Method and system for processing auxiliary product sales in point-of-sale terminal

The present invention relates to a point-of-sale terminal, and more particularly to a method and system for processing product sales at the point of sale.

The present invention relates to a lottery ticket trading system. More specifically, the present invention relates to a system and method for selling a lottery ticket using a point of sale (POS) terminal that issues a sales receipt that includes both commercial transaction sales information and lottery ticket information. Many states in the United States, like some foreign countries, have a government-led lottery system. Government-led lottery has the advantage of providing the masses with the desired product (usually the chance to win the prize of high cash) and increasing government revenues without imposing additional taxes or tax increases on the masses. .. Revenues generated from government lottery are often used for special purposes or goals such as improving the education system or reducing property taxes. In a typical government-led lottery system, a central lottery computer is used to communicate with a dedicated lottery terminal. Players play lottery play slips (Play) slip) Select the number above and the lottery terminal operator inserts the lottery play slip into the reader on the lottery terminal. This allows the lottery play slip to be optically read using a known mark detection process. After that, the dedicated lottery terminal sends the number selected by the player to the central lottery computer and stores it. After the lottery number is stored, the dedicated lottery terminal prints and issues the lottery ticket under the control of the central lottery computer. One popular lottery game, known as "lotto," usually requires the player to choose six numbers from 1 to 42. The selected number group is then randomly selected from a larger pool of numbers 1-42, usually once or twice a week, at a specific time and number of days after purchasing the lottery ticket. Compared to the winning lottery number chosen. In order to win the prize, the lottery number must match all or some of the winning lottery numbers. Players are supposed to choose their own lottery number, but in most lot games, instead, the central lottery computer system has the option of letting the central lottery computer system choose a random "quick-pick" lottery number. I have prepared it. This saves the buyer the time and inconvenience of picking up his or her own number. Such an automatic lottery numbering system is commonly known as a "quick pick" system. A variety of games are played in a typical lottery. In a traditional lottery game, the player buys a lottery ticket. One or more lottery numbers and one serial number are stamped on the lottery ticket. Serial numbers are a simple way to prevent counterfeiting. This is because it uniquely identifies each lottery ticket sold. The lottery number also allows both the player and the lottery system to identify the winner. Specifically, the lottery number is compared by the player to the "winning table" to determine if the player has won the prize.

There are also instant lottery games where the results are decided prior to the sale of lottery tickets. By revealing the hidden indicia stamped on the lottery ticket, the player can determine if the lottery ticket is a win immediately after purchase. Some foreign countries (eg Germany) allow lottery players to buy split lottery tickets. However, those lottery systems only allow players to purchase a fixed percentage of certain high-value lottery tickets (for example, half or a quarter of a lottery ticket). In these cases, if the lottery ticket wins, the buyer will receive only half or a quarter of the total prize amount. Most lottery tickets are sold at general stores, liquor stores and convenience stores. These retailers typically install dedicated lottery terminals away from one or more point-of-sale terminals used for commercial transactions. This physical separation is to ensure that the commercial trading line is not delayed or disturbed by customers seeking to buy lottery tickets. Furthermore, since the lottery terminal has a separate accounting system, it is not necessary to place the POS terminal and the dedicated lottery terminal in the same place. However, some customers may find it cumbersome to carry out two separate transactions, namely commercial transactions and lottery tickets, in the same store on two different terminals. Separated terminals can also force customers to line up in two separate rows, or delay the entire transaction settlement process while one clerk processes two separate transactions on two terminals. Maybe. Besides disgusting commercial-only customers, these inconveniences may prevent them from impulsively buying lottery tickets. This leads to lower government and store revenues.

These are the disadvantages associated with using two separate and independent terminals for commercial and lottery ticket transactions. Governments typically bear the cost of purchasing, leasing, installing and maintaining dedicated lottery terminals. The cost of resupplying lottery ticket paper and ink for each dedicated lottery terminal is also considerable. In addition, many retail stores, such as supermarkets, with multiple checkout lines and registers do not have the resources to operate a dedicated lottery terminal at each checkout register. In addition, the dedicated lottery terminal occupies the counter space, which is a place that can be used originally for displaying products that generate income. Training the clerk to operate two different types of commercial terminals is also costly. These factors have reduced the availability of lottery tickets to consumers by limiting the number of places where lottery tickets can be sold, which has reduced government revenues. After years of steady profit growth, many state-owned lotteries have shown a decline in profits. Improving the convenience of purchasing lottery tickets and increasing their availability have been a major concern when modernizing the lottery system in many states. The current lottery system does not allow the sale of split-value lottery tickets at retail sales point terminals. Revenues have declined significantly due to the loss of the opportunity to buy split-value lottery tickets. Therefore, there is a demand for a system that solves the above problems. Many stores visited by customers own one or more point-of-sale terminals (POS), such as cash registers. The store cashier uses a point-of-sale terminal to calculate the total amount of shopping (one or more items) and the amount of change to be paid to the customer. Some point-of-sale terminals also track the purchases made and adjust the store's inventory database accordingly. The amount of change is the difference between the purchase price and the amount paid by the customer. Customers usually pay an integer amount of cash in the form of banknotes, but the purchase price is most often a non-integer amount. Therefore, the amount of change to be refunded to the customer at the POS terminal usually includes one or more coins, which the POS terminal or cashier pays to the customer. Receiving and carrying change, especially coins, can be a hassle for many customers. Therefore, customers often pay non-integer cash to spend coins they don't want and / or to reduce the coins that would otherwise be given to them as shopping change. Be compelled. Coins and banknotes paid by customers are collected by cashiers at point-of-sale terminals.

Refunding coins to the customer or receiving coins from the customer both increase the time the cashier spends processing the purchase and thus the customer waiting in line at the point-of-sale terminal. Therefore, the company must pay wages for the time spent handling coins, and customers must endure the delay in exchanging coins between the cashier and the customers. Must be. In addition, the cashier could make a miscalculation and refund the wrong amount of change. Customers often anticipate such mistakes and count change to see if they have received the correct amount. Such customers usually account for change before leaving the point-of-sale terminal, thus giving other customers additional delays. The company bears the cost of counting, rolling, depositing or handling coins. According to one estimate, the company spends hundreds of thousands of hours and hundreds of millions of dollars a year just handling coins. In short, exchanging change, especially coins, between a customer and a POS terminal is costly, time consuming and undesirable. Unfortunately, traditional point-of-sale terminals only calculate the price of shopping and the amount of change, and cannot reduce the amount of change or exchange coins. Therefore, it is beneficial to provide a system and method of reducing the amount of change and thereby reducing the coins exchanged between the customer and the cashier at the point of sale. Lottery is a very popular game that generates a large amount of revenue for the state of the sponsor that offers such a game. In a typical lottery, the player (ticket owner) buys a lottery ticket with the ticket number and serial number stamped on it. The ticket number allows both the ticket owner and the lottery trader to confirm whether the ticket owner has won the prize. The serial number is usually recorded by the lottery trader to uniquely identify the lottery ticket and confirm that the lottery ticket is valid. For example, the serial number will be used to verify that the ticket number stamped on the ticket matches the ticket number recorded by the lottery vendor with the lottery ticket.

A typical lottery ticket has six ticket numbers, each of which is chosen from a range, such as the range 1-49. These six ticket numbers are chosen by the ticket owner or, at the request of the ticket owner, randomly by the lottery terminal that prints the ticket. On the day of the lottery, the lottery trader randomly picks out six ticket numbers that are considered "winning" ticket numbers. A lottery ticket with a ticket number that matches all or some of the winning ticket numbers is the winning ticket, and the corresponding lottery ticket owner wins the prize. Patent Application No. 08 / 822,709 entitled "Systems and Methods for Executing Lottery Ticket Transactions Using Point-of-Sale Terminals", which is the parent application of the parent application of this application, filed on March 21, 1997. Discloses systems and methods for selling split lottery tickets to customers at point-of-sale (POS) terminals in exchange for change. For example, a customer brings a product to a point-of-sale terminal, and the point-of-sale terminal calculates the purchase price as $ 4.74. If you round the purchase price to the nearest $ 1, the change will be $ 5.00- $ 4.74 = $ 0.26. Therefore, customers can get a 26% stake in a $ 1 lottery ticket instead of change. If the lottery ticket is won, 26% of the corresponding prize will be given to the customer. There are many advantages to offering a split lottery ticket in exchange for change. As also stated in Patent Application No. 08 / 920,116, the parent application of this application, entitled "Methods and Systems for Processing Auxiliary Product Sales at Sales Point Terminals", filed August 26, 1997. In addition, paying and receiving coins is costly and cumbersome. In addition, many customers consider coins to be dirty and prefer not to handle them. Thus, many customers will find it very desirable to exchange change for a split lottery ticket. Unfortunately, some state lottery vendors will not like to change their practices by issuing split-type lottery tickets. Lotters in such states may prefer to instead provide several types of pre-determined rounded amount tickets, for example only $ 1, $ 2 and $ 5 tickets. In some cases, being able to issue a split lottery ticket requires significant modifications to the hardware and software of the lottery terminal used across one or more states. Such modifications will ultimately bring benefits, but the initial costs may be perceived as unnecessary burdens, and the final benefits realized may appear too uncertain. In short, the issuance of split lottery tickets by state lottery vendors may not be practical in all environments.

Therefore, it would be advantageous to facilitate the purchase of split lottery tickets without requiring significant changes to the existing lottery system. Point-of-sale (POS) terminals, such as cash registers, are used in a wide range of business areas to perform processes such as calculating the total amount of a purchase (goods or services) or calculating the amount of change to a customer. Has been done. Depending on their advanced level of knowledge, such point-of-sale terminals are also useful for performing related functions such as inventory control by tracking processed purchases and inventory database adjustments accordingly. There will be. In addition, POS terminals could also be used as an offering system and / or as equipped with it. The patent specification of patent application No. 08 / 920,116, which is the parent application of the present invention, entitled "Methods and Systems for Processing Auxiliary Product Sales at Point-of-Sale Terminals", filed August 26, 1997, It discloses a system in which customers are offered "upsell" in exchange for change on POS terminals. Upsell, as defined herein and used herein, means a product (goods or services) offered with a purchase. Upsell types include (I) upgrade from the first product to a second product different from the first product, (II) additional products, (III) repurchase for the product or discounts on it. Includes vouchers that can be used, (IV) competition, contests, participation in lottery tickets or other games. For example, a customer who purchased the first product for $ 1.74 would be offered a second product in exchange for $ 0.26 (change when the customer paid $ 2.00). Various other types of upsells will be utilized without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention. As mentioned in the parent application mentioned above, many different criteria will be used in determining upsell. For example, a point-of-sale terminal calculates a purchase price, rounds the purchase price to the nearest dollar, and ejects the rounded up (change) amount. The POS terminal then determines which of the multiple upsells is advantageous as a barter for the rounded up amount.

It would be advantageous to provide other methods for determining upsell. In particular, it would be advantageous to provide methods and equipment for upsell decisions that are easily understood and adjusted by employees such as inventory managers and point-of-sale terminal operators. Point-of-sale (POS) terminals, such as cash registers, are used by a wide range of businesses to perform processes such as calculating the total price of a purchase (goods or services) or calculating the amount of change to a customer. Has been done. Some point-of-sale terminals also track the items sold and adjust the store's inventory database accordingly. The POS terminal may perform ancillary processing in addition to executing the processing listed above. Auxiliary processing can increase sales, thereby increasing the average profit earned per commercial transaction. One such ancillary process is the parent application of the invention, a patent application entitled "Methods and Systems for Processing Auxiliary Product Sales at Sales Point Terminals", filed August 26, 1997. It is stated in No. 08 / 920,116. Described there is an ancillary process in which customers are offered "upsells" in exchange for change at point-of-sale terminals. The POS terminal determines the upsell depending on the customer's shopping, and further determines the upsell price (change amount) based on the shopping. For example, a customer who buys the first product for $ 1.74 and pays $ 2.00 will be offered a second product in exchange for $ 0.26 change. The upsell amount of $ 0.26 thus depends on the purchase amount of $ 1.74. Another ancillary process is a computer-determined "suggestive" sell) ". U.S. Pat. No. 5,353,219 describes a system that advises customers to purchase items from key categories at traditional item prices. Yet another ancillary process is the patent application No. 1 of the parent application of this application, filed August 26, 1997, entitled "Methods and Systems for Selling Purchase Registrations for Periodicals in the Retail Environment". It is stated in 08 / 841,791. Described there is an ancillary process in which a customer who purchases one issue of a periodical at a point-of-sale terminal is offered the opportunity to register for the periodical at that time.

Such ancillary processes can run independently within the POS terminal itself. For example, a cash register would be programmed to calculate the amount of change and determine the upsell to offer in exchange for that change. Alternatively, the ancillary process may be performed with the help of a device communicating with the cache register. For example, a remote server computer connected to a cash register via a communication network may determine the upsell to offer in exchange for the change. Ancillary processes performed on point-of-sale terminals may reduce the speed at which a customer's business transactions are completed to an undesired degree. For example, it may take a few seconds for a cashier running a point-of-sale terminal to offer an upsell to a customer in exchange for change and determine if the customer will receive the offer. Offering a customer to choose from several upsells in exchange for the amount of change can impose further delays in completing the customer's business transaction. Such delays may be tolerated in some situations, but may be unreasonably annoying in other situations. For example, at lunch or other daytime hours, POS terminals may have long lines. Moreover, it is not advisable to increase the waiting time for each customer in line by performing ancillary processes. However, while eliminating ancillary processes may speed up the completion of a customer's commerce, it also loses the additional profits that can be gained from such ancillary processes. Therefore, it is necessary to control the execution of auxiliary processes at the POS terminal.

Point-of-sale (POS) terminals, such as cash registers, perform a wide range of businesses, such as calculating the total amount of a purchase (goods or services), calculating the amount of change to be refunded to a customer, and so on. Used in the field. Some point-of-sale terminals also track the purchases made and adjust the store's inventory database accordingly. As stated in Patent Application No. 08 / 920,116, the parent application of this application, filed August 26, 1997, entitled "Methods and Systems for Processing Auxiliary Product Sales at Point of Sale Terminals". In addition, at the POS terminal, the customer is offered an "upsell" in exchange for change. The POS terminal determines the upsell depending on the customer's shopping, and based on the shopping, "upsell price (upsell)" Price) (amount of change) is also determined. For example, a customer who buys the first product for $ 1.74 and pays $ 2.00 will probably be offered the second product at an attractive discount price in exchange for $ 0.26 change. The upsell price of $ 0.26 thus depends on the purchase price of $ 1.74. Upsell prices are not fixed at fixed prices for each item as in many conventional cases. As stated in the parent application mentioned above, offering upsells in exchange for change has significant advantages. For example, customers tend to be reluctant to receive change and welcome the opportunity to eliminate it. In addition, customers are satisfied with attractive low-priced sales. Typically, a company has several different upsells to offer. In fact, it would be possible to offer several different upsells for any special purchase. The special upsell that is actually offered to a special customer will depend on multiple criteria associated with the purchase, such as the amount of change, the time of day and the items purchased. There are so many upsells that can be offered to any particular customer that it will be difficult or impossible to determine which upsell that customer will receive. In addition to the difficulty of choosing an upsell to offer, upsell offers may take longer in some situations. However, there is no guarantee that the time spent providing the upsell will encourage the customer to receive the upsell and, as a result, benefit the offerer. As such, many of the upsells offered are unacceptable, often wasting time and effort. Therefore, it would be advantageous to eliminate the uncertainties inherent in offering upsells. Point-of-sale (POS) terminals, such as cash registers, perform a wide range of business areas, such as calculating the total amount of a purchase (goods or services) or the amount of change to be refunded to a customer. Used in. In addition, point-of-sale terminals may be used in conjunction with offering systems to offer offers to customers. Such an offering system is intended to increase sales and thereby increase the average profit earned per commercial transaction.

One type of offering system is Patent Application No. 08, the parent application of this application, entitled "Methods and Systems for Processing Auxiliary Product Sales at Sales Point Terminals", filed August 26, 1997. / 920,116 is stated. As mentioned here, a customer at a point-of-sale terminal is offered an "upsell" in exchange for the amount of change he has to pay. The POS terminal determines the upsell depending on the customer's shopping, and also determines the upsell price (change amount) based on the shopping. For example, a customer who buys the first product for $ 1.74 and pays $ 2.00 will be offered the second product in exchange for $ 0.26 change. The upsell price of $ 0.26 thus depends on the purchase price of $ 1.74. Another type of offering system is a computer-determined "advisory sale." U.S. Pat. No. 5,353,219 describes a system that advises customers to purchase goods at traditional price lists. The offering system offers a large number of offers to its customers. For example, in the upsell offer described above, there are many different upsells offered to customers in exchange for a particular change amount. Offers to customers in fast food restaurants will include sodas, French fries or desserts. The exact upsell to provide will be randomly selected according to a predetermined program or manually selected by the manager or other operator. Unfortunately, whether random or manual, choosing an offer does not necessarily guarantee that it is the "best" (best performing) offer to offer to the customer. What constitutes the "best" offer will be evaluated on one or more criteria that yield the corresponding "performance rate" for each type of offer. For example, the offer acceptance rate is a performance rate that could be used to evaluate the offer. That's because some offers may be less likely to be accepted by customers than others. In addition, the profit from the accepted offer is another performance rate that will be used to evaluate that offer.

It may be difficult or impossible for a manager or other operator to identify the "best" offer (the offer with the highest performance rate). Managers do not appear to be knowledgeable about the true performance rate for a group of offers. Managers also do not seem to have the time to analyze past trends to identify the best offers. In addition, certain offers may be more appealing to customers than others at different times or days of the week. Unexpected events, such as high-value lottery wins or favorable magazine articles, may make certain offers more attractive. Such a situation hinders managers' attempts to identify the best offer. Therefore, it is necessary to control the offers offered by one sales point terminal. Outline of the Invention An object of the present invention is to provide a method and a system for offering a selected product in exchange for an amount of change in a POS terminal. Generally, according to one aspect of the invention, the POS terminal determines an upsell to exchange for change for him in connection with a customer's shopping. The point-of-sale terminal preferably maintains at least one upsell price and a corresponding upsell database that offers the customer in exchange for change to him. This upsell and upsell price will be established so that it will be profitable in exchange for change, and that it will be profitable for the company and that if the upsell is accepted, it will also be beneficial to the customer.

When the customer brings one purchase to the POS terminal, the POS terminal pops out the purchase price and sets the "required payment amount" equal to the purchase price. The required payment amount means the amount that the customer is expected to pay. The POS terminal then preferably calculates the rounded price by rounding up this purchase price to an integer, from which the rounded up amount equal to the difference between the purchase price and the rounded price is calculated. Therefore, the rounded up amount means a coin to be changed. By comparing the calculated round-up amount with at least one of the upsell prices in the database, the POS terminal will determine whether the round-up amount corresponds to any of the upsell prices. If so, the POS terminal identifies the upsell corresponding to the upsell price and outputs a signal displaying the identified upsell. The output signal preferably displays text or graphics explaining to the customer and / or cashier that the upsell may be purchased for a specified amount of change. If the customer accepts the upsell, the cashier will display it by pressing the select button on the POS terminal. The payment amount that the customer is required to pay is then set equal to the round-up amount, not the purchase price. Thus, the customer receives an upsell in exchange for the coins that should be paid to him, and there is no need to exchange coins between the customer and the POS terminal. (Detailed description of preferred embodiments)

The present invention performs a lottery ticket transaction on a retail point-of-sale terminal, where the customer does not have to wait for two commercial transaction receipts and does not have to go to another checkout terminal to make another purchase that is not a lottery ticket. Oriented to the system to do. Customers can purchase "quick pick" lottery tickets in about the same amount of time it takes to check out bread or milk at a point-of-sale terminal. Shopping in this one place facilitates the sale of lottery tickets and speeds customers to the next place. In addition, the present invention allows customers to purchase split lottery tickets, which further facilitates the sale of lottery tickets. In particular, when a customer engages in other commercial transactions, instead of receiving change, he can request a split lottery ticket (equivalent to the amount of change). Therefore, the present invention provides consumers with a convenient and efficient system for purchasing lottery tickets. The term "quick pick" refers to a lottery ticket whose lottery number is randomly generated for the customer by the lottery system.

A split lottery ticket is a lottery ticket in which the customer receives only a portion of the winning prize according to the ratio of the ticket paid to the price of the entire lottery ticket. For example, if a customer pays 58 cents for a split lottery ticket and the total price of the lottery ticket is $ 1, the customer will receive 58 percent of the prize if the ticket wins. It will be. As used herein, the term "lottery ticket" or its equivalent includes split lottery tickets. FIG. 1 shows an overall system block diagram of preferred embodiments of the present invention. In this embodiment, the POS controller 20 is linked to at least one POS terminal 30 via the POS network 40. Although four POS terminals 30 are shown in FIG. 1, any number of POS terminals 30 can be used. The POS network 40 does not have to be a fixedly wired network and can include any variety of means suitable for transmitting and receiving data communications, as described below. Lottery ticket transactions can be initiated from any of the POS terminals 30. The information required to initiate a lottery ticket transaction is sent between the POS terminal 30 and the POS controller 20 via the POS network 40. It is understood that other types of information can also be sent between the POS terminal 30 and the POS controller 20. For example, product prices, coupon discounts, and bargain information can be sent between the POS terminal 30 and the POS controller 20. As shown in FIG. 1, the POS controller 20 is also linked to the lottery data processing system 60 via the data network 50, as described in detail below. The data network 50 may be one or more of various networks capable of performing data communication. For example, the data network 50 may be a public telephone network 76 (PSTN), an integrated services digital network (ISDN), a packet exchange network, a private data communication network, a wireless network or any other suitable network. The POS terminal 30 and POS controller 20 shown in FIG. 1 will be incorporated into hardware specifically provided for carrying out the present invention. Alternatively, they can be implemented using existing cache registers and central store servers. In particular, many retail stores have computerized cash registers connected to in-store commerce processors for receiving and transmitting trading prices and other trading information. The hardware of these systems will be used for the purposes of the present invention. To implement the present invention, changes to an existing in-store commerce processor or store network server can be made in a variety of ways, such as by reprogramming an existing in-store commerce processor or adding an additional file server. Will be executed.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the POS controller 20. The POS controller 20 includes a CPU 21 that executes processing functions. The POS controller 20 also includes read-only memory 22 (ROM) and random access memory 23 (RAM). ROM22 is used to store at least some of the program instructions that should be executed by CPU21, such as part of the operating system or basic input / output system (BIOS), and RAM23 is temporary storage of data. Used for. The clock circuit 24 supplies the clock signal required by the CPU 21. The POS controller 20 also includes a data network interface 71 and a communication port 25 connected to the POS network interface 72. The communication port 25 allows the CPU 21 to communicate with an external device of the POS controller 20. In particular, the communication port 25 allows communication with the POS terminal 30 and also allows communication with the lottery data processing system 60. Modems (not shown) and dedicated telephone lines for establishing communication with the lottery data processing system 60 are preferred, but other data networks, including ISDN terminals, wireless communication interfaces and Internet interfaces that interface with ISDN networks. Interfaces can be used as well. The CPU 21 can also store information in the data storage device 26 and read information from the data storage device 26. The data storage device 26 includes a local lottery ticket database 26a and other databases including a local sales database 26b previously maintained by the store. The local lottery ticket database 26a is described below. Further, the data storage device 26 includes an instruction to be read and executed by the CPU 21, thereby allowing the CPU 21 to process a commercial transaction. Figure 2 shows a separate database, but you can also use a single database that includes both features. Additional databases needed to store a variety of other information needed for other purposes can also be added. FIG. 5 is a graphical representation of the information and preferred layout stored in the local lottery database 26a. The local lottery database 26a includes a date field F1, a sales receipt number field F2, a number of purchased tickets field F3, a sales amount field F4, and a lottery ticket number field F5. In the case of a split lottery ticket, the sales amount field F4 will include the percentage value of the lottery ticket purchased by the customer (eg, 68 cents).

Only three records R1 are shown in Figure 5 for three lottery ticket transactions, but any number of records could be stored. To reserve storage space on the data storage device 26, records are transferred to another storage device after a given time or after a given event (eg, after a winning ticket number has been drawn). Will be deleted. FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a suitable POS terminal 30, which can be installed in a supermarket, general store, liquor store or any other place where consumer transactions are performed. As mentioned above, any number of POS terminals 30 can be linked to one POS controller 20. The POS terminal 30 includes a CPU 31, a ROM 32, a RAM 33, a clock circuit 34, a communication port 35, and a data storage device 36. The communication port 35 interfaces with the POS network 40 that facilitates communication between the POS terminal 30 and the POS controller 20. The POS terminal 30 includes an input device 37 for receiving input from the operator. Any one of a variety of input devices can serve this purpose. They include, for example, push-buttons, keys, membranes, mice, touch screens, barcode scanners and the like. As shown in FIG. 3, the input device 37 can directly interface with the CPU 31. Alternatively, an appropriate interface circuit may be placed between the CPU 31 and the input device 37. The POS terminal 30 also includes a display device 38 for transmitting information to an operator, a customer, or both. Any or a wide variety of display devices are suitable for this purpose. They include, for example, CRTs, LCDs, LEDs or thin film transistors.

The POS terminal 30 also includes a data storage device 36 that stores commerce processor instructions. These instructions are read and executed by the CPU 31 to allow the POS terminal 30 to process a variety of commerce types. As an example, those commerce types include "quick pick" lottery tickets, lottery tickets other than "quick pick" tickets, and commerce. The POS terminal 30 further includes a printer 39 for recording the commerce executed by the POS terminal 30. The printer 39 may interface directly with the CPU 31, as shown in FIG. Alternatively, an appropriate interface circuit may be placed between the CPU 31 and the printer 39. It will be appreciated that other combinations of POS controller 20 and POS terminal 30 can be adopted, depending on the requirements of the special facility. In particular, the POS terminal 30 can also include some of the features of the POS controller 20, so that the integrated POS terminal / controller can function as a stand-alone unit. This type of terminal would be advantageous for facilities that require only a single POS terminal. FIG. 4 shows a block diagram of the lottery data processing system 60. Similar to the POS controller 20 described above, the lottery data processing system 60 includes a CPU 61, a ROM 62, a RAM 63, a clock circuit 64, and a communication port 65. The communication port 65 is connected to the data network interface 71. The illustrated data network interface 71 is equivalent to the data network interface of FIG. Although one POS controller 20 is shown in FIG. 1, any number of POS controllers 20 can be linked to the lottery data processing system 60 via the data network 50 and the data network interface 71. As shown in FIG. 4, communication port 65 is also connected to IVRU interface 74. As shown in FIG. 1, the customer assistance IVRU 75 is linked to the lottery data processing system 60 via the IVRU interface 74. Customer Assistance IVRU75 is also connected to PSTN76 and payphone networks. Customer Assistance IVRU75 allows the caller (not shown) to communicate with the lottery data processing system 60 using a telephone (not shown). A voice command prompt guides the caller through various menu options, prompting the caller to enter and extract data about a particular lottery ticket transaction. This process is described in more detail below.

The CPU 61 can also store information in the data storage device 68 and read information from the data storage device 68. The data storage device 68 includes a lottery ticket database 68a, a POS controller database 68b, and a winning ticket number database 68c, which will be described below. In addition, the data storage device 68 includes instructions that are read and executed by the CPU 61, thereby allowing the CPU 61 to process the lottery transaction. Figure 4 shows a separate database, but a single database with all the features of databases 68a, 68b, 68c can also be used. Additional databases needed to store a variety of other information useful for maintaining and operating the lottery system may be added. The lottery data processing system 60 also includes a random number generator 66 and a cryptographic processor 67. When requested by the CPU 61, the random number generator 66 generates a random "quick pick" number used in the "quick pick" lottery ticket transaction. Cryptographic processor 67 is used to encrypt the authentication code generated by CPU 61, as described in more detail below. This encrypted verification code is passed to the CPU 61 that associates it with a special lottery transaction. Cryptographic processor 67 is also used to decrypt the encrypted authentication code passed to it by CPU 61. Although the illustrated examples show the random number generator 66 and the cryptographic processor 67 as separate elements within the lottery processing system 60, it should be understood that other methods of performing their functions can also be used. Is. For example, those functions may be incorporated into a computer program stored in the data storage device 68 and executed by the CPU 61.

FIG. 6 is a graphical representation of the information stored in the lottery ticket database 68a. The lottery ticket database 68a contains the POS controller ID number field F6, the date field F7, the number of tickets purchased field F8, the sales receipt number field F9, the sales amount field F10, the lottery ticket number field F11, and the encryption code. Includes field F12. In the case of a split lottery ticket, the sales amount field F10 will include the split value of the lottery ticket purchased by the customer (eg, 68 cents). The POS controller ID number field F6 is a unique code corresponding to each POS controller 20 communicating with the lottery data processing system 60. The sales receipt number field F9 stores a serial number for each receipt generated by the POS terminal 30. The encryption code field F12 stores the encrypted authentication code, as discussed in detail below. A record R2 for a single POS controller with ID number 23456 is shown in Figure 6, but any number of records can be stored. The same is true for the data storage device 26, but records are often transferred or deleted to another storage device in order to secure storage space in the data storage device 68. The winning ticket number database 68c is one of the other databases traditionally maintained by the lottery data processing system. FIG. 7 is a graphical representation of the information stored in the POS controller database 68b. The POS controller database 68b includes a POS controller ID number field F13, a POS controller name field F14, a POS controller location field F15, and a telephone number field F16. The POS controller name field F14 stores the name of the store or facility where the POS controller 20 is located. The POS controller location field F15 stores the address of the location where the POS controller 20 is located. The telephone number field F16 stores the telephone number associated with each POS controller 20. Records R3 for one POS controller location are shown in Figure 7, but any number of records may be stored. It is understood that some fields in the above database will contain the same corresponding information (eg, the POS controller ID number field F6 of the lottery database 68A corresponds to the field F13 of the POS controller database 68B). It should be.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing an example of the lottery ticket trading process executed on the POS terminal 30 from the customer's point of view. The process begins in step S1 when the customer indicates to the POS terminal operator that he or she wants to purchase one or more "quick pick" lottery tickets. Of course, the "quick pick" lottery ticket may be a full lottery ticket or a split lottery ticket. The customer may make this decision and purchase the lottery ticket as a stand-alone business transaction, or may purchase the lottery ticket while purchasing other commodities such as milk and bread. In step S2, the POS terminal operator initiates a lottery transaction by activating a pre-programmed instruction on an input device 37 attached to the POS terminal 30. The customer is then prompted by the POS operator for the number of "quick pick" lottery tickets he wants in step S3. The number of "quick pick" lottery tickets may include split lottery tickets. This is convenient for customers who do not want to receive full-scale coins as change in commercial transactions. For example, a customer who receives 68 cents as change from a commercial transaction may choose to buy a 68 cents lottery ticket that is worth 68% of the $ 1 ticket and also refunds 68% for a $ 1 refund. Alternatively, a customer can buy a $ 2 ticket worth 34% for 68 cents. Along with the split-value lottery ticket, the customer may, of course, purchase the full-value lottery ticket. In alternative embodiments, the customer may also be recommended for additional lottery ticket information, such as the type of lottery game to play and a special lottery number chosen by the customer. For example, a special lottery system may offer lottery games based on combinations of numbers 3, 4 and 6. Customers may personally choose the lottery number to play. In step S4, the POS terminal operator inputs the number of lottery tickets requested by the customer to the POS terminal 30 via the input device 37. In step S5, the customer pays for the lottery ticket and any other purchases made at that time. In step S6, the POS terminal prints a single receipt containing the lottery ticket information and any other merchandise sales information.

An example of the store sales receipt 80 according to an embodiment of the present invention is shown in FIG. The store sales receipt 80 includes product information 81 that is not related to the lottery ticket. The bottom part contains lottery ticket information including multiple lottery numbers 82, store ID number 83, receipt number 84, date 85, time 86, price 89, lottery phone number 87 and encryption verification code 88. There is. In the case of a split lottery ticket, the store sales receipt 80 was paid $ 0.68 for ticket 4 as an indication of the percentage of all priced lottery tickets purchased (eg, as shown in Figure 9). )including. FIG. 10 is a flowchart of an operation example of the POS controller 20. The process shown in FIG. 10 is a computer stored in one or more of ROM 22, RAM 23 and data storage device 26 (shown in FIG. 2) after being installed on the POS controller 20 from a computer-readable medium. It is executed programmatically. In step S7, the POS controller 20 receives a lottery ticket transaction request, including the number of "quick pick" lottery tickets requested by the customer from the POS terminal 30 in this example. The POS controller 20 temporarily stores this information in RAM 23 while establishing a real-time communication link with the lottery data processing system 60 via the data network 50. Although one lottery data processing system 60 is shown in FIG. 1, an additional lottery data processing system may be used as a secondary or backup lottery data processing system. Therefore, if the POS controller 20 fails to establish communication with the main lottery data processing system, communication is attempted with the secondary lottery data processing system. Once the real-time communication link is established, the POS controller 20 sends the requested number of "quick pick" lottery tickets to the lottery data processing system 60 in step S8. The POS controller 20 also transmits its POS controller identification number (eg, F1 in FIG. 7). In step S9, the POS controller 20 receives one or more groups of lottery numbers (corresponding to the number of requested lottery tickets) and an accompanying encryption authentication code from the lottery data processing system 60. In step S10, a new record (eg R1 in Figure 5) is generated in the local lottery database (26a in Figure 2). In step S11, the POS controller 20 stores the date, receipt number, time and lottery numbers (F1 to F5, as shown in FIG. 5) received from the lottery data processing system in this newly generated record. Next, in step S12, the POS controller 20 transmits the lottery ticket information (that is, the lottery number and the encryption authentication code) to the POS terminal 30 that started the lottery transaction request.

Each of the above-mentioned steps S7 to S12 is executed by the CPU 21 executing the computer program instruction stored in the data storage device 26. Communication with the POS terminal 30 is performed via the communication port 25 and the POS network interface 72. Communication with the lottery data processing system 60 takes place via communication port 25 and data network interface 71. In an alternative embodiment, the POS controller 20 also handles non- "quick pick" lottery ticket transactions. The lottery number chosen by the customer is received from the customer via a mark detection slip or coded slip on the POS terminal 30 and sent to the lottery data processing system 60 for processing as described below. FIG. 11 is a flowchart of the operation of the lottery data processing system 60. The steps of this process are stored on a computer-readable medium, which in this case is data storage device 68 (shown in FIG. 4). Upon receiving the lottery ticket transaction request and the POS controller identification number from the POS controller 20, the lottery data processing system 60 accesses the POS controller database 68b (shown in FIGS. 4 and 7) in step S13. The lottery data processing system 60 searches the POS controller database 68b and authenticates the POS controller identification number, as shown in step S14. In step S15, the lottery ticket database 68a (shown in FIGS. 4 and 6) is accessed and a new lottery transaction entry is added to the appropriate POS controller record (eg, R2 in Figure 6). In step S16, the lottery data processing system 60 uses a random number generator 66 (shown in FIG. 4) to generate one or more groups of random "quick pick" lottery numbers. These random "quick pick" lottery numbers are used for quick pick lottery tickets. The lottery transaction entries added in step S15 are then updated in step S16 by storing their random "quick pick" lottery numbers in the designated fields being recorded.

The lottery data processing system 60 also generates an authorization code in step S17 based on a special lottery transaction variable. This authorization code is a numeric string containing all the data of one record in the lottery ticket database 68a. An example R2 of such code corresponding to the first entry shown in Figure 6 looks like this: 23456/011597004/3343004/011020112131 In this example, 23456 represents the POS controller ID number, 011597 represents the date, 004 represents the number of tickets purchased, 3343 represents the sales receipt number, and 004 represents the sales amount. Represented, 011020112131 represents the lottery ticket number. Although the use of an encrypted authorization code is a preferred embodiment, it should also be understood that the store sales receipt number may be used with the date for each commercial transaction instead. In that case, the sales receipt number and date will be used as pointers to the lottery database 68a. This pointer will be used to extract and match lottery ticket information as needed. In step S18, the cryptographic processor 67 (shown in FIG. 4) is used to encrypt the authentication code to generate a unique numeric code. The lottery transaction entry added in step S15 is then updated again by storing the encrypted verification code in the appropriate field being recorded (see Figure 6). The use of cryptographic processors and cryptographic algorithms is well known to those skilled in the art of cryptography. For reference, as one of the usual methods of this technique, Bruce Schneier, "Applied Cryptography, Protocols, Algorithms and Source Code" (1996, John Wiley & Sons, 2nd Edition). ) Is quoted. Next, the lottery data processing system 60 transmits the lottery ticket number and the encryption authentication code to the POS controller 20 that started the lottery ticket transaction in step S19. This authorization code provides an additional level of security and protection for the purchase of lottery tickets. Even if the database in the lottery data processing system 60 is destroyed, all the information printed on the store receipt lottery ticket can be verified by any other device that can decrypt the verification code.

Each of the above steps S13 to S19 is executed by the CPU 61. The CPU 61 executes these steps by executing the computer program instructions stored in the database storage device 68. Communication with the POS controller 20 takes place through the communication port 65 and the data network interface 71. In an alternative embodiment, additional information can also be sent from the POS controller 20 to the lottery data processing system 60. This can include a customer-chosen lottery number instead of the random "quick pick" lottery number generated by the lottery data processing system 60, as described above. In this case, the lottery data processing system 60 will store the lottery number chosen by the customer in the lottery ticket database 68a. Accordingly, an encryption authorization code will be generated based on the lottery number chosen by the customer. The lottery data processing system 60 will then send an encryption authorization code and permission to complete the lottery transaction to the POS controller 20. FIG. 12 is a flowchart showing the telephone authentication process. This process begins when the customer dials the phone number 87 printed on the sales receipt 80 as shown in FIG. 9 in step S20. By dialing phone number 87, the customer is connected to Customer Assistance IVRU75, as shown in Figure 1. In step S21, the unit prompts the customer via a pre-recorded voice message to enter the encryption verification code 88 printed on the sales receipt 80 using the telephone key. In step S22, the customer assistance IVTU75 communicates this information to the lottery data processing system 60 via the IVRU interface 74, as shown in FIG. In step S23, the lottery data processing system 60 searches the encryption code field F12 of the lottery ticket database 68a to find an entry that matches the information given by IVRU75. If no match is found, the lottery data processing system 60 communicates to IVRU75 that the encryption authorization code provided by the customer is not valid. IVRU75 then prompts the customer to re-enter its encryption authorization code. When the number of failed attempts to enter a valid code correctly reaches a predetermined number, the call is disconnected as shown in step S24.

If a matching entry is found, the lottery data processing system 60 decrypts the encryption code. The decrypted information is then sent to Customer Assistance IVRU75 in step S25. Based on this information, Customer Assistance IVRU75 sends a voice message to the customer to provide all decrypted information (ie, lottery ticket number, purchase time and purchase date, etc.). Customer Assistance IVRU75 generates voice messages by combining pre-recorded voice messages stored therein. Winning lottery tickets will be refunded at one of the POS terminals 30 or any conventional lottery terminal. In order to refund the winning lottery ticket at one of the POS terminals 30, the POS terminal operator initiates the lottery ticket authentication process by activating a pre-programmed input designation via the input device 37 attached to the POS terminal 30. .. Next, the POS operator inputs the encryption authentication code stamped on the lottery ticket into the POS terminal 30 via the input device 37. This information is transmitted to the lottery data processing system 60 via the POS controller 20. The lottery data processing system 60 decodes this information and accesses the lottery ticket database 68a and the winning lottery ticket number database 68b. Next, the lottery data processing system 60 determines whether or not the lottery ticket is a winning lottery ticket based on the information contained in each database. This determination is then sent back to the POS terminal 30 via the POS controller 20 (along with other required information). Other types of information that may be included in this communication are, for example, whether there was a winning prize amount, a split prize amount and a jackpot winning ticket.

In an alternative embodiment, the random "quick pick" lottery number used for lottery ticket trading may be generated by the POS controller 20. The lottery numbers will then be sent to the lottery data processing system 20, as described above. In this way, new and improved systems and methods for selling lottery tickets at in-store sales points are provided. The present invention uses the same equipment provided to process store sales of conventional goods and / or services to sell lottery tickets. The dual use of the equipment for sale makes the invention cost-effective for shop owners. The systems and methods provided allow for the quick and efficient purchase of lottery tickets, while allowing the daily purchase of other merchandise, thus providing a regular flow of checkout lines at the point of sale. Promote the impulsive purchase of lottery tickets without delay. In addition, the present invention allows for the rapid and efficient sale of split lottery tickets that would otherwise be customer change, which also facilitates impulsive purchases of the lottery tickets. Expand the market. The present invention provides a system and method for printing a sales receipt that is easy to print and read, including both sales of goods / services and lottery ticket information. The ticket contains credentials. The credentials include at least one authorization code and a customer service phone number. The customer can use his credentials to verify his lottery number with the lottery authorities. Although the present invention has been described with respect to specific examples as described above, it should be understood that the present invention is not limited to or limited to the examples disclosed herein. Conversely, the present invention is intended to include all methods, structures and modifications thereof contained within the spirit and scope of the appended claims. As used herein, an "upsell" is a product (goods or service) offered with a purchase and has a value approximately equal to a given upsell price. The types of upsells described in detail here are (I) upgrades from the first product to a different second product, (II) additional products, and (III) products or discounts on them. Includes vouchers that can be refunded against and (IV) entry into competitions, contests, lottery tickets or other games. Various other types of upsells can be used without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention.

By offering upsells in exchange for customer change, an average of about 50 cents of additional income is collected for each upsell, reducing or eliminating the number of coins exchanged. The reduction or elimination of change payments and receipts will significantly reduce the amount of time customers spend on point-of-sale terminals. In some cases, it makes it possible to reduce the number of people, even if a cashier is needed to operate the POS terminal . In addition, customers will find that the transaction can provide greater value by reducing or eliminating the need to carry additional change after shopping. In addition, the present invention allows companies to sell their products more efficiently by offering old or obsolete products in exchange for change. You can sell such products, such as old magazines, music tapes, compact discs, flowers and various obsolete ones, so you generate additional income and otherwise dispose of those products. Reduce the cost required for this. Efficiently providing out-of-date products to customers allows companies to offer "pre-selected" customers discounts on their products. Referring to FIG. 13A, the POS terminal 1010 includes a POS processor 1012 connected to each of the input device 1014, the printer 1016 and the display device 1018. The POS processor 1012 includes at least one microprocessor 1020, such as the Intel 80386 microprocessor, which is connected to storage devices 1022 such as RAM, floppy disks, hard disks and combinations thereof. The microprocessor 1020 and storage 1022 are either (I) located entirely inside a cache register, vending machine or similar container, or (II) a telecommunications link such as a serial port cable, telephone line or radio transceiver. Connected to it by (III) or a combination of them. For example, POS processor 1012 can include one or more cache registers attached to a remote server computer to maintain a database, or vending machines attached to a local computer. In the light of the present disclosure, many types of conventional cache registers and other types of POS terminals will be used to carry out the present invention. Such terminals only require a software upgrade. It is typically performed without undue effort.

FIG. 13B shows another embodiment of the POS terminal 1010, where the first device 1032 communicates with the second device 1034 over the remote communication link 1036. The first device 1032, which may be a cache register, includes an input device 104, a display device 1018, and a microprocessor 1037 that performs some of the functions of the microprocessor 1020 of FIG. 13A. The second device 1034 may be, for example, a processing system operated by an electronic market service or a credit card clearing house. The second device 1034 includes a storage device 1022, a printer 1016, and a microprocessor 1038 that performs some of the functions of the microprocessor 1020 of FIG. 13A. Referring again to FIG. 13A, the input device 1014 is preferably a keypad for transmitting an input signal, such as a shopping signal, to the microprocessor 1020. Printer 1016 is for registering markings on rolls or pieces of other material, thereby printing receipts, coupons and vouchers as instructed by microprocessor 1020. The display device 1018 is preferably a video monitor that displays at least alphabetic numeric characters to the customer and / or cashier. Many types of input devices, printers and display devices are known to those of skill in the art and therefore do not need to be described in detail here. The storage device 1022 stores the POS program 1024 for controlling the microprocessor 1020 according to the present invention, particularly according to the process described in detail below. The POS program 1024 also includes necessary program elements such as a "device driver" that interfaces with each of the input device 1014, printer 1016 and display device 1018. Suitable device drivers and other necessary program elements are known to those of skill in the art and do not need to be described in detail here.

Storage device 1022 also stores the requested payment amount 1026, which is the amount expected to be paid in exchange for the product provided to the customer. From the requested payment amount 1026, the microprocessor 1020 determines, for example, the sum of the change and the amount that should have been collected by the POS terminal 1010 at the end of the day. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the requested payment amount will contain a single stored value or multiple values corresponding to the amount each is expected to pay for one or more products. You will notice. Storage device 1022 also stores inventory price database 1028, which includes products and corresponding product prices. The inventory price database 1028 allows the microprocessor 1020 to calculate the total purchase price for one or more products, thereby storing the total purchase price in the requested payment amount 1026. The upsell database 1030 stored in storage 1022 contains upsells and the corresponding upsell prices. The upsell price used herein is a price, a set of prices, or a range of prices, and it is preferable to sell the corresponding upsell at that price. Upsell prices are typically related to the cost of upsell to the company. For example, if the cost to a restaurant for a small soda is 20 ¢, the upsell price of one additional small soda is in the range greater than 20 ¢, for example, in the range 20 ¢ to 30 ¢. As another example, if the cost of a large soda to a restaurant is 22 ¢, the cost of upselling from a small soda to a large soda is a cost increase for the restaurant 22 ¢ -20 ¢ = 2 ¢. Therefore, upsell prices are probably in the range of 2 ¢. Further, it is preferable that the upsell price has an upper limit less than a predetermined amount. For example, the upsell price should not exceed the price of the product offered as an upsell. Using the example given above, the upsell price for a small soda to large soda upgrade is in the range with a lower limit of 2 ¢. This upper limit on the upsell price should not exceed the cost of large sodas, eg 90 ¢. Otherwise, the customer would pay more than he would have paid if he included a large soda in his shopping. Proposing such a deal to a customer, eg, 95 ¢ in exchange for a large soda of 90 ¢, is both rude and inefficient to the customer.

In general, the price of a product to a customer is different from the cost of the product to the company that provides the product. Therefore, the upsell price in the upsell database 1030 cannot be ascertained simply from the product price in the inventory database 1028 and must be calculated to be profitable. For example, inventory price database 1028 may show that the price of small soda is 55 ¢ and the price of large soda is 90 ¢. From these two prices alone, the cost to the restaurant is 20 ¢ for the small soda and 22 ¢ for the large soda, so the cost of such an upsell from the small soda to the large soda is 2 ¢. Is impossible to determine. Therefore, from the inventory price database 1028 alone, it is not possible to determine that a restaurant would benefit from offering its upsell at a relatively cheap upsell price, eg 5 ¢ or 10 ¢. .. Such profit points can only be determined as a function of cost. The above-mentioned difference between the product price to the customer and the product cost to the company allows the POS terminal to determine its upsell. These upsells are (I) sold in favor of change to the customer and (II) offer the customer the product at a reduced price in exchange for his change. Offering products to customers at reduced prices increases customer satisfaction, generates additional profits for the company, and increases inventory turnover. At the same time, the prices of the products need not be lowered, so the profits from the sale (other than upsell) of those products are not essentially or completely adversely affected by the upsell offering. One type of upsell that several types of companies will offer is an upgrade from the first product to the second product. Therefore, the combination of (I) shopping containing the first product and (II) upsell including the upgrade from the first product to the second product has an effect on the first product to the second product. Will bring an upgrade. For example, restaurants can upgrade from small soda to large soda, or plane octopus. May offer upsells, including upgrades from taco to deluxe taco. Electronics stores may offer upsells that extend the warranty period.

Another type of upsell is an additional product that replenishes the customer's shopping. For example, a restaurant may offer an upsell that includes a promotional cup or dessert, and a video store may offer an upsell that includes a movie rental voucher, additional video tape, or a promotional hat. , Vending machines may offer upsells that offer additional candy bars, equipment stores may offer upsells that include warranty, and supermarkets may offer upsells from boxes of perishable merchandise. May offer upsell containing any one product. Upsells in such supermarkets are particularly advantageous in terms of generating income and disposing of perishable goods. FIG. 14 shows method 1040 for determining shopping upsell at a POS terminal. The POS terminal of this embodiment, eg, POS terminal 1010, maintains a database of upsell prices and corresponding upsells (step 1042). The POS terminal also generates a purchase price for the purchase (step 1044) and sets the requested payment amount 1026 (Figure 13A) equal to that purchase price (step 1046). The steps to generate the purchase price are, for example, (I) pressing a key on the input device 1014 (Fig. 13A), each corresponding to one product, (II) on the input device 1014 corresponding to the purchase price number. It can include pressing numeric keys or (III) receiving a digital signal displaying the current value from a remote calculator. The POS terminal then generates a "rounded" price (step 1048) and calculates a round-up amount equal to the difference between the purchase price and the rounded price (step 1050). The rounded price is, for example, as the smallest integer dollar above the purchase price, as a multiple of the smallest integer $ 5 above the purchase price, or by the customer whether it is an integer or not. It will be calculated as the amount paid. If the rounded price is an integer, the customer can easily present a dollar bill and, at his discretion, receive (I) no change or (II) change consisting only of bills and no coins. When the rounded price is a multiple of a large coin such as 5 cents, 10 cents, 25 cents or 50 cents, the customer may receive change containing only the quarter coins the customer desires, for example 25 cents. Many other rounded price configurations can be calculated according to the present invention.

The POS terminal then determines at least one upsell to be exchanged for the rounded up amount (change). Preferably, to identify the upsell, the POS terminal compares the round-up amount to at least one of the upsell prices in the upsell database (step 1052) and determines one upsell price that includes the round-up amount. Identify at least one upsell that has. If the round-up amount corresponds to the upsell price (step 1054), the POS terminal identifies the upsell corresponding to the upsell price (step 1056), thereby identifying the upsell to be replaced. The POS terminal then displays the identified upsell, such as text and / or graphics, explaining to the customer and / or cashier that the identified upsell may be purchased for the rounded up amount. Output the signal to be used (step 1058). The customer indicates to the cashier whether he will accept or decline the offered upsell. The cashier then presses a button on the POS terminal or generates a selection signal indicating the selection of the identified upsell and change (step 1060). If the selection signal indicates an upsell selection, the requested payment amount is set equal to the rounded price (step 1062). In this way, the customer presents cash, a check, a credit card that satisfies the amount expected to be paid, and receives an upsell in exchange for the rounded up amount. As mentioned above, one of ordinary skill in the art can include a single stored value for the requested payment amount, or multiple values corresponding to the amount each is expected to pay for one or more products. You will notice that there will be. For example, step 1062, which sets the requested payment amount equal to the rounded price, (I) sets the stored unique value equal to the rounded price, or (II) the first. It can include setting the stored value equal to the purchase price and setting the second stored value equal to the round-up amount, just as if two purchases were recorded. ..

In the example shown in Figure 15, a customer orders a purchase, including a hamburger and a small soda, at a fast food restaurant. The cashier records the purchase on the POS terminal. Accordingly, the POS terminal determines the respective product prices of the hamburger and the small soda from entries 1070,1072 of the inventory price database 1028. The POS terminal then pops out the purchase price of $ 1.62 and sets the requested payment of 1026 to $ 1.62. The POS terminal then generates a "rounded" price of $ 2.00 (in this example, using "2" as the smallest integer greater than the purchase price) and rounding up the 1074 to $ 2.00- $ 1.62 = 38 ¢. To calculate. Since the rounded price is an integer, the customer will be able to easily present the bill and not receive the change, or the bill alone will receive the coin-free change. The POS terminal compares at least one upsell price in the upsell database 1030 with a round-up 1074. The round-up amount 74 corresponds to one compared upsell price 1076 (range 2 ¢ to 45 ¢), and the sold product (small soda) corresponds to the upsell condition 1078, so the POS terminal will increase that. Identify upsell 80 in the upsell database 1030 corresponding to cell price 1076. The point-of-sale terminal then displays text or graphics explaining to the customer and / or cashier that the upsell 1080 can be purchased for that particular change amount (rounded up 1074). The customer indicates to the cashier whether he will accept or decline the offered upsell. The cashier then presses a button on the POS terminal or generates a selection signal indicating the selection of the identified upsell 1080 and change. If the selection signal does not show a change selection, but instead shows an upsell 1080 selection, the requested payment amount 1026 is set equal to the rounded price. In this way, the customer receives an upsell (upgrade from small soda to large soda) and runs out of change coins. In some embodiments of the invention, the POS terminal determines the upsell (s) by identifying at least one upsell in the database that corresponds to the compared upsell price. For example, upsells containing small sodas may correspond to the upsell price range of 2 ¢ to 20 ¢. In another embodiment, the POS terminal identifies at least one upsell in the database that corresponds to both (I) the compared upsell price and (II) at least one "purchase condition". Determine upsell (s).

The purchase condition is a condition that is valid when the purchase is processed by the POS terminal. Some types of purchase terms are purchase price, time, day of the week, season, product identity included in the purchase, cost of the product included in the purchase and / or past purchases made by the customer. Other types of purchase terms may be adopted without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. The use of purchase terms in the present invention allows for more accurate determination of upsells, thus facilitating upsells to appeal to customers and be exchanged for change. For example, at a particular time of the day, a customer may have a strong desire for a particular upsell. Meals are more attractive at dinner than at noon, and video rentals are more appealing in the evening than in the morning. Therefore, considering the time of purchase, it will be possible to provide an upsell that is more appealing. In an embodiment that employs a purchase condition, the upsell price in the upsell database has a corresponding upsell and at least one corresponding upsell condition to be compared with the purchase condition. In addition, POS terminals generate purchase terms (s) in any number of ways. For example, a clock signal can provide the time and / or date, a purchase recorded by a point-of-sale terminal can provide product identification, and a "frequent shopper card" can provide the customer's identification and line by that customer. It can provide a signal indicating past purchases that have been lost. Referring to FIG. 16, the upsell database 1090, which is an embodiment of the upsell database 1030 of FIG. 13A, includes an upsell price 1092, an upsell descriptor 1094, and a plurality of upsell conditions. , These conditions include the purchased item 1096, whether a customer identifier is required 1098, the customer's product preference 1100, the time 1102, and the cost 1103 to the company. Entries in the upsell database 1090 are uniquely identified by upsell code 1104.

Some types of purchase terms that are compared to upsell terms are stored in one or more databases in storage 1022 (FIG. 13A). For example, FIG. 17 shows a customer database 1110, which contains a unique customer identifier 1112, along with customer unique information such as name 1114, address 1116, phone number 1118 and past product preferences 1120. The POS terminal 1010 (FIG. 13A) may employ the customer database 1110 to determine various purchase terms and accordingly provide upsells as described above. At a point-of-sale terminal, a customer provides a corresponding customer identifier, thereby providing his customer-specific information in any number of ways. For example, a customer may type his customer identifier on a point-of-sale terminal or have a card reader on a point-of-sale terminal "swipe" a customer card containing a unique identification code. Other types of purchase terms will be retrieved from the inventory price database. Referring to FIG. 18, the inventory price database 1130, which is an embodiment of the inventory price database 1028 of FIG. 13A, includes product 1132 and the corresponding product price 1134. The inventory price database 130 also contains a unique product identifier 1136, along with a number of such products 1138 in stock. It also preferably remembers the "age" (expiration date or time) 1140 of a particular type of product so that older products can be identified and offered as upsells. For each purchase, the above-mentioned purchase conditions, round-up amount, and whether or not the upsell is selected are stored in the provided upsell database. Such provided upsell databases can provide information about which upsells have been accepted by the customer and under what circumstances those upsells have been accepted. In this way, the database will determine the value of the upsell to the customer and allow the upsell database to be adjusted accordingly. For example, if a customer rarely accepts a particular upsell, the upsell is either removed from the database or offered in exchange for a smaller amount of change. FIG. 19 shows an example of the provided upsell database 1150 stored in storage device 1022 (FIG. 13A). The provided upsell database 1150 includes the provided upsell 152, the corresponding round-up amount 1154, and which upsell, if any, was accepted 1156. The offer upsell database 1150 accepted the date of the offer upsell 1158, the unique customer identifier 1160, the expiration date 1162 to refund the upsell, and the upsell, if any. It would be desirable to remember other purchase terms such as date 1164 (refunded).

In the embodiment described above, the POS terminal identifies a single upsell to offer in exchange for the round-up amount. However, the POS terminal 1010 (Figure 13A) may identify two or more upsells corresponding to one upsell price. In such an embodiment, the POS terminal 1010 can provide the customer with a possible upsell selection. The POS terminal 1010 displays all of these upsells at the same time, or displays those upsells sequentially. In the embodiment in which those upsells are displayed at the same time, the customer chooses from the displayed upsells. In the embodiment in which the upsells are displayed sequentially, if the customer rejects (fails to select) the first displayed upsell, the POS terminal 1010 displays the second upsell. Sequentially displayed upsells can be sorted according to classification criteria, allowing the displayed upsells to be ordered in the desired manner. Thus, the first upsell sorted before the second upsell is displayed first. If the first upsell is not selected, the second upsell is displayed next. Upsells are sorted according to the profits each upsell earns. In such an embodiment, the upsell that provides the highest profit to the company is provided first. If the customer rejects the highest profit upsell, other upsells with lower profits will follow. Thus, even if the customer rejects the first upsell, he will still choose a subsequent upsell that benefits the seller. In a particular embodiment of the invention, the POS terminal provides the customer with a second upsell with a higher value if the first upsell is rejected. Such higher value upsells may be more acceptable than the first upsell. Such a sequence of sequential value offers may result in the customer always rejecting the first upsell offer. Therefore, in another embodiment, the POS terminal uses an arbitrary number of known methods to generate random numbers. This random number is used to determine (I) whether to offer subsequent upsells, or (II) the relative order in which upsells of different values are offered. This makes the customer uncertain about whether a second upsell will be offered and / or what the value of the second upsell is, so they are the first upsell. It will no longer automatically reject cells.

Figure 20 shows how a customer came to offer a reverse offer to exchange his change for a second upsell, 1180. The POS terminal then decides whether to accept his reverse offer. As mentioned above, the POS terminal outputs a signal indicating the first (identified) upsell (step 1182). The POS terminal generates a selection signal that displays a selection between the first upsell, change and the second upsell (reverse offer by the customer). If the selection signal displays the first upsell (step 1184), the requested payment amount is set equal to the purchase price (step 1186), as described above. However, if the selection signal indicates the selection of the second upsell (step 1188) (ie, the customer reverse offers the second upsell), then the second upsell corresponding to the second upsell. The cell price is determined from the upsell database (step 1190). If the calculated round-up amount corresponds to the second upsell price (step 1192) (ie, if the customer's change is sufficient for the second upsell), the requested payment is the rounded price. Set equal to (step 1186), the second upsell is accepted thereby. In addition to product upgrades and additional products, another type of upsell is a voucher that can be exchanged for or discounted on the product. Vouchers are especially beneficial to sellers. That's because they can bring their customers back to the company and possibly offer them repeatedly. Customers are typically more likely to return to the company to use a voucher they have purchased (ie, purchased in exchange for his change) than a free voucher. The voucher also brings value to the seller through the possibility of damage (ie, loss and therefore the voucher purchased cannot be used).

The voucher is related to the round-up amount or is independent on its own. For example, one type of voucher is a coupon that can be used for discounts during future purchases, where the discount amount is equal to the current round-up amount of the purchase. In contrast, another type of voucher is a coupon that can be redeemed for a particular product, regardless of the current valuation of the purchase. Upon accepting the upsell, the cashier presents a pre-printed coupon to the customer, or the POS terminal prints one for the customer. Many different types of markings are registered on the printed voucher, for example, refund information, unique identifier, date of purchase or expiration date. In an embodiment involving printing a unique identifier on a voucher, the POS terminal maintains a database for storing multiple identifiers. When a new voucher must be printed, the POS terminal generates a unique identifier that no longer exists in the identifier database. This identifier is then stored in the identifier database. By searching for one voucher identifier in the identifier database, you can track the refund of that voucher and you will not be able to use the same voucher more times than you can tolerate. Referring to FIG. 21, storage device 1022 stores an identifier database 200, which contains a unique identifier 1202 for identifying each voucher. The identifier database 1200 also contains a voucher face value 1204, which may be equal to (or not equal to) the round-up amount exchanged for that voucher. The stored voucher face value allows each voucher to be exchanged for a different value while minimizing counterfeiting. For example, at the time of refund, the voucher face value 1204 stored in the database 1200 is taken out and compared with the value printed on the voucher. The discrepancy between the stored and printed voucher values will indicate that the printed voucher is fake.

Yet another type of upsell is an entry into a game such as a lottery, contest, competition or other game. In some embodiments, the prize for winning a game depends on the round-up amount used to purchase an entry into that game. For example, the prize for winning a game will be proportional to the round-up amount paid for that game entry. In such an embodiment, the prize received when winning the game increases as the round-up amount increases. In other embodiments, the higher the round-up amount, the greater the probability of winning. For example, an entry into a game where a customer paid $ 1.50 is twice as likely to win as an entry into a game where another customer paid 75 ¢. Upon receiving an input indicating that the game upsell is selected in exchange for the round-up amount, the POS terminal generates a unique identifier for identifying the game entry. The unique identifier and the rounded-up amount are stored in the game database of the identifier and the rounded-up amount. When a winning entry is determined, the game database provides a round-up amount corresponding to that entry, thereby determining the value of the prize. The game database is, for example, a database maintained by a POS terminal and stored in storage device 1022 (FIG. 13A). In another embodiment shown by FIG. 2210, the game database resides in the lottery data processing system 1220 connected to the POS terminals 1222,1223 via the communication link 1224. Two POS terminals are shown in Figure 22 for clarity, but more POS terminals may be connected to the lottery data processing system 1220. The lottery data processing system 1220 is typically a controller placed in the store to control lottery ticket transactions executed by point-of-sale terminals in the store. Therefore, the system 1220 works to collect and store lottery transactions (eg, lottery ticket upsells) performed at the store's POS terminal. Such centralized control of lottery transactions allows customers to receive upsells on multiple point-of-sale terminals, each allowing them to participate in a single lottery, contest or other game.

The lottery data processing system 1220 includes a microprocessor 1226 for controlling other components described below. The microprocessor 1226 communicates with a cryptographic processor 1228 for authenticating lottery transactions and a random number generator for generating a "quick pick" lottery number for each game entry, respectively. The storage device 1232 also communicates with the microprocessor 1226 to include (I) the above-mentioned identifier and round-up game database 1234 and (II) a unique identifier for each terminal and a specific lottery transaction for each terminal. A POS terminal controller database 1236 for maintaining information about POS terminals connected to the lottery data processing system 1220, and (III) a winning lottery ticket number database for storing winning numbers and thereby displaying winning entries. Memorize 1238. In each of the embodiments of the invention described above, the customer chooses to receive the upsell. However, as described below, the customer may choose to give his upsell to a second customer (donate) so that the second customer will receive it on their next POS terminal visit. unknown. A second customer may visit a point-of-sale terminal and, for example, pay for a product or receive a particularly donated upsell, as described above. FIG. 23 shows a customer database 1260, which is another embodiment of the customer database 1110 (FIG. 17) stored in storage device 1022. The customer database 260 contains a unique customer identifier 1262, along with the customer's unique information described above, such as name 1264, address 1266, phone number 1268 and past product preferences 1270. In addition, the customer database 1260 contains a linked customer identifier 1272 that identifies the other person (if any) to whom the customer's upsell has been donated. For example, using the capabilities of the customer database 1260, a customer may specify that an acquaintance receives the upsell earned by that customer. The customer database 1260 also indicates the last date to receive an upsell 1274 that should be given to that customer, for example an upsell that was previously earned or passed to him by another person. Included with upsell expiration date 1275.

Using the exemplary data shown in database 1260 of FIG. 23, the first customer identifier 1276 in record 1277 identifies the customer name "Bill Smith", and the corresponding link via identifier 1278 in field 1272. Identify the customer. This linked customer identifier 1278 corresponds to the customer identifier 1280 that identifies the customer "Jill Smith". Therefore, Jill Smith is identified and receives an upsell donated by Bill Smith. The legitimate upsell 1282 is associated with the customer identifier 1280 of record 1281 (Jill Smith). The legitimate upsell 1282 is offered on the basis of a purchase by Bill Smith and is received by Jill Smith during a visit to a point-of-sale terminal. The upsell identifier A in field 1274 may include, for example, a small soda. Thus, the use of "linked customers" allows customers to transfer even the upsells or even purchased products thus earned, thereby both customer satisfaction and customer retention. Increase. A customer may choose to randomly donate his upsell to one (or more) of a large number of customers, such as multiple family members or a given poor family list, rather than a special one. unknown. In such an embodiment, the donating customer would first specify the relevant group with the linked customer identifier 1272. A random one (or more) of this group is selected by the POS terminal as the recipient of that upsell. Referencing Figure 12a and Figure 12b shows how to perform an automated upsell process for a customer with a customer card 1300. A customer wishing to enroll in a customer card that remembers his preferences provides the POS operator or data entry manager with personal information such as his name, address and / or telephone number (step 1302). .. This personal information is then stored in one record in the customer database (step 1304). An example of such a record is shown in Figure 23 as record 1276,1281 in customer database 1260. The customer chooses whether he wants to receive upsells more normally than change (step 1306). If he chooses that way, the customer will be presented with possible upsell options (step 1308). The customer selects from the displayed upsells that he wishes to receive normally (step 1310), and the selected upsells are stored in the past preference field 1270 of his customer record. (Step 1312).

The customer will also choose whether he prefers to donate his upsell to a "linked" customer who has a customer card (step 1314). If so, the customer provides information that identifies the linked customer, such as the linked customer's name, address and / or account number (step 1316). Customers may opt for a number of other linked customers to receive donated upsells. Information is reviewed to ensure that the second customer is correctly identified from the information provided and that the information is stored in the customer database record (step 1318). If necessary, additional customer records are generated for the second and subsequent customers (s). The customer is presented with possible upsells that can be donated to the second customer (step 1320). The customer chooses which of the displayed upsells he prefers to be passed as usual (step 1322) and the selected upsell is stored in the customer record (step 1324). Finally, the customer is issued his customer card (step 1326) through which the POS terminal can identify his customer record. Referring to FIG. 25, method 1340 for applying preselected customer preferences to the current visit to a POS terminal begins with determining if a customer card is being used (step 1342). Such a decision is made, for example, by receiving a signal from the card reader, thereby indicating that the card has been "swipe" through the card reader. If the customer card has not been used, an upsell will be determined as already mentioned (step 1344) and an upsell (if selected) will be offered to the customer in exchange for his change (step 1346). .. If a customer card is used, the customer database is searched to determine if the customer has a preferred upsell (step 1348). If he has, his favorite upsell is chosen (step 1350). The customer database is also searched to see if that customer has determined a second customer to receive the donated upsell (step 1352). If so, the identifier for the selected upsell is stored in the second customer's account (step 1354), thereby indicating that the selected upsell can be received by the second customer. In another embodiment, the second customer may receive a donated product that is not upsell, eg, a product purchased at a "price list" price.

Referring to FIG. 26, Method 1370 shows how a second customer receives a donated upsell. At the point-of-sale terminal, a second customer swipes his customer card through a card reader (step 1372), thereby providing information about his preferences and any upsell donated to him. The customer record in the database is identified. The customer record is searched to determine if the upsell has been donated to a second customer (step 1374). Otherwise, the second customer completes the transaction at the POS terminal, as described above (step 1376). If the upsell has been donated, the second customer is informed that the upsell is being offered (step 1378), thereby clearing the donated upsell from the second customer's record. Donation. It is also possible to add an upsell specific to a second customer's change-dependent transaction to the donated upsell. As mentioned above, the upsell has a corresponding expiration date, after which the upsell will not be refunded. For example, a donated upsell will only be delivered if the second customer receives the upsell through method 1370 (Figure 26) described above before a predetermined date. The expiration date for the donated upsell is particularly advantageous for the store in that it enhances the customer's hold by motivating them to visit the store with the POS terminal before the upsell expires. Damage also benefits the store. In many of the examples provided herein, the methods and devices of the invention have described in detail a single device that acts as a POS terminal, such as a cache register. However, as described above, the functionality of the present invention can also be realized by a plurality of devices that share the aforementioned functions, such as the multi-unit system shown in FIG. 13B.

Therefore, FIG. 27 shows method 1390 for determining upsell in a POS terminal according to FIG. 13B. Method 1390 is performed, for example, by a combination of processing systems and cash registers operated by an electronic market service or credit card clearing house. The cache register generates a purchase price and sends the purchase price to the processing system (step 1392). The processing system generates a rounded price (step 1394) and a dependent round-up amount (step 1396). As mentioned above, the processing system identifies the upsell to offer to the customer (step 1398). If the customer chooses the upsell (step 1400), the requested payment amount in the cash register is automatically set to the rounded price either manually or through a connection with the processing system (step 1402). Those skilled in the art will appreciate that many different systems will be available in which the functionality of the present invention has become shared among a large number of hardware and / or software devices. .. Having described the invention with respect to preferred embodiments thereof, one of ordinary skill in the art understands that various substitutions can be made to those embodiments described herein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Will do. For example, many other types of upsells not described in detail herein are contemplated by the present invention. One such upsell may include "points" that can be used for store credits, phone calls, internet access or payphone events. In addition, many types of POS terminals are contemplated by the present invention, in addition to those requiring a cashier. According to the present invention, a company can win a lottery ticket and allocate a part of the lottery ticket to a customer. A share of any prize won in the lottery ticket is given to the customer, and the share of the prize corresponds to the allocated portion of the lottery ticket. For example, if a customer receives the $ 0.34 portion of a $ 2.00 lottery ticket, the customer will receive 17% ($ 0.34 / $ 2.00 = 17%) of the prizes from that lottery ticket. The lottery ticket portion may be expressed as a monetary amount, for example $ 0.34, or as a percentage, such as 17%.

Typically, a company acquires a group of lottery tickets and allocates a portion of those lottery tickets to customers as needed. The company receives the prizes from the lottery ticket group, but the company pays the customer a share of the prize based on the allocation portion. Since the company only has to buy the traditional lottery ticket, the company can promote the play of the split lottery ticket without requiring significant changes to the business of the existing lottery trader. The portion of the lottery ticket assigned to the customer will be based on the amount of change associated with the commercial transaction at the point-of-sale terminal. Such an embodiment is advantageous because many customers welcome alternatives to receiving change. Moreover, receiving something of high value, such as a split lottery ticket, instead of change would even be more appealing to the customer. Referring to FIG. 28, network 2008 includes store controller 2010. The store controller 2010 communicates with the lottery server 2008 and also with the POS terminals 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020. Typically, cash registers or other terminals, POS terminals 2014,2016,2018,2020, can initiate and / or complete split lottery ticket transactions. Although four POS terminals are shown in FIG. 28, any number of POS terminals can communicate with the store controller 2010. The POS terminals 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020 can be located in the same store, in different stores of a chain store, or in other places. The store controller 2010 commands the operation of storing and transmitting data to and from the POS terminals 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020. The store controller 2010 itself may be a POS terminal or another computing device capable of communicating with one or more POS terminals. Lottery Server 2012 is typically controlled by a state lottery vendor to serve requests from store controllers 2010. For example, the lottery server 2012 may issue lottery tickets in response to a request from the store controller 2010, or may provide a winning number for the lottery date. Referring to FIG. 29, the store controller 2010 of FIG. 28 includes a processor 2022, such as one or more conventional microprocessors. Processor 2022 communicates with a data storage device 2024 such as a suitable combination of magnetic, optical and / or semiconductor memory. Processor 2022 and storage 2024, respectively, are either (I) located entirely within a single computer or other computing device, or (II) remote, such as a serial port cable, telephone line or radio frequency transceiver. They may be connected to each other by communication links or (III) a combination thereof. For example, the store controller 2010 can include one or more computers connected to a remote server computer to maintain the database.

The storage device 2024 stores the program 2026 for controlling the processor 2022. Processor 2022 executes the instructions of program 2026 and thereby operates in accordance with the present invention, in particular according to the methods described in detail herein. Program 2026 also includes program elements that may be needed, such as an operating system and "device drivers" that allow the interface between processor 2022 and computer peripherals. Suitable device drivers and other necessary program elements are known to those of skill in the art and need not be described in detail herein. The storage device 2024 also includes (I) ticketing database 2030, (II) commercial transaction database 2032, (III) split ticket database 2034, (IV) lottery ticket database 2036, and (V) customer database 2038. And remember. The databases 2030,2032,2034,2036,2038 are described in detail below and are shown in the accompanying drawings with example entries. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the schematics and accompanying descriptions of the databases presented herein are exemplary arrangements of memory representations of information. In addition to the table shown, several other arrangements will be adopted. Similarly, although the exemplary entries provide examples of information, one of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the number and content of entries may differ from those illustrated herein.

With reference to FIG. 30, a schematic diagram of the POS terminal 2040 illustrates the POS terminals 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020 of FIG. 28. The point-of-sale terminal 2040 includes one or more processors 2042, such as conventional microprocessors. Processor 2042 communicates with a data storage device 2044, such as the appropriate combination of magnetic, optical and / or semiconductor memory. Processor 2042 and storage 2044, respectively, are either (I) located entirely within a single computer or other computing device, or (II) remote, such as a serial port cable, telephone line or radio frequency transceiver. They may be connected to each other by communication links or (III) a combination thereof. For example, the POS terminal 2040 may be one or more computers connected to a remote server computer for maintaining the database. Input device 2046, printer 2048 and display device 2050 each communicate with processor 2042. The input device 2046 preferably includes a keypad for transmitting an input signal to the processor 2042, such as a shopping signal. The input device 2046 can also include an optical barcode scanner for reading barcodes and transmitting signals displaying those barcodes to processor 2042. Printer 2048 is for registering markings on paper or other material, thereby printing split lottery tickets as instructed by processor 2042. The display device 2050 is preferably a video monitor for displaying at least alphabetic numeric characters to the customer and / or the cashier operating the POS terminal 2040. Many types of input devices, printers and display devices are known to those of skill in the art and do not need to be described in detail here. The storage device 2044 stores the POS terminal program 2052 for controlling the processor 2042. Processor 2042 executes the instructions of the POS terminal program 2052, thereby operating according to the present invention, particularly according to the methods described in detail herein. The POS terminal program 2052 is also a program that may be needed, such as a "device driver" or operating system to enable the interface between computer peripherals such as input device 2046, printer 2048 and display device 2050 and processor 2042. Includes elements. Suitable device drivers and other necessary program elements are known to those of skill in the art and need not be described in detail here.

FIG. 31 shows an alternative embodiment of the POS terminal 2058, which illustrates the POS terminals 2014,2016,2018,2020 of FIG. The controller 2060 communicates with the system 2064 for printing split lottery tickets, receipts and / or coupons via the communication medium 2062. The controller 2060 includes a processor 2066 that communicates with the input device 2046 (FIG. 30) and the display device 2050 (FIG. 30). The system 2064 for printing includes a processor 2068 that communicates with storage 2044 (FIG. 30) and printer 2048 (FIG. 30). In this embodiment, the controller 2060 may be a cache register and the system 2064 may be an electronic device for printing tickets according to the data received from the cache register. Those skilled in the art will understand the other configurations of the POS terminal 2040. The following explanation is divided as follows. Partial allocation of lottery tickets, acquisition of additional lottery tickets and partial refund of lottery tickets. Partial allocation of lottery tickets Referring to FIG. 32, the ticketing database 2030 of FIG. 29 contains rows 2080,2082,2084,2086,2088, each representing one entry in the ticketing database 2030. Each entry defines one lottery ticket to be assigned, where the assigned portion of the lottery ticket is included in the split lottery ticket. In detail, each entry indicates when (I) the ticket identifier 2090 that uniquely identifies the entry, such as the lottery ticket serial number or part of the serial number, and (II) the ticket number per ticket is announced. Includes lottery date 2092, (III) ticket number 2094, (IV) unallocated portion 2096 of the lottery ticket, (V) unallocated portion 2096 and ticket price 2098 indicating the sum of any allocated portion. For any entry, the unallocated portion 2096 and ticket price 2098 will be used to determine how much of the corresponding lottery ticket is allocated. For example, referring to entry 2084 with a $ 1.00 ticket price, $ 0.23 remains unallocated. Therefore, $ 0.77 ($ 1.00- $ 0.23) has been allocated. The total remaining unallocated amount of 2100 represents the sum of the unallocated portion of all lottery tickets. Given the example data shown in Figure 31, the total remaining unallocated amount 2100 is $ 1.54 ($ 0.12 + $ 0.31 + $ 0.23 + $ 0.78 + $ 0.10 = $ 1.54).

See FIG. 33 for example data on the ticketing database 2030 (Figures 29 and 32) before and after a portion of the lottery ticket is allocated. Table 2110 represents the pre-transaction ticketing database 2030 represented by the round-up amount 2130. Table 2120 represents the post-transaction ticketing database 2030 represented by the round-up amount 2130. The round-up amount of 2130 has a value of $ 0.35 and corresponds to the transaction when the customer exchanges his change ($ 0.35) for a split lottery ticket. The customer thus gets a portion of the lottery ticket, which portion is based on the amount of $ 0.35. As mentioned above, each entry shown in Table 2110 corresponds to a single ticket. With the exception of entry 2135, the amount of $ 0.35 is greater than the unallocated portion of all entries. In contrast, entry 2135 has an unallocated portion of $ 0.78, from which the $ 0.35 portion of the corresponding lottery ticket will be allocated. Therefore, the lottery ticket corresponding to entry 2135 will be selected and the portion corresponding to $ 0.35 will be allocated to create a new split lottery ticket. Entry 2135 represents the ticket "1234563" before the $ 0.35 portion was allocated from it. Entry 2140 in Table 2120 represents the ticket "1234563" after the $ 0.35 portion has been allocated from it. The unallocated portion of entry 2140 is $ 0.43, which is $ 0.35 less than the original $ 0.78 unallocated portion. Similarly, prior to the transaction represented by the round-up amount 2130, the total remaining unallocated amount (of all lottery tickets) is $ 1.54. After the transaction, the total remaining unallocated amount is $ 1.19, which is a reduction of $ 1.54 to $ 0.35.

Referring to FIG. 34, the commerce database 2032 of FIG. 29 contains rows 2150,2152,2154,2156,2158, each of which represents one entry in the commerce database 2032. Each entry defines one commerce initiated by the POS terminal. Specifically, each entry contains (I) a commerce number 2160 that uniquely identifies the commerce, (II) a POS terminal identifier 2162 that uniquely identifies the POS terminal that initiated the commerce, and (III). The purchase price 2164, (IV) the rounding multiple 2165 used to indicate the amount to be rounded, and (V) the round-up amount 2166 used to purchase the split lottery ticket, and ( VI) an indication of whether the split lottery offer was accepted 2168, (VII) customer number 2170 identifying the customer who used the customer card for the business transaction, and (VIII) the date of the business transaction. Includes 2172 and a split lottery identifier 2174 that identifies the split lottery ticket offered in exchange for the (IX) round-up amount. The round-up amount 2166 is the amount used to purchase a split lottery ticket. In some embodiments, the round-up amount 2166 is equal to the lottery ticket allocation portion. For example, a customer may have $ 0.62 in purchase change (rounded up) and use that change to get the $ 0.62 portion of a lottery ticket. However, the amount used to purchase a split lottery ticket does not have to be the same as the allocation portion of the corresponding lottery ticket. In certain embodiments, the lottery ticket allocation portion is based on the rounded down (or rounded up) amount. For example, suppose a customer has $ 0.62 in purchase change and uses that change to get a split lottery ticket. The split lottery ticket will be based on the allocated $ 0.60 ($ 0.62 rounded down to the nearest 5 cents) portion of the lottery ticket. Of course, this amount may be rounded down to other multiples, such as the nearest dime, quarter or $ 1, and the rounded amount will define the allocation portion of the lottery ticket. The difference between the change and the truncated amount on which the split lottery ticket is based will be taken as a service fee, for example, by the seller of the split lottery ticket. The lottery ticket allocation portion can be based on the amount in yet another way. For example, the allocated portion can be double that amount. If the customer purchases a given prize or type of prize, or if the customer uses a customer card, it would be advantageous to offer such a double-valued portion. For example, if a customer has $ 0.62 in change and wants to buy a product from a special manufacturer, the customer will have one or more lottery ticket quotas of $ 1.24 (twice $ 0.62) in exchange for his change. Receive a split lottery ticket based on.

With reference to Figure 35, Tables 2180 and 2190 show the records of the split lottery database 2034 (Figure 29). Typically, the split lottery database 2034 contains multiple records as represented in Tables 2180, 2190. Each record in the split lottery database 2034 defines a split lottery ticket, and each split lottery ticket contains one or more lottery ticket allocation parts. The records represented in Table 180 define a split lottery ticket identified by identifier 2185 (identifier 1001). Table 2180 includes entry 2187, which defines the portion of the lottery ticket contained in the split lottery ticket 1001. Entry 2187 includes (I) a ticket identifier 2182 that uniquely identifies the lottery ticket, and (II) a portion 2184 that indicates the portion of the lottery ticket contained in the split lottery ticket 1001. Similarly, the records represented by Table 2190 define a split lottery ticket identified by identifier 2195 (identifier 1003). Table 2190 contains entries 2197, 2198, which each contain (I) ticket identifier 2192 and (II) part 2194. Since the split lottery ticket "1003" contains parts from two or more lottery tickets, the split lottery ticket "1003" may contain a total allocation amount that exceeds the maximum amount of one lottery ticket. As mentioned above, a split lottery ticket includes one or more lottery ticket portions. In certain embodiments, the lottery ticket is not selected by the customer, but instead is automatically selected by the point-of-sale terminal or store controller 2010 (FIG. 28). In such an embodiment, one lottery ticket is selected from multiple lottery tickets in the ticketing database 2030 (Fig. 29). Lottery tickets will be chosen in several ways. For example, a lottery ticket with an allocation portion at least as large as the amount would be chosen. Similarly, a set of lottery tickets will be determined, each with an allocation portion of at least as large as the monetary value. From this group, the lottery ticket with the smallest unallocated portion is selected. The following explanation further clarifies this method of choosing a lottery ticket.

Referring to FIG. 36, Table 2200 shows an example of data for the ticketing database 2030 (FIGS. 29 and 33). Table 2200 includes entries 2202,2204,2206,2208. The round-up amount 2220 has a value of $ 0.60 and corresponds to a transaction when a customer exchanges his change ($ 0.60) for a split lottery ticket. The customer thus gets a portion of one lottery ticket, which portion is based on the amount of $ 0.60. To choose a lottery ticket to allocate a portion of it, the store controller 2010 determines a set of tickets, each with an unallocated portion of at least $ 0.60. This set includes entries 2204,2206,2208. From this set, the lottery ticket with the smallest unallocated portion is selected. Of entries 2204,2206,2208, entry 2208 has the smallest unallocated portion ($ 0.61). Therefore, the lottery ticket corresponding to entry 2208 will be selected and the $ 0.60 portion will be allocated from it. In another embodiment, the customer may choose the ticket number himself at the time of transaction, either manually or through the number stored on the customer card. One or more lottery tickets containing those ticket numbers will be earned (eg, by electronic request to the lottery server 2012) and added to the ticketing database 2030 (Figure 29), some or more of which will be its customers. Will be included in the split lottery ticket purchased by. Such an embodiment allows the customer to obtain a split lottery ticket with his favorite or "lucky" number. Once the split lottery ticket is determined, the POS terminal prints the ticket display of the split lottery ticket for the customer, for example, on the receipt. The printed ticket is proof that the customer is registered in the display area of any prize won by the displayed lottery ticket. Such a printed ticket shall have a corresponding (I) split lottery ticket identifier, (II) ticket number, (III) assigned portion (s) of the lottery ticket (s), (IV). It can include legal identifiers and (V) encryption codes based on their combination. Such an encryption code will be used to prove that the printed ticket has not been modified. Cryptography is described in the second edition of "Applied Cryptography: Protocols, Algorithms and Source Code in C" by Bruce Schneier, published in 1996. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the encryption code is determined by the encryption algorithm so that the counterfeiter cannot generate a valid code as well as a code to display the winning lottery ticket.

The printed ticket may also include contractual statements such as provisions to transfer the rights and qualifications to the display portion of any prize won by the displayed lottery ticket to the customer. In addition, matters such as the date of the lottery and the expiration date of the split lottery ticket may be included on the printed ticket, as will be appreciated by those skilled in the art. It would also be preferred to facilitate the entry of information using a barcode scanner by printing a barcode that displays any or all of the above information. Referring to FIG. 37, method 2240 of allocating a portion of a lottery ticket is initiated by determining the amount (step 2242). For example, a point-of-sale terminal may calculate the amount of change and truncate that amount to the nearest dime. The POS terminal sends the rounded amount to the store controller, which determines the amount that should be the rounded amount. The store controller then allocates the portion based on its monetary value to the lottery ticket (step 2244). The store controller then outputs (I) a ticket identifier that identifies the lottery ticket and (II) a partial identifier that identifies the allocated portion of the lottery ticket (step 2246). For example, a store controller typically sends a ticket identifier and a partial identifier to a POS terminal, which prints a split lottery ticket based on the transmitted identifier, as described above. The store controller also stores the ticket identifier and partial identifier in, for example, the split ticket database 2034 (FIG. 29) for authentication purposes (step 2248). Get additional lottery tickets As mentioned above, the lottery ticket portion is allocated from the lottery ticket supply. After the allocation, it is possible that the lottery ticket will have an unallocated portion of $ 0.00. In other words, the entire lottery ticket can be allocated so that no further allottable portion of the lottery ticket remains. In addition, after the allocation, the single lottery ticket may not have enough unallocated portion to satisfy the special (or expected) requirements for the split lottery ticket. For example, there may be an attempt to allocate the $ 0.35 portion of a lottery ticket, but none of the lottery tickets shown in the ticketing database 2030 (Figure 29) have an unallocated portion of $ 0.35 or more. In such a situation, it would be possible to collect the parts from multiple lottery tickets and allocate the parts to equal $ 0.35. However, it would be preferable to allocate one part from one lottery ticket rather than one part from many. For example, it is easier for a customer to track a set of ticket numbers than a set of ticket numbers.

Therefore, it is advantageous to obtain additional lottery tickets for the issuance of lottery tickets. In particular, it is advantageous to obtain additional lottery tickets before the lottery tickets are needed so as not to bring unnecessary delays into the commercial transaction. Additional tickets will be obtained in certain quantities to reduce the time it takes to obtain the lottery ticket. For example, 30 tickets will be obtained at one time. Moreover, this predetermined amount will depend on criteria such as the number of POS terminals currently in use. Additional lottery tickets will be obtained by purchasing "quick pick" tickets (tickets with randomly chosen ticket numbers) from the state lottery, as is known. In one embodiment, the store controller 2010 (FIG. 28) counts the number of tickets having an unallocated portion that exceeds a predetermined threshold. For example, the store controller 2010 will count the number of tickets with unallocated portion greater than $ 0.50. The number is compared to a second predetermined threshold, and if the number is less than the second predetermined threshold, one or more additional lottery tickets will be obtained. For example, if there are less than 10 lottery tickets with unallocated portion greater than $ 0.50, additional lottery tickets will be acquired. In another embodiment, the store controller 2010 (FIG. 28) counts the number of tickets that have more than the required portion of unallocated portion. For example, a point-of-sale terminal may request a $ 0.40 split lottery ticket from a store controller. The store controller 2010 counts against it the number of tickets with an unallocated portion greater than $ 0.40. This number is compared to a given threshold, and if this number is less than the given threshold, one or more additional lottery tickets will be obtained. For example, if there are less than 8 lottery tickets with unallocated portion greater than $ 0.40, additional lottery tickets will be acquired.

In another embodiment, the store controller 2010 (FIG. 28) calculates the sum of the unallocated portion of all tickets. If the sum is less than a predetermined threshold, additional tickets will be acquired. For example, if the total remaining unallocated amount is less than $ 10.00, one block of 30 additional tickets will be acquired. Partial Refund of Lottery Tickets The company or other entity that acquires and manages the supply of lottery tickets will check to determine if it is a winning ticket. If so, the company prefers to redeem the winning ticket for a prize as soon as possible, and can then use the prize to pay those customers who have the corresponding split lottery ticket. You can do it. The winning ticket number will be manually entered into the store controller 2010 (Figure 28) when available. Ideally, the store controller 10 would receive the winning ticket number for each lottery day from the lottery server 2012 (Figure 28). The store controller can store those winning ticket numbers in the winning lottery ticket database 2036 (Fig. 29). Referring to FIG. 38, the winning lottery database 2036 contains entries 2260, 2262, 2264, each defining a winning ticket number for the draw date. Each entry includes (I) the corresponding lottery date 2266, (II) ticket number 2268, and (III) prize 2270. The winning lottery database 2036 should include entries for all lottery dates corresponding to valid and refundable split lottery tickets. For example, if a split lottery ticket is refunded up to one year after its corresponding lottery date, the entry for each lottery date for at least the past year should be remembered. Prize 2270 would be, for example, a prize that would be won if all winning ticket numbers match. More prizes will be specified for each entry. For example, a prize when only 5 digits of the 6-digit winning ticket number match may be specified in each entry in the same manner.

When the winning ticket numbers for a lottery day are received by the store controller 2010 (Figure 28), the store controller 2010 simply stores them in the winning lottery database 2036 and there when the customer refunds the split lottery ticket. Will be accessed. However, the store controller 2010 can also determine which split lottery tickets include the winning lottery ticket portion. The corresponding record in the split ticket database 2034 (Figure 29) will then be modified to indicate that the split lottery ticket contains the winning lottery ticket portion. In addition, if those split lottery tickets were purchased using a customer card, the corresponding customer will also be notified. Referring to FIG. 39, the customer database 2038 contains entries 2280,2282,2284,2286, each defining a customer (a customer who has used a customer card in a commercial transaction). In particular, each entry contains (I) the customer number 2288 to uniquely identify the customer, (II) the customer's address 2290, and (III) the customer's telephone number. Includes 2292, (IV) the customer's name 2294, and (V) the customer's email address 2296. With such stored information, the customer will be notified by mail, telephone, email or other desired form of notification. In addition, customers will be notified by the point-of-sale terminal the next time they use the customer card. Providing the additional benefit of notifying the customer is advantageous in encouraging the customer to become the customer. Therefore, those customers are likely to continue to visit the company often. To refund the split lottery ticket, the customer preferably presents a printed ticket to show that he is eligible to be awarded a share of the displayed prize. The printed ticket confirms that it is valid and has not been modified. For example, if the printed ticket is valid, the split lottery ticket identifier stamped on the printed ticket displays one record in the split ticket database. The record should then display the corresponding information on the printed ticket. Furthermore, the encryption code can be confirmed.

Referring to FIG. 40, the method 2300 for refunding a split lottery ticket receives (I) a ticket identifier that identifies the lottery ticket and (II) a partial identifier that identifies the allocated portion of the lottery ticket. , Start (step 2302). Those identifiers would be received by manually entering one or more identifiers into the POS terminal. The identifier is then transmitted from there to the store controller 2010 (Figure 28). Alternatively, the barcode scanner of the POS terminal may read the barcode on the printed ticket and send the barcode to the store controller 2010. The identifier or barcode entered is a representation of the identifier of the split lottery ticket, which display will be used to retrieve the corresponding ticket identifier and partial identifier from the split ticket database 2034 (Figure 29). .. In this way, the store controller receives the ticket identifier and the partial identifier. Once the identifier is received, which identifies one or more lottery tickets and their assigned portion, the prize value of the lottery ticket will be determined (step 2304). As mentioned above, the prize value will be determined by comparing the winning ticket number stored in the winning lottery ticket database 2036 (Fig. 29) with the ticket number of the lottery ticket. As mentioned above, the portion of the prize to be offered to the customer depends on the allocation portion of the lottery ticket. That portion of the prize is offered to the customer, typically by offering cash from a cash register or by writing or printing a check issued to that customer (step 2306). A winning lottery ticket may have an unallocated portion greater than zero. Such a winning lottery ticket will have a portion related to the prize value that is not paid to the customer. This part of the prize will instead be held by the company and used for investments that inspire various clients. For example, some of the prize value held will be returned to the customer in the form of a split lottery ticket (ie, buy a $ 0.50 split lottery with $ 0.05 change). The company may hold additional wins by offering the winning ticket with a specific prize value. For example, a customer is only offered a share of a "big hit" (for example, all 6-digit winning ticket numbers match). Any other prizes will be withheld by the company. Of course, such restrictions would be explained to the customer by the information printed on the advertisement or the split lottery ticket.

Although the present invention has been described with respect to preferred embodiments thereof, one of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that various substitutions can be made to those embodiments described herein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Let's do it. For example, the present invention can be applied to many types of games in addition to winning lottery tickets. Further, in some embodiments, the data stored in the store controller may be stored in the POS terminal instead. Similarly, some of the functions performed by the store controller may be performed by the POS terminal. The reverse is also possible. Methods and equipment are provided for determining the upsell to offer to the customer according to a predefined relationship from his purchased items. The relationship between such a shopping item and the upsell offered would be conceptually explained by a table containing both the item and the upsell. Therefore, the table describes a corresponding database that defines the upsells offered when a customer's purchase contains special items. Examples based on such a table are particularly easy for a typical store manager to understand. For example, a fast food restaurant store manager may want to know what upsells can be offered to customers ordering burgers and small French fries. The store manager may search the table for entries that correspond to burgers and small French fries. Then, the corresponding upsell may be determined from those entries. Such table-based embodiments are also easy for a typical store manager to adjust as needed. For example, a store manager would determine that a large number of customers ordering burgers and small French fries would also find desserts attractive. The store manager can then modify the table (representing the database) to include one entry that defines a dessert upsell for shopping, including burgers and small French fries. Upsells are exchanged for spare change, so not all customers pay the same price for the same upsell. For example, if a customer has a first purchase price of $ 4.64, they may offer a special upsell for payment and exchange of a rounded price of $ 5.00 ($ 4.64 rounded to the nearest dollar). The customer will pay $ 0.36 for the upsell. However, another customer with a second purchase price of $ 4.72 may be offered the same upsell for $ 5.00 ($ 4.72 rounded to the nearest dollar). That customer would then pay $ 0.28 for the same upsell. Therefore, upsell is not just a product for sale and has a fixed price for all customers. Instead, upsells will be purchased at different prices for each customer. That amount needs to round the purchase price to some rounding multiple.

Referring to FIG. 41, the POS terminal 3010 includes one or more conventional microprocessor-like processors 3012. Processor 3012 communicates with a data storage device 3014 such as a suitable combination of magnetic, optical and / or semiconductor memory. Processor 3012 and storage 3014, respectively, are either (I) located entirely within a single computer or other computing unit, or (II) remote communications such as serial port cables, telephone lines or radio frequency transceivers. They are either connected to each other by media or (III) a combination of them. For example, the POS terminal 3010 can include one or more computers connected to a remote server computer for database maintenance. The input device 3016, the printer 3018, and the display device 3020 each communicate with the processor 3012. The input device 3016 preferably includes a keypad for transmitting an input signal to the processor 3012, such as a shopping signal. The input device 3016 can also include an optical barcode scanner for reading barcodes and transmitting signals representing those barcodes to processor 3012. Printer 3018 is for registering markings on paper or other material, thereby printing receipts as instructed by processor 3012. The display device 3020 is preferably a video monitor for displaying at least alphabetic numerical characters to the customer and the cashier who operates the POS terminal 3010. Many types of input devices, printers and display devices are known to those of skill in the art and do not need to be described in detail here. Storage device 3014 stores program 3022 for controlling processor 3012. Processor 3012 executes the instructions of program 3022, thereby operating in accordance with the present invention, in particular according to the methods described in detail herein. Program 3022 further includes required program elements such as a "device driver" and an operating system that allow the processor 3012 to interface with computer peripherals such as input device 3016, printer 3018 and display device 3020. Suitable device drivers and other necessary program elements are known to those of skill in the art and need not be described in detail here.

Storage 3014 also stores (I) inventory database 3024, (II) possible upsell database 3026, (III) upsell offer database 3028, and (IV) accepted offer database 3030. To do. Databases 3024,3026,3028,3030 are described in detail below and illustrated with illustration entries in the accompanying drawings. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the schematic diagram of the database provided herein and the accompanying description are examples of the arrangement of memory representations of information. In addition to the tables shown, a number of other arrangements will be adopted. Similarly, the entries illustrated represent examples of information and one of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the number and content of entries can differ from those shown here. Referring to FIG. 42, another embodiment of POS terminal 3040 includes controller 3042, which communicates with system 3046 for printing receipts and / or coupons via communication medium 3044. The controller 3042 includes a processor 3048 that communicates with the input device 3016 (FIG. 41) and the display device 3020 (FIG. 41). The system 3046 for printing includes a processor 3050 that communicates with a storage device 3014 (FIG. 41) and a printer 3018 (FIG. 41). In this embodiment, the controller 3042 may be a cache register and the system 3046 may be an electronic device for printing coupons according to the data received from the cache register. Other configurations of POS terminals will be understood by those skilled in the art. Referring to FIG. 43, the inventory database 3024 of FIG. 41 contains entries 3100,3102,3104,3106,3108,3110,3112,3114, each defining the items that can be purchased. Each entry contains (I) an item identifier 3116 that uniquely identifies the item, (II) an item description 3118, (III) an item price 3120, and (IV) an item cost 3122. For each entry, the item price 3120 represents the price normally paid by the customer for the corresponding item, and the item cost 3122 represents the cost of that item to the company. Thus, the item cost 3122 would be, for example, the price that the company itself pays for the item. In some embodiments, the inventory database 3024 also includes an indication of the available quantity of each item.

Referring to FIG. 44, the possible upsell database 3026 of FIG. 41 contains entries 3140,3142,3144,3146, each defining an upsell that would be offered to the customer in exchange for change. Each entry contains (I) an upsell identifier 3148 that uniquely identifies the upsell and (II) an upsell description 3150. Referring to FIG. 45, Table 3155 shows an example of the upsell offer database 3028 (FIG. 41). Table 3155 includes entries 3160,3162,3164,3166,3168,3170, each defining an upsell to offer when a customer's shopping contains special items. Each entry contains (I) item 3172 included in the purchase and (II) upsell 3174 offered. For example, if the purchase includes small French fries and large cola, entry 3164 indicates that an upsell "D" should be offered. Upsell D is an upgrade from small French fries to large French fries, as indicated by entry 3146 in the possible upsell database 3026 (Figure 44). Therefore, if the customer accepts this offer, he will receive large French fries and large cola. Items included in a special purchase may correspond to more than one entry in the upsell offer database 3028. For example, shopping including hamburgers and small French fries corresponds to entry 3160 and entry 3162. If the purchase corresponds to more than one entry, one entry will be randomly selected or selected according to the cashier's instructions and the customer will be provided with an upsell (s) corresponding to this entry. Alternatively, the customer is allowed to choose from among the entries, thereby selecting the upsell (s) corresponding to the selected entry.

One entry in the upsell offer database 3028 may display more than one upsell. For example, entry 3166 indicates that a customer purchasing a hamburger, large cola and small French fries is offered an upsell "C" and an upsell "D". Similarly, entry 3168 indicates that customers purchasing hamburgers, large colas and medium French fries are offered upsell "C" and upsell "C" (two upsells "C"). The upsell C is an apple pie, as indicated by entry 3144 in the possible upsell database 3026 (Figure 44). Therefore, if the customer accepts this offer, he will receive a hamburger, a large cola, medium French fries and two apple pies. The rounded price paid by the customer for both these items and the upsell (s) will be determined by rounding up the purchase price to a predetermined multiple, such as the next largest dollar amount. Alternatively, the upsell offer database 3028 can display the rounded price directly or indirectly, as described below. Referring to FIG. 46, Table 3180 shows another embodiment of the upsell offer database 3028 (FIG. 45). Table 3180 contains entries 3190,3192,3194,3196,3198,3200, each defining an upsell to offer when a customer's shopping contains special items. Each entry is (I) item 3202 included in the purchase, (II) upsell 3204 to offer, and (III) rounded to be imposed on the item and upsell if the customer accepts the offer. Including price 3206. For example, if a purchase includes a hamburger, a large cola and a large French fries, and an upsell C is offered and accepted in accordance with entry 3200, entry 3200 will also be charged a rounded price of $ 5.00 to that customer. Is displayed. Each of the rounded price examples shown in Figure 46 is a multiple of $ 1, but the rounded price can be any, for example, a multiple of the value of $ 5 or 25 cents.

Referring to FIG. 47, Table 3220 shows another embodiment of the upsell offer database 3028 (FIG. 45). Table 3220 contains entries 3222,3224,3226,3228,3230,3232, each defining an upsell to offer when a customer's shopping contains special items. Each entry includes (I) the item 3234 included in the purchase, (II) the upsell 3236 to offer, and (III) the upsell price 3238 to be added to the purchase price if the customer accepts the offer. including. Preferably, the upsell price is such that when added to the corresponding purchase price, the sum of the results is a rounded price, such as a multiple of the dollar. Referring to FIG. 48, Table 3250 shows another embodiment of the upsell offer database 3028 (FIG. 45). Table 3250 contains entries 3252,3254,3256,3258,3260,3262, each defining an upsell to offer when a customer's shopping contains special items. Each entry is a rounding multiple that indicates (I) the item 3264 contained in the purchase, (II) the upsell 3266 to offer, and (III) the amount to which the purchase price should be rounded if the customer accepts the offer. Including 3268. In this way, the purchase price will be determined and then rounded according to the corresponding rounding multiple to obtain the rounded price. For example, entries 3252,3254,3256,3258,3260,3262 each define that the purchase price is rounded to the nearest dollar. With reference to FIG. 49, method 3280 for providing ancillary products at the POS terminal is initiated when the POS terminal receives the item being shopped (step 3282). Typically, each item has a barcode, which is scanned by the barcode scanner, and then the POS terminal receives a signal representing those items from the barcode scanner. Alternatively, various keys on the input device 3016 may be pressed to generate signals representing those items. The POS terminal then determines the upsell based on those items (step 3284). To determine the upsell, the POS terminal determines one or more records corresponding to those items, thereby determining the corresponding upsell of those records. Search database 3028 (Figure 41).

The point-of-sale terminal determines the rounded price that the customer will pay for both those items and the upsell (s) (step 3286). As mentioned above, the rounded price will be determined by rounding up the purchase price to a predetermined multiple, such as the next highest dollar amount. In other embodiments, the rounded price is determined from the upsell offer database. In one embodiment, the rounded price may be determined based on the records in the upsell offer database. For example, as described above with respect to FIG. 46, each entry in the upsell offer database can include a rounded price. As mentioned above with respect to FIG. 47, in another embodiment, each entry in the upsell offer database includes a rounded multiple, and the purchase price is rounded according to the rounded multiple to produce a rounded price. In yet another embodiment, as described above with respect to FIG. 48, each entry in the upsell offer database may include an upsell price that is added to the purchase price to generate a rounded price. The customer is offered an offer of those items and upsells (s) to be exchanged (purchased) for a rounded price (step 3288). For example, a POS terminal outputs an upsell (s) display, such as an upsell (s) name, to display device 3020. If the customer accepts the offer, the requested payment is set to the rounded price. This requested payment amount is the amount expected to be paid in exchange for the product offered to the customer. From the requested payment amount, the processor 3012 (FIG. 41) determines, for example, the total amount to be collected by the POS terminal at the end of the day. Those skilled in the art will typically store the requested payment amount in data storage device 3014, eg, one stored value for the transaction, or one or more included in the transaction. You will find that you can include multiple values, each corresponding to the amount you are expected to pay for your product.

The customer responds to the offer and the response will be received by the POS terminal when a key on the input device 3016 is pressed, or in any other way known to those skilled in the art (step 3290). ). If the response indicates acceptance of the offer, those items and upsells (s) are exchanged for their rounded price (step 3292). If desired, the POS terminal makes appropriate modifications to the display that stores the available quantity of the items to reflect that the items and upsells (s) have been sold. The POS terminal can also store the response to the offer for accounting and market research analysis. Applicants are aware that the ancillary processes performed by the point-of-sale terminal will cause delays in the customer's commerce and that those delays will be acceptable in some circumstances. For example, when there are few customer transactions in process, such delays do not significantly affect performance-related measures such as hourly sales or hourly profits. Therefore, it is possible to make a profit by executing the auxiliary process while the activity is low and reducing or suppressing the auxiliary process when the activity is high. Such an increase in profit can outweigh the benefits of a POS terminal that always runs ancillary processes or does not run any ancillary processes. In one embodiment of the invention, the POS terminal measures one or more criteria, such as terminal activity, and if the criteria are less than a predetermined threshold, performs ancillary processes. In another embodiment, the POS terminal measures the activity rate of the terminal and schedules the offer according to the activity rate, thereby providing an offer of ancillary products according to the offer schedule. The offer schedule executes time-consuming offers (offers with low "offer speed") during periods of low activity and faster offers (offers with high "offer speed") during periods of higher activity. Will specify to. As stated in the parent application mentioned earlier, Application No. 08 / 920,116, it is particularly preferred to offer an offer to exchange spare change for upsell. Accordingly, the present invention contemplates providing offers for upsells with high performance rates. To s et al., The present invention is intended to provide offers to different upsells according to an offer schedule.

Referring to FIG. 50, the IBM 4683 or IBM 4693 POS terminal 4010 manufactured by IBM includes a processor 4012, such as one or more conventional microprocessors. Processor 4012 communicates with a data storage device 4014 such as a suitable combination of magnetic, optical and / or semiconductor memory. Processor 4012 and storage 4014, respectively, are either (I) completely contained within a single computer or other computing unit, or (II) by a remote communication medium such as a serial port cable telephone line or radio frequency transceiver. It may be connected to each other or (III) a combination of them. For example, the POS terminal 4010 can include one or more computers connected to a remote server computer for maintaining a database. The input device 4016 preferably includes a keypad for transmitting an input signal to the processor 4012, such as a shopping signal. Printer 4018 is for registering markings on paper or other material, thereby printing receipts, coupons and vouchers as instructed by processor 4012. The display device 4020 is preferably a video monitor for displaying at least alphabetic numeric characters to customers and / or cashiers. Many types of input devices, printers and display devices are known to those of skill in the art and do not need to be described in detail here. The input device 4016, the printer 4018, and the display device 4020 each communicate with the processor 4012. Sensor 4022 also communicates with processor 4012. The sensor 4022 and processor 4012 will be used, for example, to measure the number of customers entering the store and the number of customers near the POS terminal. Many other types of sensors are known to those of skill in the art and do not need to be described in detail here. The storage device 4014 stores a program 4024 for controlling the processor 4012. Processor 4012 executes the instructions of program 4024 and thereby operates in accordance with the present invention, in particular according to the methods described in detail herein. Program 4024 may also be required to allow the processor to interface with computer peripherals such as input device 4016, printer 4018, display device 4020 and sensor 4022 for "device drivers" and operating system. Includes program elements such as. Suitable device drivers and other necessary program elements are known to those of skill in the art and need not be described in detail here.

FIG. 51 shows another embodiment of the POS terminal of FIG. 50, where controller 4028 communicates with system 4032, which provides ancillary processes, via communication medium 4030. The controller 4028 includes a processor 4034 that communicates with the input device 4016 and the display device 4020. The system 4032 for providing ancillary processes includes a storage device 4014, a printer 4018 and a processor 4036 that communicates with the sensor 4022. In this embodiment, the controller 4028 may be a cache register and the system 4032 may be an electronic device connected to it for printing coupons according to the data received from the cache register. Other configurations of POS terminal 4010 will be understood by those skilled in the art. Referring to FIG. 52, method 4040 for controlling the behavior of ancillary processes begins at POS terminal 4010 in FIGS. 50 and 51, which measures one or more criteria such as activity of POS terminal 4010. Is done (step 4042). For example, the POS terminal 4010 is the number of transactions completed per hour (transaction rate), the number of items purchased through the POS terminal 10 per hour (item sales rate), or the number of upsells accepted by the customer per hour ( Upsell acceptance rate) will be measured. The POS terminal 4010 will measure the number of customers, such as the number of customers in the store or near the POS terminal, through the input signal received from the sensor 4022. Many other types of measurements will be performed by the POS terminal 4010. The POS terminal 4010 then decides whether to perform ancillary processes such as providing upsells in exchange for change, based on measured activity rates and other criteria. In one embodiment, the POS terminal 4010 compares the activity rate with a predetermined threshold. Such thresholds will be determined in many ways (step 4044). For example, this threshold may be a predetermined value (eg, a rate of 3 trades per minute) or a variable value (eg, 3 trades per minute after 5 pm, 2 trades per minute otherwise). Many methods of calculating thresholds based on many variables such as time of day and day of the week will be appreciated by those skilled in the art.

Once the threshold is determined, the activity rate is compared to the given threshold (step 4046). One comparison is to determine if the activity rate is less than the threshold. For example, the POS terminal 4010 determines whether the measured number of transactions completed in the last 10 minutes is less than a predetermined threshold of 7 transactions per 10 minutes. If the comparison is affirmative (ie, the measured activity is less than the threshold), the POS terminal 4010 performs an auxiliary process (step 4048). The POS terminal 4010 will execute ancillary processes by executing the instructions of program 4024. Alternatively, the POS terminal 4010 may execute the auxiliary process by sending a control signal from the controller 4028 (FIG. 51) to provide the auxiliary process to the system 4032. In such an embodiment, controller 4028 determines whether to allow or shut down system 4032. For example, if the activity rate is greater than a predetermined threshold, controller 4028 will shut down system 4032 and if the activity rate is less than a predetermined threshold, it will allow system 4032. Controller 4028 would be able to allow and stop it by sending the appropriate permit and stop signals to system 4032. Such a signal may be a control signal, which may function only to allow or stop the execution of ancillary processes, or may be a data signal containing additional information for use by system 4032. Instead of separate allow and stop signals, controller 4028 can send a signal to system 4032 to toggle system 4032 between allowed and stopped modes. Instead, one of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that system 4032 may be "permitted until outage". In other words, controller 4028 would only need to send a stop signal when it does not execute ancillary processes. If no stop signal is sent to system 4032, system 4032 will perform ancillary processes (even if no authorization signal is received). Similarly, system 4032 may be "stopped until permission". In other words, controller 4028 may send an authorization signal only when performing ancillary processes. If no authorization signal is sent to system 4032, system 4032 will not run ancillary processes (even if no stop signal is received).

As described in Method 4040 above, the POS terminal will measure the activity rate to determine if the activity rate is less than a predetermined threshold. If so, the POS terminal is then the parent application of this application, the patent filed August 26, 1997, entitled "Methods and Systems for Processing Auxiliary Products at Point of Sale Terminals". As stated in Application No. 08 / 920,116, upsell is determined depending on the purchase. The POS terminal also relies on shopping to determine the upsell price and also offers the upsell to the customer in exchange for the upsell price. In the embodiment described above, the POS terminal 4010 determines whether ancillary processes are performed. In other embodiments, the POS terminal 4010 will further select ancillary processes based on measured activity rates or other criteria. For example, it may be preferable to offer different types of offers to customers depending on the activity rate of the POS terminal. In particular, when the measured activity rate is low, a longer offer is offered, while when the measured activity rate is high, a faster offer is offered. FIG. 53 is Table 4060 showing the offer schedule, which is incorporated as a database stored in storage 4014, as is known in the art. Each row in Table 4060 represents one entry, and each entry defines an upsell to offer in its activity rate. In particular, each entry includes an activity rate identifier 4062 that uniquely identifies the entry, an activity rate 4064 that describes the rate or range of rates, and an upsell 4066 that offers at that activity rate. As stated in Patent Application No. 08 / 920,116, the offered upsell 4066 may contain two or more upsells offered at one time until the upsell is accepted. it can.

Entry 4068, which corresponds to activity rates less than 8 transactions per 15 minutes, indicates that additional products should be offered during those (relatively small) activity rates. Offers for additional products generally have a low "offer rate". This is because if the offer is accepted by the customer, the cashier will take a few seconds to retrieve the additional product. Entry 4070 indicates that you should offer a "triple your change" coupon between those activity rates, corresponding to the activity rates between 8 and 15 transactions per 15 minutes. Printing coupons is typically faster than offering additional products. Coupon offers thus have a higher offer rate, which is why coupons are offered during higher terminal activity periods. Entry 4072 indicates that an offer should not be offered when the activity rate exceeds 15 transactions per 25 minutes. The above embodiment describes how the POS terminal automatically controls the execution of auxiliary processes. It would be even more desirable to provide methods and devices for interrupting such automatic control from time to time. Being able to manually disable POS terminal decisions would provide finer control over the behavior of ancillary processes. For example, a store manager may want to test ancillary processes even if the point-of-sale terminal is not running ancillary processes at that time. In addition, there may be special circumstances in which the device cannot be relied on accurately or ancillary processes should not be performed. With reference to FIG. 54, apparatus 4080 includes an override signal circuit 4084 and an override decision manager 4082 that receives input from the automatic control signal circuit 4086. The override signal circuit 4084 is a device that provides an override signal, such as a switch in communication with a POS terminal. The override signal circuit 4084 may be one or more keys on the input device 4016 (FIGS. 50 and 51), and may be another device that transmits and / or generates a signal. As mentioned above, the automatic control signal circuit 4086 is a part of the POS terminal that supplies a control signal for controlling the automatic execution of the auxiliary process. The override decision manager 4082 receives the override and control signals from circuits 4084 and 4086, respectively, and relies on them to generate an "enhanced control" signal to control the execution of ancillary processes. The highlighted control signal is sent to system 4088 to perform ancillary processes. System 4088 may be a software module that is a component of POS terminal 4010 of FIG. 50, or system 4032 to provide ancillary processes of FIG. 51.

The override signal will be used to interrupt the execution of ancillary processes that would otherwise occur according to the control signal from the automatic control signal circuit 4086. Referring to Table 1 below, the boolean table shown shows the output (emphasized control signal) as a function of the input (override signal and control signal). Table 1 shows an example in which the override signal now achieves one of two values (ie 0 or 1). However, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the override signal can achieve more than two values.<img file="JP2006059345A_D0001.tif" />Here, in order to allow automatic control, override signal = 0, in order to stop the auxiliary process, override signal = 1, in order to stop the auxiliary process, control signal = 0, allow the auxiliary process. In order to stop the control signal = 1 auxiliary process, the emphasis control signal = 0, to allow the auxiliary process, the emphasis control signal = 1, for example, the override signal = 1 and the control signal = 1. When the user disables the automatic decision to allow ancillary processes. Therefore, the emphasis control signal = 0, and the auxiliary process is stopped.

Referring to FIG. 55, the network 4100 includes a server computer 4102 that communicates with POS terminals 4104,4106,4108. The server computer 4102 may itself be a POS terminal, as described above. Although three POS terminals are shown in FIG. 55, any number of POS terminals will be able to communicate with the server computer without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. The server computer 4102 is capable of performing many of the processes described above, especially those that run on more than one POS terminal. For example, the server computer 4102 measures the activity of (I) all or any of the POS terminals 4104,4106,4108 and (II) ancillary processes on all or any of the POS terminals 4104,4106,4108. Decide whether to provide, (III) allow or shut down one or more systems to provide ancillary processes, and / or (IV) all or any of the POS terminals 4104,4106,4108. Sends an override signal to. Server computer 4102 is also a POS terminal 4104,4106, You can collect data from the 4108, thereby gathering information about the processes that each POS terminal performs. For example, each POS terminal can measure its own activity rate and send a signal representing the measured activity rate to the server computer 4102. The server computer 4102 can then determine the overall activity rate for the POS terminal network 4100. The measured activity rate may be, for example, the number of POS terminals in use (processing transactions) or the percentage of POS terminals in use. Based on the activity rate, the server computer 4102 will decide whether to allow each POS terminal to run ancillary processes. Alternatively, the server computer 4102 may decide which of the POS terminals to perform its ancillary processes. Figure 56 shows Table 4120 showing the offer schedule for the network of POS terminals. Each row in Table 4120 represents one entry, and each entry defines an upsell to offer for one activity rate. The activity rates used in Table 4120 are based on which of the multiple terminals is in use. Each entry includes an activity rate identifier 4122 that uniquely identifies the entry, an activity rate 4124 that describes the rate or range of rates, and an upsell 4126 that offers at that activity rate. For example, entry 4128, which corresponds to the case where less than 50% of all POS terminals are in use, indicates that three products should be offered and the customer should choose one. Entries 4130, 4132, 4134 also describe upsells that should be offered at different activity rates. As mentioned above, more time-consuming upsells, such as multi-upsells that are offered one after another, will be offered during periods of lower activity. 4134 also describes upsells that should be offered at different activity rates. As mentioned above, more time-consuming upsells, such as multi-upsells that are offered one after another, will be offered during periods of lower activity. 4134 also describes upsells that should be offered at different activity rates. As mentioned above, more time-consuming upsells, such as multi-upsells that are offered one after another, will be offered during periods of lower activity. 4134 also describes upsells that should be offered at different activity rates. As mentioned above, more time-consuming upsells, such as multi-upsells that are offered one after another, will be offered during periods of lower activity. 4134 also describes upsells that should be offered at different activity rates. As mentioned above, more time-consuming upsells, such as multi-upsells that are offered one after another, will be offered during periods of lower activity.

The present invention allows a customer to select an upsell before the purchase is processed at the POS terminal. Therefore, the customer does not have to be offered the system-selected upsell at the point-of-sale terminal, which may be rejected. The present invention thus saves time at the POS terminal. The selected upsell also displays the amount to which the purchase price should be rounded, thus saving even more time. If a company has old inventory, it would be advantageous to be able to choose that inventory instead of change. The customer works to clear the inventory, thus saving the cost required to dispose of the inventory. Referring to FIG. 57, the IBM 4683 or IBM 4693 POS terminal 5010 manufactured by IBM includes a processor 5012, such as one or more conventional microprocessors. Processor 5012 communicates with a data storage device 5014 such as a suitable combination of magnetic, optical and / or semiconductor memory. Processor 5012 and storage 5014, respectively, are either (I) completely contained within a single computer or other computing unit, or (II) a remote communication medium such as a serial port cable, telephone line or radio frequency transceiver. Will be connected to each other or (III) a combination of them. For example, the POS terminal 5010 can include one or more computers connected to a remote server computer to maintain the database.

The input device 5016 preferably includes a keypad for transmitting an input signal to the processor 5012, such as a shopping signal. The input device 5016 may also include an optical barcode scanner for reading barcodes and transmitting signals representing those barcodes to processor 5012. Printer 5018 is for registering markings on paper or other materials, thereby printing receipts, coupons and vouchers as instructed by Processor 5012. The display device 5020 is preferably a video monitor for displaying at least alphabetic numeric characters to customers and / or cashiers. Many types of input devices, printers and display devices are known to those of skill in the art and do not need to be described in detail here. The input device 5016, the printer 5018, and the display device 5020 each communicate with the processor 5012. The storage device 5014 stores a program 5022 for controlling the processor 5012. Processor 5012 executes the instructions of program 5022 and thereby operates in accordance with the present invention, in particular according to the methods described in detail herein. Program 5022 may also be required to allow the processor 5012 to interface with computer peripherals such as the input device 5016, printer 5018 and display device 5020, such as "device drivers" and operating systems. Includes program elements. Suitable device drivers and other necessary program elements are known to those of skill in the art and need not be described in detail here. The storage device 5014 also stores (I) inventory database 5024, (II) rounding code database 5026, and (III) transaction database 5028. Databases 5024,5026,5028 are described in detail below and illustrated with illustration entries in the accompanying drawings. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the schematic diagram of the database provided herein and the accompanying description are examples of the arrangement of memory representations of information. In addition to the tables shown, a number of other arrangements will be adopted. Similarly, the entries illustrated are representations of an example of information and one of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the number and content of entries may differ from those shown herein.

FIG. 58 shows another embodiment of POS terminal 5010, where controller 5029 communicates with system 5032 for providing upsell offers via communication medium 5030. The controller 5029 includes a processor 5034 that communicates with the input device 5016 and the display device 5020. The system 5032 for providing the offer includes a storage device 5014 and a processor 5036 that communicates with the printer 5018. In this embodiment, the controller 5029 may be a cache register and the system 5032 may be an electronic device for printing coupons according to the data received from the cache register. Other configurations of POS terminal 5010 will be understood by those skilled in the art. Referring to FIG. 59, network 5040 includes server 5042 that communicates with POS terminals 5044,5046,5048. Server 5042 commands the operation of data storage from POS terminals 5044,5046,5048 and data transmission to them. As described above, the server 5042 may itself be a POS terminal, or may be another computing device capable of communicating with one or more POS terminals. Although three POS terminals are shown in FIG. 59, any number of POS terminals will be able to communicate with the server 5042 without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Each of the POS terminals 5044,5046,5048 could be located in the same store, in different stores in one chain store, or elsewhere. Server 5042 can perform many of the processes described below, especially those that run on more than one POS terminal. Server 5042 can also store data such as inventory database 5024 (Figure 57) that should be shared by POS terminals 5044,5046,5048. Referring to FIG. 60, inventory database 5024 contains rows 5032,5033,5034,5035,5036,5037,5038, each representing one entry in inventory database 5024. Each entry defines an item in inventory that can be sold. Specifically, each entry has (I) an item identifier 5040 that uniquely identifies the entry, (II) a description 5042 that describes the item in stock, (III) the price of the item 5044, and (IV) its Includes tax status 5046, which indicates whether the item is subject to sales tax (or other tax). The inventory database 5024 is accessed to determine the purchase price, as is known in the art. For example, each item of shopping would contain a barcode read by a point-of-sale terminal. The price of each item corresponding to that barcode identifier is determined accordingly from inventory database 5024. The purchase price is determined by the sum of the item prices and any appropriate tax levied on it.

Referring to FIG. 61, the rounding code database 5026 contains lines 5050, 5052, 5054, each representing one entry in the rounding code database 5026. Each entry defines a rounding code. In particular, each entry has (I) a rounding code identifier 5056 that uniquely identifies the entry, (II) a rounding multiple 5058 that indicates the amount to be rounded to it, and (III) an upsell for its change. Includes a fixed value of 5060, which displays the fixed price to be paid for the corresponding upsell if not purchased in lieu of the amount. For example, the rounding code identified by "567", corresponding to entry 5050, has a rounding multiple of $ 1. Thus, if the purchase includes an upsell with a rounding code of "567", the corresponding purchase price will be rounded to the next highest dollar amount (ie, from $ 7.38 to $ 8.00). Setting the rounding multiple of each upsell equal to the fixed price of that upsell is advantageous and easy for the customer. Upsell allows customers to select upsells as they are accessible and select items for their shopping. Each upsell has a rounding cord, which can be determined from the barcode printed on the adhesive label attached to the upsell. For example, a bookstore may have a set of boxes located near a point-of-sale terminal. Each box contains several books, each with a barcode. The customer chooses a book from one box and takes it to the point-of-sale terminal with the item he wants to buy. The optical barcode scanner of the POS terminal reads the barcode of the book and also the barcode of the item to be purchased. Instead of barcodes, each upsell can also contain a separate display of the corresponding rounding code. For example, each book in the first box may have a green adhesive label attached, and each book in the second box may have a blue adhesive label attached. In such an embodiment, the green adhesive label would represent the first rounding code and the blue adhesive label would represent the second rounding code. The cashier or other POS terminal operator then presses a button or otherwise causes the POS terminal to receive data representing its rounding code. It is advantageous to group upsells with the same rounding code together. For example, the first box contains a plurality of books, each having a first rounding code. The second box contains multiple books, each with a second rounding cord. If any book in the first box is selected as an upsell, the purchase price will be rounded to the first magnification (eg the closest $ 5). Similarly, any book selected from the second box will allow the purchase price to be rounded to a second multiple (eg, the closest $ 10).

With reference to Figure 62, the inventory database 5024 and the rounding code database 5026 are used to determine the amount to be paid for multiple items in a purchase and an upsell. Tables 5080 and 5082 represent the data corresponding to the transaction identified by the legal entity "12345678", respectively. Therefore, Table 5080,5082 represents the data stored in the trading database 5028 (Fig. 57). Typically, the transaction database 28 will contain data representing multiple such transactions. Table 5080 represents one or more items included in the transaction, and Table 5082 represents one or more upsells included in the transaction. Table 5080 contains entries 5084,5086 that define the type of item each purchases. Each entry is (I) the item identifier 5088 corresponding to the item identifier 5040 in Figure 60, (II) the quantity 5090 of the item, and (III) the price of each unit of the item corresponding to the price 5044 in Figure 60. Includes 5092 and (IV) the tax-included price 5094 for each unit of the item. The tax-included price of the item is determined from the corresponding price 5092, the tax status 5046 in Figure 60 (which indicates whether the item is subject to sales tax or other taxes), and the tax rate 5096. Will be done. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the tax rate 5096 will be stored in storage device 5014 (FIG. 57), for example, as a database or as a variable in program 5024. The tax-included price of each item is added to give a subtotal of 5098 tax-included prices. The subtotal 5098 of the tax-included price is the price that would be levied if the transaction did not include upsell.

Table 5082 contains entry 5100, which defines the upsells contained in the transaction. Entry 5100 corresponds to (I) the rounding code identifier 5102 corresponding to the rounding code identifier 5056 in Figure 61, (II) the rounding multiple 5104 corresponding to the rounding multiple in Figure 61, and (III) the fixed value 5060 in Figure 61. Includes a fixed value of 5106. The rounding multiple of entry 5100 has a value of $ 5 and indicates that the subtotal 5098 of the tax-included price should be rounded to the next highest multiple of $ 5. Therefore, a subtotal 5098 including tax with a value of $ 26.20 is rounded to the next higher multiple of $ 5 to get a rounded price of 5108 with a value of $ 30. FIG. 63 shows Table 5120, which represents yet additional information about the transaction. Such information will be stored in the transaction database 5028 (FIG. 57) in certain embodiments of the invention. Table 5120 contains entries 5122,5124, each defining additional information about the transaction. Each entry contains (I) a legal entity that uniquely identifies the transaction, (II) the date 5128 that the transaction occurred, (III) the time that the transaction occurred, and (IV) the transaction that occurred. It includes the POS terminal identifier 5132 indicating the POS terminal that has been created, and (V) the income 5134 obtained from the transaction. The information presented in Table 5120 will be used, for example, to determine patterns of income generated over time. FIG. 64 shows a method 5150 using the database described above to determine the rounded price for a purchase containing an upsell and one or more items. The POS terminal receives a code for each item of shopping (step 5152). For example, a barcode scanner reads a barcode stamped on each item and generates a signal to display the barcode. The POS terminal also receives a rounding code for upsell (step 5154). As those skilled in the art will understand, it will be understood that the rounding code is received before, at that time and after the item code is received. After all the codes are received, the POS terminal determines the purchase price from the item code (step 5156). As explained above in connection with FIG. 62, the purchase price is determined by adding the tax-included prices of each item. The POS terminal determines the rounding multiple from the rounding code by accessing the rounding code database 5026 (Fig. 57) (step 5158). Based on the rounded multiple, the POS terminal rounds the purchase price to get the rounded price (step 5160). The rounded price is the price payable in exchange for those items and upsells. In the example described above, one purchase contained one upsell. However, one purchase could include multiple upsells. In such an embodiment, one upsell can be sold in exchange for change and the remaining upsell can be sold at a fixed price. As described with respect to FIG. 61, each rounding cord has both a fixed price and a rounding multiple. In this way, a fixed price will be determined for each upsell.

FIG. 65 shows method 5180 for determining the rounded price for a purchase that includes multiple upsells with rounding codes. The POS terminal receives a code for each item being shopped (step 5182) and also receives a rounding code for each of the plurality of upsells (step 5184). As mentioned above, the purchase price is determined from the item code (step 5186). One of the rounding codes is chosen (step 5188) and its rounding multiple is determined (step 5190). This selection determines the set of rounding codes that are chosen and the rounding codes that are not chosen. The unselected set of rounding codes may contain one rounding code (if there are two rounding codes), or may contain two or more rounding codes. The choice of which rounding code to choose will be based on different criteria. In one embodiment, the POS terminal chooses the rounding code with the smallest (minimum) rounding multiple. That is, the POS terminal chooses a rounding multiple that is not greater than any rounding multiple of each unselected rounding code. For example, if there are three rounding codes with corresponding rounding multiples of $ 5, $ 5 and $ 10, the first two rounding codes (those with a rounding multiple of $ 5) will be chosen. Once the rounding code is chosen, the fixed price for each of the remaining (non-chosen) rounding codes is determined (step 5192). As mentioned above, the fixed price can be determined from the rounding code database 5026 (FIGS. 57 and 61). These fixed prices are added to the purchase price determined in step 5186, thereby generating an increased price (step 5194). This increased price is rounded based on the rounding multiple determined in step 5190 to generate the rounded price (step 5196). This rounded price is exchanged for multiple items and upsells included in the purchase. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that step 5196 may be performed before step 5194 rather than after.

Referring to FIG. 66, Table 5210 and Table 5212 represent the data corresponding to the transaction identified by the legal entity "12345671", respectively. Therefore, Table 5210 and Table 5212 represent the data stored in the trading database 5028 (FIG. 57). Table 5210, similar to Table 5080 in Figure 62, represents one or more items included in the transaction, and Table 5212, similar to Table 5082 in Figure 62, represents the upsells included in the transaction. ing. Table 5210 contains entries 5214,5216, each defining the type of item purchased. The tax-included subtotal 5218 and tax rate 5220 function in the same manner as described above for Figure 62. Table 5212 contains entries 5222,5224,5226, each defining an upsell to be included in the transaction. Similar to Table 5082 (Figure 62), each entry in Table 5212 has (I) a rounding code identifier 5228 corresponding to the rounding code identifier 5056 in Figure 61 and (II) a rounding corresponding to the rounding multiple 5058 in Figure 61. It includes a multiple of 5230 and (III) a fixed value of 5232 corresponding to the fixed value of 5060 in Figure 61. As mentioned above, one upsell is chosen to define the rounding multiple, and the remaining upsells have a fixed price added to the subtotal including tax. According to the embodiment described above, the upsell with the smallest rounding multiple is selected among the examples described with reference to FIG. Such an upsell may be either upsell as defined by entries 5224,5226, each with a rounding multiple of $ 1. Therefore, the remaining two upsells have a fixed price of $ 1 and a fixed price of $ 10. Table 5234 shows the use of upsell fixed prices. The additional upsell fixed price 5236, which is the sum of the remaining (unselected) upsell fixed prices, is $ 11. Thus, the subtotal price with the additional upsell 5238 is the sum of $ 26.20 and $ 11, which is $ 37.20. This subtotal price is rounded according to the rounded multiple ($ 1) of the selected upsell, resulting in a rounded price of 5240 of $ 38.00. In another embodiment of the invention, each upsell can have a corresponding "minimum price", which is the minimum difference between the subtotal price including tax and the rounded price. For example, if the subtotal price including tax is $ 4.98 and the corresponding rounding multiple is $ 5.00, the rounded price would normally be $ 5.00 (adding only $ 0.02). However, if the minimum price for that upsell is $ 2.00, then a rounded price of $ 7.00 will occur ($ 4.98 + $ 2.00 rounded up to the nearest dollar).

Since one or more POS terminals control the offers offered to customers, offers with high performance rates will be offered. The present invention provides a set of offers to a customer and determines the best offer by assessing the performance rate of those offers. In contrast, random or manual (human) selection of offers is unlikely to determine the best offer. In addition, the present invention assists managers or other employees in the task of selecting offers. By continuing to evaluate the performance rate of the offer, the offer offered to the customer will continue to show the best performance. If the once-attractive offer's performance rate drops, it can be replaced with other higher-performing offers. The present invention can also make the offers visible to the customer random, as it is common for point-of-sale terminals to offer different offers at different times. This, in turn, can make it difficult for customers to operate their offer system at their convenience. Referring to FIG. 67, the IBM 4683 or IBM 4693 POS terminal 6010 manufactured by IBM includes a processor 6012, such as one or more conventional microprocessors. The processor 6012 communicates with a data storage device 6014 such as a suitable combination of magnetic, optical and / or semiconductor memory. Processor 6012 and storage 6014, respectively, are either (I) completely contained within a single computer or other computing unit, or (II) a remote communication medium such as a serial port cable, telephone line or radio frequency transceiver. Will be connected to each other or (III) a combination of them. For example, the POS terminal 6010 can include one or more computers connected to a remote server computer to maintain the database.

The input device 6016 preferably includes a keypad for transmitting an input signal to the processor 6012, such as a shopping signal. Printer 6018 is for registering markings on paper or other materials, thereby printing receipts, coupons and vouchers as instructed by processor 6012. The display device 6020 is preferably a video monitor for displaying at least alphabetic numeric characters to customers and / or cashiers. Many types of input devices, printers and display devices are known to those of skill in the art and do not need to be described in detail here. The input device 6016, the printer 6018, and the display device 6020 each communicate with the processor 6012. The storage device 6014 stores a program 6022 for controlling the processor 6012. Processor 6012 executes the instructions of program 6022 and thereby operates in accordance with the present invention, in particular according to the methods described in detail herein. Program 6022 may also be required to allow the processor 6012 to interface with computer peripherals such as the input device 6016, printer 6018, and display device 6020, such as "device drivers" and operating systems. Program elements are included. Suitable device drivers and other necessary program elements are known to those of skill in the art and need not be described in detail here. The storage device 6014 also stores (I) inventory database 5024, (II) transaction database 6026, and (III) performance rate database 6028. Databases 6024,6026,6028 are described in detail below and illustrated with illustration entries in the accompanying drawings. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the schematic diagram of the database provided herein and the accompanying description are examples of the arrangement of memory representations of information. In addition to the table shown, many other arrangements will be adopted. Similarly, the entries illustrated are representations of an example of information and one of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the number and content of entries may differ from those shown herein.

FIG. 68 shows another embodiment of POS terminal 6010, where controller 6028 communicates with system 6032 for providing upsell offers via communication medium 6030. The controller 6028 includes a processor 6034 that communicates with the input device 6016 and the display device 6020. The system 6032 for providing the offer includes a printer 6018 and a processor 6036 that communicates with the storage device 6014. In this embodiment, the controller 6028 may be a cache register and the system 6032 may be an electronic device for printing coupons according to the data received from the cache register. Other configurations of POS terminal 6010 will be understood by those skilled in the art. Referring to FIG. 69, network 6040 includes a server 6042 that communicates with POS terminals 6044,6046,6048. The server 6042 commands the operation of storing data from the POS terminals 6044,6046,6048 and transmitting data to them. As mentioned above, the server 6042 may be a POS terminal itself or another computing device capable of communicating with one or more POS terminals. Although three POS terminals are shown in FIG. 69, any number of POS terminals will be able to communicate with the server 6042 without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Each of the POS terminals 6044,6046,6048 could be located in the same store, in a different store in one chain store, or elsewhere. Server 6042 can run many of the processes described below, especially those that run on more than one POS terminal. Server 6042 can also store data such as offer database 6024. Referring to FIG. 70, Table 6060 shows an example of the offer database 6024 (FIG. 67). Table 6060 contains entries 6062,6064,6066,6068, each describing the offers to be offered to the customer. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that Table 6060 can contain any number of entries. The entries 6062, 6064, 6066, 6068 are (I) the offer identifier 6070 that uniquely points to the offer, (II) the offer description 6072 that describes the offer, and (III) the cost of the offer to the provider, respectively. Includes 6074 and (IV) Offer Frequency 6076. The offer frequency 6076 indicates the average percentage of times the offer was offered, when the offer was offered. For example, entries 6062, 6064, 6066, 6068 each have a 25% offer frequency, so offers 6062, 6064, 6066, 6068 each reach customers on average approximately once every four times. Will be provided.

Referring to FIG. 71, record 6090 in the transaction database 6026 (FIG. 67) defines the transactions performed on the POS terminal identified by the POS terminal identifier 6092. The transaction database 6026 (FIG. 67) typically contains multiple records, such as record 6090, each defining a transaction executed on a different POS terminal. Record 6090 contains entries 6094,6096,6098, each describing one transaction. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that record 6090 can contain any number of entries. Entries 6094, 6096, 6098 were purchased (I) a legal entity that uniquely indicates one transaction, (II) a transaction date 6102, (III) a transaction time 6104, and (IV) purchased, respectively. A purchase description 6109 that describes the details of the transaction, such as item, purchase price and / or customer identification, and (V) an offer identifier 6108 that displays the offers offered during the transaction, and (VI) the offer. Indicate whether it was accepted and (VII) the income generated by the customer who accepted the offer 6112. With reference to FIG. 72, Flowchart 6120 shows a method for controlling offers offered by one or more POS terminals. The offer is offered to the customer according to the offer database 6024 (Figure 67) (step 6122). As mentioned above with respect to Table 6060 (Figure 70), each offer includes an offer frequency that displays the average percentage of times that corresponding offer should be offered. In this way, the offer database 6024 indicates which offers should be offered to the customer and how often those offers are offered. For example, the POS terminal 6010 (or the server 6042 in FIG. 69 in the networked embodiment) can generate a random number between 0 and 1 each time an offer is offered. One offer will then be selected according to its random number and the offer frequency shown in Figure 70. Random numbers between 0.00 and 0.25 correspond to offer "A", and random numbers between 0.26 and 0.50 correspond to offer "B". The same applies to offer C and offer D.

Alternatively, the POS terminal 6010 or server 6042 may offer a first offer in the first series of transactions and a subsequent offer in subsequent series of transactions. The size of the trading series (the number of transactions in the series) will be selected according to the offer frequency in Table 6060 (Figure 70). For example, each offer specified by Table 6060 (Figure 70) has an equal offer frequency (25%). Therefore, the first offer A defined by entry 6062 is offered to the customer during the 10 transactions of the first series, and the remaining three offers defined by entry 6064,6066,6068 Each can be offered in a series of 10 subsequent transactions. Each offer has a 25% frequency, as there are 4 offers and each offer is offered to the customer only 10 times during 40 transactions. In another embodiment, the plurality of POS terminals may each offer different offers to the customer. For example, a first POS terminal can offer a first offer during 100 transactions in the first series, and a second POS terminal can offer a second offer during 100 transactions in a series. it can. Therefore, both the first offer and the second offer will have a frequency of 50% (100 / (100 + 100) = 0.50 = 50%). Once the offers are offered to the customer in step 6122, the POS terminal 6010 or server 6042 calculates the performance rate for each offer (step 6124). The performance rate can be any measured and / or calculated amount, such as acceptance rate or profit rate. Many other performance rates will be appreciated by those skilled in the art. The performance rate for each offer will be calculated at a given interval, such as at the end of the day, or after a given number of offers have been offered to the customer. The acceptance rate will be calculated according to the following equation. Acceptance Rate = Number of Acceptances / Number of Offers The number of times offered is the number of times a particular offer has been offered to a customer. Similarly, the number of times accepted is the number of times the offer offered has been accepted by the customer. Both the number provided and the number received will be determined from the data stored in the trading database 6026 (Figure 67). It is usually preferred to have a high acceptance rate, ideally the offer has a 100% acceptance rate. However, the acceptance rate of offers tends to be less than 100%.

With reference to Figure 73, Table 6140 shows an example of the Performance Rate Database 6028 (Figure 67). In this embodiment, the performance rate database 6026 is configured to store acceptance rate data, as described above. Table 6140 contains entries 6142,6144,6146,6148, each describing one offer offered to a customer. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that Table 6140 can contain any number of entries. Entries 6142,6144,6146,6148 have (I) an offer identifier 6150 to uniquely specify the offer, (II) 6152 accepted times, (III) 6154 times offered, and ((III). IV) Specify that the offer acceptance rate is 6156. Table 6140 will thus be used to determine if the offer has the highest performance rate. Profit margin is one of the performance rates of an offer that can be calculated according to the following formula. Profit Margin = (Income-Cost) / Number of times offered Income is the amount of income earned by the customer accepting the offer. The cost is the cost incurred by the customer who accepts the offer. The number of times a particular offer has been offered is the number of times a particular offer has been offered to a customer.

With reference to Figure 74, Table 6170 shows another example of the Performance Rate Database 6028 (Figure 67). In this example, the performance rate database 6026 is configured to store the average profit per offer. Table 6170 contains entries 6172,6174,6176,6178, each describing one offer offered to a customer. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that Table 6170 can contain any number of entries. Entries 6172, 6174, 6176, 6178 are (I) the offer identifier 6180 to uniquely specify the offer, (II) the number of times accepted 6182, (III) the number of times offered 6184, and ( IV) specify the average income 6186 earned per accepted offer, (V) the average profit 6188 earned per accepted offer, and (VI) the average profit 6190 earned per offer. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the number of times accepted 182, the number of times provided 6184 and the average income 6186 can be determined from the data stored in the trading database 6026 (Figure 67). For example, referring again to record 6090 in FIG. 71, POS terminal # 7 is provided with offer A, offer B and offer C once, as can be seen from the offer identifier 6108. Accepted Offers As shown in the 6110 field, offer B and offer C are each accepted once. Similarly, the income earned for offer A, offer B and offer C is $ 0.00, $ 0.50 and $ 0.78, respectively. The average income for each offer is obtained by dividing the total income from each offer by the number of times it is offered. The average profit per offer 6188 accepted would be determined by subtracting the cost per offer (cost 6074 in Figure 70) from the average revenue 6186. Finally, the average profit per offer of 6190, which is the profit margin defined above, will be determined by multiplying the average profit of 6188 per accepted offer by the acceptance rate of that offer. As mentioned above, the acceptance rate of the offer is determined by dividing the number of times received 6182 by the number of times offered 6184.

Seeing Figure 72 again, after the offer performance rate has been calculated (step 6124), the POS terminal 6010 or server 6042 decides to modify the offer database 6024 based on the performance rate (step 6126). ). Each offer will be offered at different offer frequencies or even discontinuously, depending on the calculated performance rate of the offer. Offers with higher performance rates will continue to be offered to customers and are typically offered at higher offer frequencies, as described below. Similarly, offers with lower performance rates are usually offered at lower offer frequencies and may not be offered at all. In one embodiment, only offers with a performance rate greater than a predetermined threshold will continue to be offered to the customer. If one or more offers are no longer offered, the frequency of each offer must be changed as described below. FIG. 75 shows the selection of offers to stop. Table 6200 shows the data stored in the Examples of Performance Rate Database 6028 (Figure 67). For each offer, there is an offer identifier 6202 and an acceptance rate 6204. The 10% threshold 6206 defines which offers in Table 6200 will continue to be offered. In particular, the offers defined by entries 6208,6210 (offer A and offer B) have an acceptance rate greater than 10% and will therefore continue to be offered. In contrast, the offers defined in entries 6212,6214 (offer C and offer D) have an acceptance rate of less than 10% and will therefore be suspended.

Table 6216 shows the data stored in Example 6024 (Figure 67) of the offer database. As described above with respect to FIG. 70, each offer has an offer identifier 6218 and an offer frequency 6220. Offer C and offer D have been suspended, so their corresponding offer frequency is 0%. The offer frequency of offers A and offer B that continue to be offered will change accordingly. Offer frequencies will be changed so that they are equal to each other (50% each). Alternatively, the offer frequency may be changed as follows according to their relationship with each other. F_new= F_old/ F_totalWhere F_newIs the new offer frequency. F_oldIs the offer frequency before the change. F_totalF about offers that will not be stopped_oldIs the sum of. In Figure 75, the offer frequency 58% for offer A was calculated from the offer frequency for unsuspended offers. 58% = 20.4% / (20.4% + 14.8%) Offer frequency 42% for offer B was calculated in the same way. 42% = 14.8% / (20.4% + 14.8%) Those skilled in the art will appreciate that there are other ways to change the offer frequency of offers. In another embodiment, a predetermined number of highest performing offers continue to be offered to the customer. The remaining offers, if any, will not be offered. FIG. 76 shows the option to suspend the offer in this embodiment. Table 6240 shows the data stored in another Example 6028 (Figure 67) of the performance rate database. For each offer, there is an offer identifier 6242 and an average profit 6244 per order. A threshold of 3 defines the number of highest performing offers in Table 6240 that will continue to be offered. In particular, the offers defined by entries 6248,6250,6252 (offer A, offer B and offer C) are the top three offers in terms of average profit per order and therefore will continue to be offered. There will be. In contrast, the offer defined by entry 6254 (offer D) will be suspended. Table 6256 shows the data stored in Example 6024 (Figure 67) of the offer database. As mentioned above, each offer has an offer identifier of 6258 and an offer frequency of 6260. Since the offer D has been suspended, the corresponding offer frequency is 0%. The offer frequency of offers A, offer B and offer C that continue to be offered will change accordingly. Offer frequencies will be changed so that they are equal to each other (33.1 / 3% respectively). Alternatively, the offer frequency can be changed according to their relationship with each other, as explained above.

Once the offer is suspended, it is preferable to make it available again at some point in the future. For example, conditions such as customer taste can change even after one offer has been suspended due to poor performance rates. Therefore, it is advantageous to keep the suspended offer in the offer database 6024 (Figure 67) and reassess its performance rate after the offer has been suspended for more than a certain period of time. Let's go. Suspended offers will be randomly selected or given a given offer frequency so that their corresponding performance rates are evaluated. In addition, in some situations, only one offer may continue to be offered after the offer has been suspended. Evaluate the performance rate of this offer and compare the performance rate of that offer over the past period. If the performance rate is lower than that of the previous period, the offer will be suspended and replaced. Alternatively, another (suspended) randomly chosen or given offer frequency is given to the offer so that the corresponding performance rate can be evaluated. In some embodiments, it may be desirable that the offer frequency of certain offers does not change, regardless of the performance rate calculated for those offers. For example, high value offers may have a very low offer frequency. Therefore, the offer can serve as a prize that can be received by a few customers. Therefore, the cost of giving such a high-value offer instead of change is rarely a burden, but it serves as an advertisement presented to customers who visit the company frequently. Referring to FIG. 77, Table 6300, similar to Table 6060 in FIG. 70, shows another embodiment of the offer database 6024 (FIG. 67). Table 6300 contains entries 6302,6304,6306,6308, each describing an offer to be offered to a customer. Entries 6302, 6304, 6306, 6308 are (I) an offer identifier 6310 that uniquely points to the offer, (II) an offer description 6312 that describes the offer, and (III) the cost of the offer to the provider, respectively. Includes 6314, (IV) offer frequency 6316, and (V) fixed frequency display 6318. The fixed frequency display 6318 displays whether the corresponding offer frequency changes based on the performance rate of the offer, as described above. For example, entry 6308 includes a 1% offer frequency. This offer has a relatively high value ($ 50 gift proof), so it will often and probably always be accepted. However, the high value of this offer ($ 50 gift proof) can be detrimental to making more frequent offers. Therefore, the frequency of the offer is fixed at 1%.

Although the present invention has been described with respect to preferred embodiments thereof, those skilled in the art will appreciate that various substitutions can be made to the embodiments described herein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.

<figref num="1">FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a system according to the present invention.</figref><figref num="2">FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the POS controller of FIG.</figref><figref num="3">FIG. 3 is a block diagram of the POS terminal of FIG.</figref><figref num="4">FIG. 4 is a block diagram of the lottery data processing system.</figref><figref num="5">Figure 5 is a table showing the local lottery ticket database in the POS controller of Figure 3.</figref><figref num="6">FIG. 6 is a table showing the lottery ticket database in the lottery data processing system of FIG.</figref><figref num="7">FIG. 7 is a table showing the POS controller database in the lottery data processing system of FIG.</figref><figref num="8">FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing a lottery transaction on a POS terminal.</figref><figref num="9">FIG. 9 is an example of a store sales receipt according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.</figref><figref num="10">FIG. 10 is a flowchart of the operation of the POS controller.</figref><figref num="11">FIG. 11 is a flowchart of the operation of the lottery data processing system.</figref><figref num="12">FIG. 12 is a flowchart showing the telephone authentication process.</figref><figref num="13A">FIG. 13A is a schematic diagram of a POS terminal provided according to the present invention.</figref><figref num="13B">FIG. 13B is a schematic diagram of another embodiment of the POS terminal of FIG. 13A.</figref><figref num="14">FIG. 14 is a flowchart showing the method of the present invention for determining upsell in a POS terminal.</figref><figref num="15">FIG. 15 is an example of the storage area of the POS terminal of FIG. 13A.</figref><figref num="16">FIG. 16 is a schematic diagram of the upsell database of the POS terminal of FIG. 13A.</figref><figref num="17">FIG. 17 is a schematic diagram of the customer database of the POS terminal of FIG. 13A.</figref><figref num="18">FIG. 18 is a schematic diagram of the inventory price database of the POS terminal of FIG. 13A.</figref><figref num="19">FIG. 19 is a schematic diagram of the offered price database of the POS terminal of FIG. 13A.</figref><figref num="20">FIG. 20 is a flowchart showing a method of the present invention for evaluating a reverse offer for upsell in a POS terminal.</figref><figref num="21">FIG. 21 is a schematic diagram of the identifier database of the POS terminal of FIG. 13A.</figref><figref num="22">FIG. 22 is a schematic diagram of a POS terminal connected to a lottery data processing system.</figref><figref num="23">FIG. 23 is a schematic diagram of another embodiment of the customer database of the POS terminal of FIG. 13A.</figref><figref num="24A">FIG. 24A is a flowchart showing a method of the present invention for memorizing customer preferences.</figref><figref num="24B">FIG. 24B is a flowchart showing the method of the present invention for memorizing customer preferences.</figref><figref num="25">FIG. 25 is a flowchart showing a method of the present invention for applying preselected customer preferences.</figref><figref num="26">FIG. 26 is a flowchart showing the method of the present invention for receiving donated upsells.</figref><figref num="27">FIG. 27 is a flowchart showing the method of the present invention for determining upsell in a POS terminal.</figref><figref num="28">FIG. 28 is a schematic diagram of a network of POS terminals provided according to the present invention.</figref><figref num="29">FIG. 29 is a schematic diagram of the store controller of the network of FIG. 28.</figref><figref num="30">FIG. 30 is a schematic diagram of the POS terminal of the network of FIG. 28.</figref><figref num="31">FIG. 31 is a schematic diagram of an alternative embodiment of the POS terminal of the network of FIG. 28.</figref><figref num="32">FIG. 32 is a schematic diagram of the ticketing database of the store controller of FIG. 29.</figref><figref num="33">FIG. 33 is a schematic diagram including a data example of the ticketing database of FIG. 32.</figref><figref num="34">FIG. 34 is a schematic diagram of the commercial transaction database of the store controller of FIG. 29.</figref><figref num="35">FIG. 35 is a schematic diagram of the record of the split ticket database of the store controller of FIG. 29.</figref><figref num="36">FIG. 36 is a schematic diagram including yet another data example for the ticketing database of FIG.</figref><figref num="37">FIG. 37 is a flowchart showing a method for allocating a lottery ticket portion.</figref><figref num="38">FIG. 38 is a schematic diagram of the winning lottery ticket database of the store controller of FIG. 29.</figref><figref num="39">FIG. 39 is a schematic diagram of the customer shopper database of the store controller of FIG. 29.</figref><figref num="40">FIG. 40 is a flowchart showing a method for refunding a split lottery ticket.</figref><figref num="41">FIG. 41 is a schematic diagram of a POS terminal provided according to the present invention.</figref><figref num="42">FIG. 42 is a schematic diagram of another embodiment of the POS terminal of FIG. 41.</figref><figref num="43">FIG. 43 is a schematic diagram of the inventory database of the POS terminal of FIG. 41.</figref><figref num="44">FIG. 44 is a schematic diagram of a possible upsell database for the POS terminal of FIG. 41.</figref><figref num="45">FIG. 45 is a schematic diagram of an embodiment of the upsell offer database of the POS terminal of FIG. 41.</figref><figref num="46">FIG. 46 is a schematic diagram of another embodiment of the upsell offer database of the POS terminal of FIG. 41.</figref><figref num="47">FIG. 47 is a schematic diagram of another embodiment of the upsell offer database of the POS terminal of FIG. 41.</figref><figref num="48">FIG. 48 is a schematic diagram of another embodiment of the upsell offer database of the POS terminal of FIG. 41.</figref><figref num="49">FIG. 49 is a flowchart showing a method for providing ancillary product sales in a POS terminal.</figref><figref num="50">FIG. 50 is a schematic diagram of a POS terminal provided according to the present invention.</figref><figref num="51">FIG. 51 is a schematic diagram of another embodiment of the POS terminal of FIG. 50.</figref><figref num="52">FIG. 52 is a flow chart illustrating a method provided in accordance with the present invention for controlling the execution of ancillary processes at a POS terminal.</figref><figref num="53">FIG. 53 is a table showing an offer schedule that depends on the activity rate at the POS terminal.</figref><figref num="54">FIG. 54 is a schematic diagram of the override decision manager of the POS terminal of FIG. 51.</figref><figref num="55">FIG. 55 is a schematic diagram of a network of POS terminals.</figref><figref num="56">FIG. 56 is a table showing an offer schedule that depends on the activity rates of a plurality of POS terminals.</figref><figref num="57">FIG. 57 is a schematic diagram of a POS terminal provided according to the present invention.</figref><figref num="58">FIG. 58 is a schematic diagram of another embodiment of the POS terminal of FIG. 57.</figref><figref num="59">FIG. 59 is a schematic diagram of a network of POS terminals.</figref><figref num="60">FIG. 60 is a schematic diagram of the inventory database of the POS terminal.</figref><figref num="61">FIG. 61 is a schematic diagram of the rounding code database of the POS terminal.</figref><figref num="62">FIG. 62 is a schematic diagram of the data used to determine the amount to be paid for the purchased item and the upsell.</figref><figref num="63">FIG. 63 is a schematic diagram showing information related to commercial transactions.</figref><figref num="64">FIG. 64 is a flow chart illustrating a method for determining a rounded price for an upsell and a purchase involving one or more items.</figref><figref num="65">FIG. 65 is a flow chart illustrating a method for determining the rounded price of a purchase that includes multiple upsells and one or more items.</figref><figref num="66">FIG. 66 is a schematic diagram of the data used to determine the items to be purchased and the amount to be paid for multiple upsells.</figref><figref num="67">FIG. 67 is a schematic diagram of a POS terminal provided according to the present invention.</figref><figref num="68">FIG. 68 is a schematic diagram of another embodiment of the POS terminal of FIG. 67.</figref><figref num="69">FIG. 69 is a schematic diagram of a network of POS terminals.</figref><figref num="70">FIG. 70 is a table showing an example of a database of offers.</figref><figref num="71">FIG. 71 is a schematic diagram of the records of the commercial transaction database.</figref><figref num="72">FIG. 72 is a flowchart showing a method for controlling an offer provided to one or more POS terminals.</figref><figref num="73">FIG. 73 is a table showing an example of a performance rate database.</figref><figref num="74">Figure 74 is a table showing another example of a performance rate database.</figref><figref num="75">FIG. 75 is a schematic diagram of a database used to determine continuously offered offers.</figref><figref num="76">FIG. 76 is a schematic representation of another embodiment of a database used to determine continuously offered offers.</figref><figref num="77">FIG. 77 is a table showing another example of a database of offers.</figref>