(Background of the Invention)

1. Field of the Invention The invention relates to the method and system for monitoring sales of commodities, particularly monitoring sales of commodities based on digital data received from shop electronic tills equipped with readers of symbols identifying the commodities sold in the shop or a group of shops. 2. Description of the Related Art The Polish Patent No. 183043 discloses a method of automatic reading the transaction value from an electronic till and transferring it to a peripheral, particularly an addomat, in which a copy of impulse received from an electronic point-of-sale is transferred to an diode which converts the electric impulse into a light impulse, which is in turn converted again into an electric impulse in another diode from which it is conveyed to a microprocessor linked with the peripheral. Also solutions relating to wireless transmission of digital data from the bar code reader to the shop computer are known, for use in self-service tills and website shopping. Such solutions are presented, e.g. in the US Patents Nos 5324922, 5640002, 5945660, 6314406 and 6687346. Further, the US Patent No 6732933 discloses a method for transmission of data from bar code reader with the use of a caller wireless network, in which the bar code symbols are read and the data saved. Then, upon electric connection of the bar code reader with a wireless transmitter/receiver data from the bar code reader are sent to the transmitter/receiver and data are transformed into a communication through a wireless transmission link to the base station. An objective of the invention at issue is to provide a technical solution allowing a monitoring sales of commodities, i.e. to examine the dynamics of sales of a specific commodity or a group of commodities in a shop or a chosen group of shops. The solution should also be adjusted to any reader used in electronic tills and to allow quick transmission of data from tills to the recipient of these data for analysis.

(Summary of the Invention)

According to the invention in the method category there is provided a method for monitoring sales of commodities based on digital data received from electronic tills in a shop or group of shops, which resides in that the symbol identifying the sold commodity is read, digital data including at least the symbol identifying the sold commodity and its amount are entered into the memory of the electronic till and digital data on the commodities sold are then sent from the electronic till to the transmitter terminal assigned to that till, and in the internal memory of each transmitter terminal digital data received from at least one electronic till are stored, then through a data transmission network digital data on commodities sold are transmitted from each transmitter terminal to a central server; in the central server the received digital data on commodities sold, including at least the symbol identifying the sold commodity and its amount, are compared with digital data from the database of commodity identifying symbols and, on these grounds, the sales dynamics is defined for the specific commodity or group of commodities. Preferably the identifying symbol of the sold commodity is a bar code. Preferably the identifying symbol of the sold commodity is remote-read. Preferably the dynamics of sales of the specific commodity or group of commodities is defined for a preset time interval. Preferably digital data on commodities sold include digital data on the price of commodity. Preferably digital data on commodities sold include digital data on the time of purchase of the commodity. Preferably digital data on commodities sold include digital data on the promotion of the commodity. Preferably digital data on commodities sold are transmitted from the transmitter terminal to the central server with preset frequency. Preferably digital data on commodities sold are transmitted from the electronic tills to the central server in real time. Preferably the data transmission network is a wireless data transmission network. Preferably the wireless data transmission uses the fast data transmission technique in mobile networks of GPRS/GSM standard. According to the invention in the system category there is provided a system for monitoring sales of commodities based on digital data received from electronic tills in a shop or group of shops, which comprises at least one transmitter terminal connected to at least one electronic till equipped with a reader of symbol identifying the sold commodity, for receiving from the electronic till and storing in the internal memory digital data on each sale, including at least the symbol identifying the sold commodity and its amount, and transferring these data, transmission network for data received from transmitter terminals and transferred to the central server, and a central server with a database of symbols identifying the sold commodities connected to it, for receiving digital data on commodities sold, including at least the symbol identifying the sold commodity and its amount, and comparing them with digital data from the database of commodity identifying symbols and, on these grounds, defining the sales dynamics for the specific commodity or group of commodities. Preferably the identifying symbol of the sold commodity is a bar code. Preferably the identifying symbol of the sold commodity is remote-read. Preferably the electronic till has an additional connection to connect a transmitter terminal. Preferably an electric signal from the processor which controls the electronic till is lead to the additional connection. Preferably a central computer of the shop computer intranet is connected between the electronic tills and one of the transmitter terminals. Preferably the data transmission network is a wireless data transmission network. Preferably the wireless data transmission network uses the fast data transmission technique in mobile communication networks of GPRS/GSM standard. The advantage of the solution according to the invention is the possibility of investigating the dynamics of sales of a specific commodity or group of commodities in a shop or a chosen group of shops basically in real time.

(Brief description of the drawings)

The accompanying drawing, which is incorporated in, and form a part of the specification, illustrate an embodiment of the present invention and, together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention.

(Detailed description of the Invention)

Reference will now be made in detail to the preferred embodiment of the invention, an example of which is illustrated in the accompanying drawing. The symbol identifying the sold commodity may be in form of any known identifying symbol which is placed on the commodity and which may be used by the reader to read data on that commodity. If a bar code is used as the symbol identifying the commodity sold, the electronic tills Ia, Ib, ... In is equipped with a bar code reader. Identification of sold commodities may also be done with the use of radio frequency identification (RF-ID) which allows remote reading of the symbol identifying the purchased commodity. When the sold commodity, with the identifying symbol placed on it in form of a tag, plastic card or special "pellet" constituting a transponder with information about the commodity sold in form of digital data, is placed in the vicinity of a reader of any electronic till Ia, Ib, ... In, it shall be activated by the radio signal emitted by that reader. This signal sent via an antenna reaches the transponder which returns encoded information about the sold commodity, which is then entered into the memory of the given electronic till Ia, Ib, ... In. The monitoring system comprises transmitter terminals 2a, 2b, ... 2n, of which every one is connected with an electronic till Ia, Ib, ... In assigned to it. Each electronic till Ia, Ib, ... In has an additional connection for connecting the transmitter terminal 2a, 2b, ... 2n, to which preferably an electric signal is lead from a processor which controls the electronic till Ia5 Ib, ... In. Each transmitter terminal 2a, 2b, ... 2n is adjusted to receive from electronic tills Ia, Ib, ... In and store digital data about each sale, including at least the symbol identifying the sold commodity and its amount and to transmit these digital data through the data transmission network 3 to the central server 4. The data transmission network 3 may be any known cable or wireless data transmission network such as the Web or a network which uses the fast data transmission technique in mobile communication networks of GPRS/GSM (General Packed Radio Service/Global System for Mobile Communication) standard. The central server 4 is connected with a database 5 of commodity identifying symbols, for example commodity bar codes. Where a shop has more than one electronic till Ia, Ib, ... In and they are connected into a single shop computer intranet, it is preferable to connect a central computer of this shop intranet not shown in the figure between this network and one of the transmitter terminals 2a, 2b, ... 2n. Monitoring sales of commodities based on digital data received from electronic tills Ia, Ib, ... equipped with a reader of symbols identifying the commodities sold, is effected through reading the identifying symbol located on the commodities sold, including at least the symbol identifying the sold commodity and its amount, and transmission of digital data on each sale from electronic till Ia, Ib, ... In to transmitter terminal 2a, 2b, ... 2n assigned to it. Digital data including the symbol identifying the sold commodity and its amount may also comprise digital data on other features of the commodity sold, for instance digital data on the price of commodity, the time of sale or promotion of the commodity. In the latter case the promotion code may be entered into the electronic till Ia, Ib, ... In at the symbol of the given commodity for the duration of the promotion sale period for that commodity. All digital data received from electronic tills Ia, Ib, ... In are stored in the internal memory of each transmitter terminal 2a, 2b, ... 2n, from where they are transmitted through a data transmission network 3 to the central computer 4. Digital data on the sold commodities may be transmitted from the transmitter terminal 2a, 2b, ... 2n to central server 4 with a preset frequency. Digital data transmission may also be effected in real time. In such case all digital data on commodities sold, entered from electronic tills Ia, Ib, ... In into the internal memory of each transmitter terminal 2a, 2b, ... 2n, are transmitted without delay to the central server 4 and monitoring the sales of commodities takes place basically on a current basis. Following the receipt of digital data on commodities sold on the central server 4, the received digital data comprising at least the symbols identifying sold commodities and their amounts are compared with digital data from database 5 of commodity identifying symbols, whereupon after selecting each commodity and with consideration of the amount of sold commodities of the same type it is possible to determine the dynamics of sale for that selected, specific commodity or group of commodities. It is obvious that when data on commodity price, time of sale, promotion of commodity or other data relating to the sales are added to the digital data on commodities sold, it is possible to determine the dynamics of sales by preset criteria. Dynamics of sales for a specific commodity or group of commodities may also be analysed for a preset time interval. Based on the above embodiment of the invention, it is possible to make various changes, modifications and improvements included in the scope of the invention, for example, instead of bar codes and radio frequency identification (RF-ID) used for read of the symbol identifying the sold commodities as disclosed above, the optical or intelligent character recognitions (OCR/ICR) or an optical marking recognition (OMR) or smart cards or other technology may be used as well, whereas such and other changes, modifications and improvements are obvious in the light of the disclosed essence of the invention and the claims enclosed herewith.