchased. The offer engine may provide details related to the term and coverage as shown in  FIGS. 4 to 6 . The offer engine may further provide text to encourage the consumer to purchase a warranty. An example of such text is shown in  FIG. 4  and is visibly displayed on a webpage for the consumer to read. The text provided is determined using A/B testing to determine text that successfully encourages the consumer to purchase the warranty. 
         [0034]    The offer engine  148  may offer a warranty based on analysis of consumer purchasing habits based on data related to previous purchases, data collected on e-commerce websites, aggregate data on consumer behaviour, and consumer demographics. The offer engine  148  may base analytics on consumer based recommendations, order based recommendations, and product-warranty pair based recommendations. Furthermore, in addition to offering a warranty, the offer engine  148  may offer additional goods and services based on the characterization of the goods and services being purchased. This is shown at step  370  in  FIG. 1  and  FIG. 6 . The additional goods and services offered complement the goods and services being purchased based on associations made by the categorization engine  146 . The system may deploy cookies or other tracking tools to track consumer behaviour on e-commerce websites. This information can be analyzed to improve offers made to individual consumers by the offer engine  148  or provide aggregate data to improve general offers made by the offer engine  148 . The offer engine is thereby able to learn to associate a specific warranty with a specific good or service. The offer engine may further provide text to encourage the consumer to purchase the additional goods and services. An example of such text is shown in  FIG. 6  and is visibly displayed on a webpage for the consumer read. The text provided is determined using A/B testing to determine text that successfully encourages the consumer to purchase the additional goods and services. 
         [0035]    The system may also assist the e-commerce store with purchase order fulfillment as shown in  FIG. 7 . The mainframe computer  124  of the e-commerce store provides consumer information and purchase information to the server  122  at step  710 . The purchase information is scanned to identify purchases associated with an extended warranty at step  720 . If a purchase is associated with an extended warranty then a confirmation will be sent to the consumer at step  730 . The association of an extended warranty with a purchase may also trigger further actions including, but not limited to, preparation for claims, the setting up of a consumer account, the billing of the e-commerce store, order execution with a warranty provider, and the tracking of the extended warranty and any manufacturer warranty. If the purchase is not associated with a warranty then a follow-up offer may be sent to the consumer at step  740 . The lack of an association of an extended warranty with a purchase may also trigger further actions including, but not limited to, the setting up of a consumer account, the tracking of purchases, and analysis of the purchase information by the offer engine  148 . 
         [0036]    There may be instances in which it is unclear which warranty should be associated with a specific good or service in the purchase information. This is because a warranty may apply to multiple goods and services in the purchase information. The system therefore tracks and identifies specific warranties associated with specific goods and services as described above. If however the warranty cannot be associated with a specific good or service then a confirmation pop-up is presented to the consumer to confirm the warranty association at step  750 . Alternatively, a follow-up with the consumer can be employed to prompt the consumer to associate the warranty with a specific good or service. 
         [0037]    Referring back to  FIG. 1 , the system may also be employed when a purchase is made at a brick and mortar store. The goods and services offered by the bricks and mortar store are first categorized by the categorization engine  146 . Warranty stock keeping units (SKUs) are loaded onto and a code inserted into the software of the brick and mortar store point-of-sale (POS) system  128 . When a purchase is entered into the brick and mortar store point-of-sale (POS) system  128  by, for example, scanning a barcode with the Universal Product Code (UPC) scanner  126  then the code triggers the offer engine  148  to offer a warranty or additional goods or services at the point-of-sale. The consumer may then accept or decline the warranty offer or additional goods and services offer. The offer engine  148  may send a merchant text to use to encourage the consumer to purchase a warranty or additional goods and services. The text provided is determined using A/B testing to determine text that successfully encourages the consumer to purchase the warranty or additional goods and services. The merchant may be provided with text in the form of phrases that are ranked based on rates of success for encouraging the consumer to purchase the warranty or additional goods and services. Examples of phrases ranked in descending order are shown below. 
         [0038]    1. Everyone has accidents and repairs can be expensive. 
         [0039]    2. The cost of the warranty works out to a couple cents a day. 
         [0040]    3. A warranty provides peace of mind. 
         [0000]    The merchant may then select the text to use based on the ranking and perceived needs of the consumer. 
         [0041]    The system may personalize an offer as shown in  FIG. 8 . A consumer is identified by a tracking cookie or unique identifier such as an email address, telephone number, or user name at step  810 . The goods and/or services being purchased by the consumer are then categorized and associated with a warranty or additional goods and services at step  820 . The offer engine may offer a warranty or additional goods and services directly to the consumer or through a merchant at step  830 . The personalized offer is generated based on analysis of the consumer&#39;s history by the offer engine  148 . If the consumer accepts the offer then the consumer proceeds to check out with the warranty or additional goods and services at step  840 . If the consumer declines the offer then the consumer proceeds to check out as usual at step  850 . The warranty may also be modified based on input from the consumer. The consumer is then able to accept or reject the modified offer. 
         [0042]    The system may further be employed in other applications as shown in  FIG. 9 . In addition to making offers on a retailer website (i.e. an e-commerce store) and at the point-of-sale (POS) at a brick and mortar store, the offer engine  148  may offer a warranty or additional goods and services at the website of a warranty provider. The offer engine may also offer a warranty or additional goods and services on a call center display, on remarketing advertisements on social media, direct to consumers by email, and on an application programming interface (API). The offer engine  148  may also access third party databases. 
         [0043]    It will be understood by a person skilled in the art that many of the details provided above are by way of example only, and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention which is to be determined with reference to the following claims.