Patent ID: 7280974

Claim:
A computer implemented method for determining ranges of purchasing amounts, said method comprising: accessing purchasing data from a historical database of confirmed purchasers such that each confirmed purchaser has purchased at least one item having a non-null monetary value, wherein the historical database comprises the purchasing data for each confirmed purchaser within a historical duration that includes consecutive generations and consecutive cycles, wherein each generation is associated with a generation group consisting of all confirmed purchasers who have made a first purchase of an item of the at least one item within the associated generation, and wherein each cycle of the consecutive cycles is a time unit for analysis of the purchasing data for each confirmed purchaser; determining from the accessed purchasing data a plurality of re-purchasing ratios and a plurality of purchasing amounts, wherein the re-purchase ratios and the purchasing amounts are each indexed according to generation group, cycle, and recency frequency class which is a binaiy descriptor of purchases over predefined consecutive cycles; computing an average re-purchase ratio indexed according to cycle and recency frequency class, by averaging the plurality of re-purchase ratios over the generation groups according to which the plurality of re-purchase ratios are indexed; computing an average purchasing amount indexed according to cycle and recency frequency class, by averaging the plurality of purchasing amounts over the generation groups according to which the plurality of purchasing amounts are indexed; computing a minimum purchasing amount and a maximum purchasing amount each indexed according to cycle and recency frequency class, by utilizing the average purchasing amount indexed according to cycle and recency frequency class and the average re-purchase ratio indexed according to cycle and recency frequency class; and outputting, to an output device of a computing system, the average purchasing amount, the minimum purchasing amount, and the maximum purchasing amount, each indexed according to cycle and recency frequency class, wherein the re-purchase ratio for each generation group is a ratio of A to B: wherein A is the total number of confirmed purchasers in said each generation group, for the respective cycle, and for the respective recency frequency whose predefined consecutive cycles comprises a latest cycle being a next cycle following the respective cycle; and wherein B is the total number of confirmed purchasers in said each generation group, for the respective cycle, and for the respective recency frequency whose predefined consecutive cycles comprises a latest cycle being the respective cycle.