Patent ID: 7853477

Claim:
A system for providing cross-marketing promotional offers to a customer, said system comprising: at least one product inventory location for holding distinct products and displaying said distinct products to customers wherein at least one said distinct product is associated with at least one electronic tag, and wherein said at least one electronic tag is configured to convey product information; a smart cart defining a customer-storage area used by a customer to store products while shopping; at least one electronic tag reading device configured to retrieve information from the at least one electronic tag; an electronic computing device in communication with said at least one electronic tag reading device and configured to accept, process, store and output said product information; said electronic computing device further configured to: (a) use said at least one electronic tag reading device to retrieve product information from an electronic tag associated with a hot-product wherein said hot-product is at least one of (i) a product being examined by a customer; or (ii) a product in a customer-storage-area; (b) use said product information to determine if a cross-marketing promotional offer is associated with said hot-product; (c) notify said customer of a cross-marketing promotional offer determined to be associated with said hot-product; and wherein said promotional offer is one of a real time promotional offer and a near real time promotional offer; and wherein said smart cart further comprises an item evaluator configured to measure a physical parameter of said hot-product placed in said customer-storage area and to cross reference the measured physical parameter with said product information to verify that the actual hot-product corresponds to the product referenced in said product information.