JPH11258991A - Customer information acquisition system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To generate information on the reaction of a customer to merchandize. SOLUTION: To the price tags of merchandizes put on a tray 1, for example, ID tags 3 equipped with antenna coils are fitted. In the tray 1, antennas 20 and 21 for transmission and reception of a controller 13 are embedded, and the controller 13 and the ID tags 3 of the respective articles are able to communicate with each other through the antennas 20 and 21 and antenna coils. The controller 13 communicates with the ID tag 3 of all the articles on the tray 1 at specific short intervals and send a list of the communicated ID numbers of the ID tags 3 to a main computer 17. The main computer 17 judges whether or not an ID number not present in the current ID number list is present in a last ID number list, and if such an ID number is present, decides that the merchandize having the ID number is being browsed by a customer, thereby increasing the frequency of blowsing.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a customer information collecting system capable of collecting, as information, a customer reaction to a product.

[0002]

Conventionally, POS (pointo) has been used as an information collection system for collecting data on articles.
f sale) system. For example, by providing a terminal having a register function, a file function for temporarily storing data, an online function, and the like, and reading a product code such as a barcode with an automatic reading device, information on the movement of the product can be obtained. It is created at the point of sale and transmitted online to the host device.

[0003] However, the POS system only obtains information such as the sales results of the products, the arrival time of the sold products, the elapsed time from the arrival time, and the like. Not in. The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to provide a customer information collection system that can digitize a customer's reaction regarding a product.

[0004]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a customer information collecting system, comprising: an ID tag provided on an article or a member handled together with the article; communication means capable of communicating with the ID tag; Determining means for determining whether or not the ID tag is out of the communicable area of the communication means, based on the communication result of the communication means; and Processing means for counting the number of times of departure as the number of times of browsing the article.

According to this configuration, when a customer picks up a product (article), the ID tag of the product is out of the communicable area of the communication means, so that communication with the communication means cannot be performed.
For this reason, it is possible to detect, from the communication result by the communication means, the ID tag for which communication has been disabled, that is, the product picked up by the customer, and convert the number of detections into information as the number of browsing. From the browsing frequency information, the degree of popularity of the product can be known. For this reason, for example, by using the system of the present invention, it is possible to predict whether or not a product to be released soon will become popular or to predict the number of manufactured and sold products.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a customer information collecting system for inputting an ID tag provided on an article or a member handled together with the article, communication means capable of communicating with the ID tag, and customer information on the article. Input means, determining means for determining whether or not the ID tag is out of the communicable area of the communication means based on a communication result of the communication means; information from the input means and information from the determining means; And processing means for creating customer information from the customer. According to this configuration, the gender and layer of the customer who is interested in the product or the reason for not purchasing can be input from the input means, and more detailed information on the product can be obtained.

[0007]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will
This will be described with reference to FIGS. In FIG. 3, a plurality of products 2 such as rings are placed as goods on a product tray 1 stored in a showcase (not shown), and each product 2 or a member handled together with each product 2, for example, An ID tag 3 as solid-state recognition means is attached to a case in which the products 2 are put, a price tag attached to each product 2, and the like. As shown in FIG. 2, the ID tag 3 has a tag main part 7 formed by mounting a resonance capacitor 4, a control IC chip 5 and a smoothing part 6 on a printed circuit board.
And an antenna coil 8 for transmitting and receiving radio signals.

[0008] The control IC chip 5 is a one-chip semiconductor device constituting a rectifier 10, a modulator / demodulator 11, a memory 12, etc., in addition to the MPU 9 as a control unit. Although not shown, the smoothing unit 6 has a smoothing capacitor and a Zener diode. The antenna coil 8 is connected in series with the resonance capacitor 4 to form a resonance circuit. When a predetermined high-frequency power radio signal is transmitted from the controller 13 as the communication means shown in FIG. This is received and transmitted to the rectification unit 10.
The rectifying unit 10 constitutes an operation power supply circuit together with the smoothing unit 6, rectifies the electric power radio signal transmitted from the resonance circuit, smoothes the electric wave signal by the smoothing unit 6, and has a constant voltage DC power (operation power). And supply it to the MPU 9 and the like.

A signal such as a command or data transmitted from the controller 12 is transmitted by being superimposed on a radio wave signal for electric power. In the ID tag 3, the command received by the antenna coil 8 is transmitted. Signals such as data and data are demodulated by the modulation / demodulation unit 11 and provided to the MPU 9. The MPU 9 operates according to an operation program stored in a ROM included in the memory unit 12, executes a process corresponding to a signal input from the modem unit 11, and erases received data in an EEPROM or the like included in the memory unit 12. Writing to a possible non-volatile memory, or
, And modulates the data by the modem unit 11, and transmits the data as a radio signal from the antenna coil 8.

As shown in FIG. 1, the controller 13 includes an MPU 14 as control means, a ROM 15 storing an operation program, and a RAM 1 temporarily storing data and the like.
6 and so on. MPU 14 of this controller 13
Operates according to a predetermined ID information creating program, and communicates with the ID tag 3 to create ID information. Then, in order to transmit the created ID information to the main computer 17 as the main control device, the controller 13 and the main computer 17
They are connected via communication interfaces 18 and 19 such as RS232C provided respectively.

The controller 13 has a transmitting antenna 20 and a receiving antenna 21 as an interface for connecting to the ID tag 3 by radio waves. The transmitting antenna 20 and the receiving antenna 21 are provided inside the commodity tray 1, and are connected to the controller 13 via a cable 22. Then, when communicating with the ID tag 3, the MPU 14 of the controller 13 first modulates only the carrier signal by the modulator 23,
The signal is transmitted as a power radio signal from the transmitting unit 24 via the transmitting antenna 20. After that, the MPU 16 reads out the data to be transmitted from the RAM 16 and
Thus, the signal is modulated so as to be superimposed on the power radio signal, and transmitted from the transmission unit 24 via the transmission antenna 20.

On the other hand, the radio signal transmitted from the antenna coil 8 of the ID tag 3 is received by the receiving unit 25 via the receiving antenna 21, demodulated by the demodulating unit 26 and discriminated as data. Then, the MPU 14 stores the data sent from the demodulation unit 26 in the RAM 16 and finally creates ID information from the data stored in the RAM 16.

The controller 13 and the main computer 17 are provided with communication interfaces 27 and 28 such as RS232C.
8 are connected via a cable 29, and the ID information created on the controller 13 side is transmitted to the main computer 17 via the cable 29. Then, the main computer 17 processes the transmitted ID information to calculate the number of times of browsing of each product 2, and accumulates the number of times of browsing on a database constructed in the external storage device 30.

Next, the operation of the above configuration will be described with reference to the flowcharts of FIGS. First, the controller 13 executes an ID information acquisition routine shown in FIG. 4 every time a predetermined short time elapses. When the execution of the ID information acquisition routine starts, the MPU 14 of the controller 13 transmits an operation radio signal from the transmission antenna 20, and then transmits a multi-read command signal superimposed on the operation radio signal (step S1). ). Here, the multi-read command is a command for communicating with all the ID tags 3 existing in the area where communication is possible with the transmitting / receiving antennas 20 and 21.

The command includes a single read command, a single write command, and the like in addition to the above-described multi-read command. The single read command is a command for specifying an ID number and obtaining data from the ID tag 3 of the specified ID number. The single write command is a command for specifying an ID number and storing the data in the ID tag 3 of the specified ID number. This is a command for writing data. Although the area where communication is possible with the transmitting / receiving antennas 20 and 21 is indicated by a two-dot chain line E in FIG. 3, when the product 2 is taken out of the showcase, the ID tag 3 of the product is removed from the communicable area E.

The ID tags 3 of the plurality of products 2 placed on the product tray 1 receive the operation radio signal transmitted from the controller 13 by the antenna coil 8,
The radio signal is rectified by the rectifying unit 10 and the smoothing unit 6 and converted into DC power of a constant voltage, and supplied to the MPU 9 and the like as operating power. MPU 9 of each ID tag 3
Starts the operation by supplying the operation power, reads the content of the command transmitted from the controller 13,
If the command is a multi-read command, the ID number stored in an EEPROM or the like of the memory unit 12 is read in response to the command, and the ID number information is read from the modem unit 11.
And transmitted from the antenna coil 8.

At this time, since the ID tag 3 of the product 2 taken out of the product tray 1 is out of the communicable area E of the transmitting / receiving antennas 20, 21, the ID number is transmitted from the ID tag 3. There is no. Therefore, the controller 13 does not receive the ID number from the ID tag 3 of the product 2 placed on the product tray 1 at the time of transmitting the multi-read command.

The controller 13 sends IDs from the ID tags 3 of all the products 2 placed on the product tray 1.
When the number is received (step S2), the received list of ID numbers is transmitted to the main computer 17 as ID information (step S3), and the process returns. Thereafter, when it is time to start the next ID information acquisition routine, the controller 13 starts executing the routine again.
Whether the controller 13 has received the ID numbers from the ID tags 3 of all the products 2 placed on the product tray 1 is determined, for example, by outputting a transmission stop command to the ID tag of the received ID number. In this case, if no ID number is received for a certain period of time, it may be determined that all ID tags have been communicated.

On the other hand, when the main computer 17 receives the ID information from the controller 13 (step S)
A), the ID information is stored in the memory unit, and the ID information received this time is compared with the previously received ID information also stored in the memory unit (step SB), and the ID of the last ID information is compared. It is determined whether or not the number list includes an ID number that is not included in the ID number list of the current ID information (step SC; determining means). If the ID number list of the previous ID information and the ID number list of the current ID information match, no product has been taken out of the product tray 1 and return without changing the data in the database in any way. And waits for the next input of ID information from the controller 13.

As a result of collating the current ID information with the previous ID information in step SB, an ID number not included in the ID number list of the current ID information is included in the ID number list of the previous ID information. In some cases, the main computer 17 determines “YES” in step SC, and determines in step SD that the product with the ID number has been taken out of the product tray 1 and viewed by the customer in the database of the external storage device 30. Is incremented, the number of times the ID number is browsed among the number of times the ID number is browsed is stored, and the process returns.

When there is an ID tag 3 that cannot communicate with the controller 13 as described above, the product with the ID tag 3 is taken out of the product tray 1 and is assumed to be being viewed by a customer. Because it is remembered for each product, the popular products,
Alternatively, the degree of popularity of the product can be quantified.

The number of browsing times for each product 2 is determined by transmitting information on the number of browsing times from the computer 17 to the controller 13.
Then, the browsing frequency information is transmitted from the controller 13 to the ID tag 3 of the product 2 and the EEP
You may make it memorize | store in ROM. In this case, the number of times of browsing of each product 2 may be recorded only in the ID tag 3 of each product 2, or commonly recorded in the ID tags 3 of all products 2 placed on the product tray 1. You may do it. By storing the browsing information in the ID tag 3 in this manner, the ID tag 3 is returned to the maker, so that the maker also receives the marketing information (browsing frequency information).
Can be obtained. Using such a browsing frequency information system, for example, when a new product is released, the degree of popularity of the new product by exhibiting the prototype,
You can know the degree of sales in advance.

The controller 13 transmits the ID information (I
(D number list) may be created, and each time an ID number is received from the ID tag 3 side, the ID number may be transmitted to the computer 17.

FIGS. 6 to 9 show another embodiment of the present invention. The same parts as those of the above-described embodiment are denoted by the same reference numerals, and only different parts will be described. As shown in FIG. 8, a product 30 is placed on a furniture 31 for browsing the product, and on one side of the furniture 31, various key switches are provided as input means. These key switches are for inputting detailed information of the customer, for example, as shown in FIG. 7, male and female key switches 32 and 33 for inputting the gender of the customer, and as the customer demographic information, the customer is a student. Key switches 34 to 36 for inputting whether a person is a member of society, a housewife, or a housewife; a key switch 37 for inputting whether the purpose of purchasing a product is for self use or for a present; 38. Each key switch 39-41 for inputting whether the customer did not buy the product he picked up because of the price, whether he did not like the design, or whether there was another reason. After inputting the detailed information, a registration key switch 42 is provided for registering the detailed information in the database.

When the key switches 32 to 42 of the furniture 31 are operated, the operation signals are converted into digital signals corresponding to the respective key switches 32 to 42 by the switch signal processing circuit 43, and the digital signals are converted to the communication interface 44. Is input to the main computer 17 via the.
The main computer 17 transmits a key operation signal (digital) input from the furniture 31 side to the communication interface 45.
, And processes the signal to detect which key switch is the input operation signal. Then, the main computer 17 obtains customer information from the customer service information based on the discrimination of the key operation signal and the ID information input from the controller 13 (processing means), and stores it in the external storage device 30.
It is configured to record in a database.

The operation of the above configuration will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. 9 as well. The clerk takes out the product 30 from the furniture 31 in response to the customer's request, Judge the customer base, one of the key switches 30 and 31 for men and women,
By operating any of the key switches 32 to 34 of the working person and the housewife, when purchasing a product obtained through conversation with a customer, it is determined whether the product is used with confidence or given as a present. Then, one of the purpose selection self and present key switches 35 and 36 is operated. And if a customer purchases the product,
Then, the user operates the registration key switch 40, and when the customer does not finally purchase the product, the reason for the unsuccessfulness obtained through the conversation with the customer is indicated by the price, design and other key switches 37 to 39. An input is made using one of them, and then the registration key switch 42 is operated.

Whenever any of the key switches 32 to 42 is operated as described above, the main computer 17 obtains a key operation signal corresponding to the operated key switch from the furniture 31 side. The reception of the key operation signal from the main computer 17 is performed until the registration key switch 42 is operated (steps Sa and Sb).

Then, when the registration key switch 42 is operated (“Y” in step Sb)
ES "), and outputs a command signal to transmit a multi-read command to the controller 13 (step Sc). Then, the controller 13 detects the ID tag 3 of the commodity 2 existing on the furniture 31 and transmits it to the main computer 17 as ID information (ID number list) in the same manner as in the embodiment. Main computer 17
Receives the ID information from the controller 13 and checks the ID information received this time against the ID information received last time to determine the ID number of the currently viewed product (step Sd).

Thereafter, the main computer 17 determines, based on the key operation signal and the ID number of the merchandise being viewed obtained by collating the ID information, the gender of the customer, the customer demographic, the purpose of purchase, and The reason is added to the database as customer information (step Se). Further, the main computer 17 transmits the customer information to the controller 13 in order to store the customer information in all the ID tags 3 existing on the furniture 31 (step Sf), and performs a single read to the controller 13. Then, a command signal for transmitting a single write command is transmitted (step Sg), and the process returns.

The controller 13 having received the command signal from the main computer 17 first single-reads the ID numbers in the ID information in order to sequentially operate the ID tags 3 of the products 2 present on the furniture 31. Send with command. Among the ID tags 3 of the products 30 on the furniture 31, the ID tag 3 having the ID number transmitted from the controller 13 starts communication with the controller 13 in response to the single read command.
The current customer information stored in the second EEPROM is transmitted to the controller 13.

The controller 13 adds the new customer information sent from the main computer 17 to the customer information sent from the ID tag 3 and sends a single write command together with the ID number. To send new customer information. ID tag 3 is an EEPROM
Is updated to the new customer information transmitted from the controller 13 side. Controller 1
After the communication with the ID tag 3 is performed with the ID tags of all the commodities existing on the furniture 31, the state 3 waits for the next command from the main computer 17.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, the merchandise placed on the furniture 31 has many male customers or many female customers. Or, if the purpose of the product purchase is self-use or use as a gift, and if you do not buy it, the reason is the price, the design,
Information such as another reason can be obtained as customer information. Such customer information can be read from the ID tag 3 or from a database of the external storage device 30 at a desired time, for example, during product sales or inventory, and can be statistically applied to a product sales strategy. it can.

The present invention is not limited to the embodiment described above and shown in the drawings, but can be extended or modified as follows. Discrimination of commodities that do not exist on the commodity tray 1 or the furniture 31 may be performed by the controller 13, and the controller 13 may also create browsing frequency information and customer information. The key switch provided on the furniture 31, in other words, the information to be obtained is not limited to the gender of the customer, the layer, the purpose of purchase, and the reason for rejection, but can be appropriately selected as needed.

The customer information is a database and the ID of each product 2
The recording is not limited to the tag 3 and may be recorded only in the database or only in the ID tag 3. The number of fixtures 31 is not limited to one, and customer information may be obtained from a plurality of fixtures carrying a plurality of products. By doing so, for example, by sorting a plurality of products having similar designs into a plurality of groups and placing them on furniture, it is possible to obtain information such as which product group has the best response. Browsing information,
The customer information and the like may be displayed on a display as output means or printed on paper by a printer. INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY The present invention can be widely applied to articles such as jewelry and clothing, and can be implemented.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an electrical configuration showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an electrical configuration of a commodity tray.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram showing a product tray and a communicable range.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart for creating ID information.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart for creating browsing information.

FIG. 6 is a diagram corresponding to FIG. 1, showing another embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a front view showing a key switch arrangement surface of the furniture.

FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram showing furniture and a communicable range.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart for creating customer information.

[Explanation of symbols]

In the figure, 1 is a product tray, 2 is a product, 3 is an ID tag, 8 is an antenna coil, 13 is a controller (communication means),
17 is a main computer (determining means, processing means), 2
0 is a transmitting antenna, 21 is a receiving antenna, 30 is a product, 31 is furniture, and 32 to 42 are key switches (input means).

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification code FI G09F 1/02 H04B 5/02 H04B 1/59 G06K 17/00 F 5/02 G06F 15/20 N // / 21 Z

Claims (2)

[Claims] An ID tag provided on an article or a member handled together with the article; communication means capable of communicating with the ID tag; and a communication result of the communication means based on a communication result of the communication means. Determining means for determining whether the ID tag has deviated from the communicable area; processing means for counting the number of times the ID tag has deviated from the communicable area of the communication means as the number of times the article has been viewed based on the determination information of the determining means. A customer information collection system comprising: 2. An ID tag provided on an article or a member handled together with the article, communication means capable of communicating with the ID tag, input means for inputting customer information regarding the article, and communication of the communication means. Determining means for determining whether or not the ID tag is out of the communicable area of the communication means based on the result; processing means for creating customer information from information from the input means and information from the determination means; A customer information collection system comprising: