WO2006097548A1

WO2006097548A1 - Sales support and information terminal for food retail customers

Info

Publication number: WO2006097548A1
Application number: PCT/ES2005/000142
Authority: WO
Inventors: Isidro Lopez Moreno; Javier Reina Segura
Original assignee: Isidro Lopez Moreno; Javier Reina Segura
Priority date: 2005-03-17
Filing date: 2005-03-17
Publication date: 2006-09-21

Abstract

The invention relates to a sales support and information terminal (4) for food retail customers. According to the invention, customers use the terminal at a food retail establishment in order to select food, recipes or other options that are categorised under specialised headings and the terminal supplies the customers with detailed information including preparation methods, lists of ingredients, the location of the ingredients in the shopping centre, individual prices, the total cost of the recipe and other information that would be useful to the customer and that would facilitate and encourage purchases. In addition, following authentication, the customer can use the support and information terminal to consult and control intelligent electrical household appliances that are connected to the Internet and that can be remote controlled.

Description

TERMINAL OF INFORMATION AND SUPPORT FOR SALE FOR CUSTOMERS OF FOOD RETAILERS

1. OBJECT OF THE INVENTION

The invention has for its object an information and support terminal for the sale to customers of food retailers that, through the selection by customers in the terminal itself located in the establishment of the food retailer, kitchen recipes or other classified options In specialized sections, it provides these clients with detailed information on them, including the manufacturing procedure, list of components, their location in the shopping center, unit price, total amount of the recipe and other useful information for the client that facilitate and encourage shopping.

Additionally, the information and support terminal provides the user, after authentication, consultation and control services for smart appliances located in their home when they are connected to the Internet and have that remote control capacity.

The object of the invention is achieved by means of a device as claimed in claim 1 and in the other dependent claims.

2. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Hypermarkets that sell, among others, food products, try to increase their sales using some of the persuasion methods among those possible. One of them is advertising that brings customers closer to their establishments, either through advertisements in the audiovisual media, through the distribution of propaganda or in the infrastructures of their premises to put the products to sell at the sight of their customers.

External advertising helps attract the customer, but only the internal advertising of the premises is the one that encourages the final purchase. Consequently, a system has been designed with which the customer has the support and complete information to make the purchase, and the merchant can guide him to the products that most Interested in selling by giving all the information necessary for its location and handling for consumption.

According to sociological studies carried out by companies dedicated to market research and by the food chains themselves, 60% of customers in large retail stores do not have a clear idea of what they want or need to buy.

On the other hand, home automation is being progressively introduced in the homes of developed countries as the manufacturers of household appliances produce these increasingly cheaper and with better benefits thanks to computer engineering and developments in sensors and actuators, offering intelligent devices that facilitate Life, save time and, above all, money.

With the information and support terminal for the sale of the present invention, a customer service is provided in which the seller, by making the first of a series of cooking recipes and other information available, helps his client to make a purchase that was not decided before entering the selling establishment. In this way, an innovative customer service is provided that, apart from increasing sales, directs the customer towards those products that the seller is most interested in giving out. In addition, the terminal provides an additional economic income to the retailer by taking advantage of the advertising support involved in including certain products in the different recipes or additional information.

The information and support terminal also provides, after user authentication, access to home automation networks located in your home and / or other premises, which will allow you to remotely perform the functions of consultation, surveillance and control available to said home automation network, especially access to smart appliances.

The European patent ES 2 171 762, published on October 10, 1998 to Catalina Marketing International Inc., describes a system that links consumers, retailers and consumers through a communications network and a centralized team. manufacturers in a single system, in order to offer the first purchase incentives of the last ones that are effective in the act of purchase in retail centers. It is a system oriented to distance shopping, electronic commerce, and it has a food recipe service that when chosen, its components are automatically added to the electronic shopping list, where the consumer is oriented towards a specific retailer based on of its geographical proximity or other criteria. It allows special recipes for example for vegetarians. The products for sale are not limited to food.

3. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The following detailed description will be better understood in view of the following representative figures of an exemplary embodiment of the invention, where: Fig. 1 represents a schematic of the information system for updating the service;

Fig. 2 represents a functional block diagram of the information and support terminal or store terminal; and

Fig. 3 is a schematic representation of a preferred embodiment of the store terminal.

4. DESCRIPTION

The information and support terminal is based on an information system that is composed (Fig. 1) of the following elements:

1. A Central Computer (1) that contains and manages the database function and will send all system and information modifications via the Internet to a device called the Guide Terminal.

2. A Guide Terminal (2) that receives the updated information of the program and once reviewed by the supermarket supervisor, will send it to an Internet Server protected by a password. 3. An Internet Server (3), where all the system updates that have already been approved are collected so that the terminals that depend on it update their information.

4. Information and Support Terminals (4) (TIDA), are the Store Terminals where customers go to directly collect information on recipes and other options, in addition to performing home automation network control functions.

In a preferred embodiment of the invention represented in Fig. 3, the store terminal (4) is mounted on a vertical piece of furniture made of wood, PVC or other similar material (5) with a touch screen (6) forming an angle of 30 ° to 45 °, located at a height of between 70 and 120 cm from the ground and the store terminal (4) weighing approximately 40 kg. The furniture (5) has a front space for inclusion of advertising elements (24). The store terminal (4) has supports (23) for anchoring it to the ground. Alternatively, the store terminal (4) can take any other suitable form, such as a parallelepiped-shaped casing to mount on product shelves or with the design that the owner company wishes.

The store terminals (4) are computer terminals consisting of: a Central Processing Unit CPU (7) of the AMD SEMPROM 2600 type (or similar) with a 15 "LCD type touch screen (or similar) and a USB output port whose connector is on the front of the cabinet (5). The CPU (7) has access from the outside through a window provided with a lock and has a hard drive (9) of 40Gb to 120Gb capacity, RAM memory with capacity between 256Mb and 1028Mb, two speakers (11) of 25 W of power, a CD ^' s reader (15) of 52X speed, a laser or thermal printer (13) prepared to house a normal paper roll or industrial thermal paper of about 150 m in length, respectively, which is accessed from the outside through another window with a lock and an Internet connection card (12) with, for example, Vodafone type 3G UMTS wireless technology or the like.On the front of the furniture (5) there is a box with a slot (14) for The output of the tickets printed by the printer (13). The CPU (7) is prepared to optionally couple any set of devices selected among a Card Reader (16), a Fingerprint Detector (17) and a Bar Code Reader (18). In addition, the cabinet incorporates a Luminous Sensor (19) for the automatic switch-off and start-up of the store terminal (4), its operation depending on the establishment's light level depending on whether it is open or closed to the public. All these electronic elements are powered by a single Power Supply (20) connected to an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) (21) with a single outlet from the outside.

The CPU (7) is also connected to a standard type wireless communication device (22), such as Bluetooth or WIFI, for the extraction of information from the store terminal (4) regarding recipes or other options using devices that have these communication technologies such as Laptops, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) or Mobile Phones.

The Internet Server (3) will provide access to recipes and options through this network to customers who so desire through terminals connected to the Internet such as Personal Computers or Refrigerators and, in general, to smart appliances equipped with this facility.

In state-of-the-art refrigerators, a microcomputer that is part of it keeps a database with its content updated. This update is carried out in two alternative ways: a) the user enters the data corresponding to the food inlets and outlets of the refrigerator, or b) the refrigerator equips a barcode reader avoiding the need for manual data entry by the user. Furthermore, these refrigerators are equipped with Internet connection means. With these premises, when the user goes to the commercial premises equipped with a store terminal (4), he can connect through it prior to the corresponding authentication by password, fingerprint readable by the Fingerprint Reader (17), or card readable by the Card Reader (16), with its refrigerator that will communicate the food products that must be purchased. Alternatively, the refrigerator can be equipped with a "webcam" that allows the user to see its interior through the Internet and specifically in the store terminal (4) and thus decide which food products to buy.

The information and support terminal (4) also provides, after user authentication by the means indicated above, access to home automation networks located in your home and / or other premises, which will allow you to perform those functions of consultation, surveillance and control of that this home automation network has, especially access to smart appliances. That is, the user can access from the store terminal (4) their alarm system, video surveillance, air conditioning / heating, ovens, kitchens, washing machines, dryers, TVs, Video Recorders, etc., provided they are connected to the internet. In this way, the store terminal (4) provides the user with additional services that will encourage their use and indirectly purchases.

The information system is capable of maintaining all the data related to the premises in which the Store Terminals are located (4) and their articles in stock, offering the possibility of consulting and printing a series of recipes stored and offered by families. , of which, once they are approved by the user, a ticket will be printed at the time, listing all the items necessary for the preparation of the chosen recipe and the information necessary for its preparation, as well as the detailed information on each item, be it price, brand, weight, nutritional information, location on the sales surface, promotions, designations of origin, origin of the items, accompanying recipes (drinks, sauces ...) discounts, and the like. The store terminal streamlines the set of purchases made by a customer in an access to the terminal, so that if the quantities to be purchased, for not being sold in adequate proportions to each recipe, for example, oil or wine containers are at least 1 liter or 750 centiliters respectively, exceed what is necessary for each of them, these purchases are the smallest possible to prepare the set of recipes requested in that access to the terminal so that the expense is also the least possible. On the other hand, the store terminal adds homogeneous quantities that correspond to each recipe so that they are purchased in a single purchase. To carry out the necessary updates in the store terminal (4), it is prepared to use several methods: (a) by means of CDs with the information to be updated, (b) via the Internet using a conventional ADSL network, and (c) by means of the use of the Internet connection card (12), for example UMTS or similar, so that from a remote central unit the information of the equipment can be updated in real time without cables or installations. This avoids that the store terminal (4) has to be manipulated by unqualified personnel or that the personnel in charge have to go to each of the store terminals (4) to update their data, in addition to speeding up the update to all terminals that depend on the central computer (1). This Internet connection card (12) together with the UPS unit (21) guarantee the integrity and security of the computer program, the data and the equipment itself against transients and voltage drops, making it a useful and reliable unit in addition to ensure that their proprietary supermarkets do not care about their maintenance since the system checks itself and will send adequate messages when there are anomalies, such as when the printer's paper needs to be replaced (13), and the program is ready to send a text message to the Mobile phone indicated to notify the person in charge of the change of paper without the need to be near the terminal.

In an exemplary embodiment of the system, the main families of recipes in which the articles will be offered are classified into:

(a) Traditional recipes that will have subfamilies such as meats, fish, vegetables, pasta, legumes, etc., orienting the customer more quickly on what they need to buy in the supermarket,

(b) Controlled diet recipes, these recipes are also organized by subfamilies that are:

1) Celiac, recipes made and supervised by the FACE (Federation of Celiac Associations of Spain).

2) Bulimics and Anorexic drugs, prescriptions supervised by doctors and endorsed via the Internet by medical specialists in the field.

3) Hypertensive, prescriptions supervised by Medical Colleges.

4) Diabetics, prescriptions supervised by Medical Colleges. (c) Cheap car, the computer program makes a shopping list with the basic necessities to spend a week based on the data that the client enters in the information base, such as age, number of people living in the house and total price of the purchase you want.

(d) Healthy diet, for customers who wish, this menu option, in addition to providing them with a series of recipes created by the SEDCA (Spanish Society of Dietetics and Food Sciences), has lists of diets that can also be print with all the information on the steps you have to follow to carry them out.

(e) International, these recipes will be prepared by the most important cooking schools in each country.

(f) Cheats, chefs will display basic cooking tips and lists of cookbooks can be printed for purchase.

(g) Desserts, similar to the TRADITIONAL RECIPES family.

(h) Supermarket promotions, the customer simply selecting this menu option will get a printed list of all the items that the supermarket has on sale that day.

In addition to this, the terminals will function as advertising screens, broadcasting voice videos as TV ads, when the program is at rest. Thanks to this system, the stay time and dedication to the customer's purchase will decrease, and the menu options indicated above will be made depending on the items that the supermarket has preference to sell. If, for example, the customer selects the menu option (g) Desserts, the following information will appear on the screen:

Also including a photograph of the product.

The client chooses option number 4 of the new table (lemon yogurt cake), and the following screen appears

INGREDIENTS SITUATION PRICE

6 eggs ventura aisle 2 € 0.80

250 grams of sugar The sugar bowl aisle 4 1, € 20

250 grams of cornstarch 4 4, € 40

125 grams of Bufort aisle 2 flour € 0.70

1 envelope of yeast Vainé aisle 5 € 0.40

125 grams of butter Lightweight aisle 3 1, € 50

1 lemon yogurt Danone aisle 3 € 0.30

ELABORATION

We separate the yolks from the eggs, from the whites.

Two tablespoons of sugar are poured and beaten until assembled.

This information can then be printed on a ticket that the customer can take and use during the purchase in the food center as a guide and at home for the preparation of the recipe. Thus the ticket will lead the customer directly to the product offered by the center, this achieves a more faithful publicity for the suppliers of the items offered and gives a customer service on the surface that makes it unique among those in its category.

Claims

1.- Information and Support Terminal for direct sales, located in the merchant's premises and accessible to people who are in it, characterized in that:

- it is part of an information system consisting of: a central computer (1) with an Internet connection; a guide terminal (2) with an Internet connection; an Internet server (3); and a plurality of information and support terminals (4) connected to the Internet;

- offers a menu of cooking recipes and offers when a menu option is selected, a printed list is obtained, comprising at least its components with their respective prices, locations at the merchant's premises, nutritional values, brands and discounts; and the procedure for its elaboration in the case of selecting a kitchen recipe;

- the quantities of said components to be acquired in an access to the terminal in which a plurality of kitchen recipes are jointly extracted are minimized, by optimizing the quantities of said components that are not capable of proportional division; and because

- these recipes are grouped into families according to the needs of groups of people based on the nutritional requirements imposed by their health situation or their tastes or preferences.

2.- Information and Support Terminal (4) according to claim 1, characterized in that said menu of recipes and offers is alternately updated in three ways: a) by means of CDs containing the information to be updated; b) by means of said information system through the Internet; and c) by wireless connection from a central unit (1)

3.- Information and Support Terminal (4) according to claim 1, characterized in that said terminal (4) contains a standard type wireless communication device (22), such as Bluetooth or WIFI, for remote extraction of information of the terminal (4) related to recipes and offers through devices that have these communication technologies such as Laptops, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) or Mobile Phones.

4.- Information and Support Terminal (4) according to claim 1, characterized in that said Internet server (3) will provide access to said recipes and offers through this network to customers who so wish through terminals connected to Internet as Personal Computers or Refrigerators equipped with this facility.

5.- Information and Support Terminal (4) according to claim 1, characterized in that by means of user authentication by password, by a fingerprint readable by the Fingerprint Reader (17) or by a card readable by the Card Reader (16 ), the user can connect via the Internet through said information and support terminal (4) with smart refrigerators connected to said Internet network to obtain a list of food products to purchase or inspect from said store terminal (4) via webcam the interior of said refrigerators to determine the purchase needs of said food products.

6.- Information and Support Terminal (4) according to claim 1, characterized in that by user authentication by password, by a fingerprint readable by the Fingerprint Reader (17) or by a card readable by the Card Reader (16 ), the user can connect via the Internet through said information and support terminal (4) with home automation networks connected to said Internet network for remote control of the functions of household appliances and devices connected to said home automation networks.