BACKGROUND

[0001 ] For many years customer loyalty programs have been used by retailers in an attempt to retain customers. Typically individual retailers run their own loyalty programs which reward their customers for shopping with them, with the aim of discouraging their customers from shopping with competitor retailers. Retailers allocate a loyalty program identifier to customers participating in their loyalty program. Whenever making purchases customers provide their loyalty program identifier to the retailer and the retailer determines a number of loyalty points to be added to the customer's loyalty program account based on the purchases made. The retailer may then offer discounts or other benefits to the customers based on the number of loyalty points in the customers loyalty program account.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

[0002] Examples and embodiments of the invention will now be described, by way of non-limiting example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

[0003] Figure 1 is a simplified block diagram of a system according to an example of the present invention;

[0004] Figure 2 is a simplified flow diagram outlining operation of a system according to an example of the present invention;

[0005] Figure 3a is a simplified block diagram of a system according to an example of the present invention;

[0008] Figure 3b is a simplified block diagram of a system according to an example of the present invention;

[0007] Figure 4 is a simplified flow diagram outlining operation of a system according to an example of the present invention; [0008] Figure 5 is a simplified block diagram of a system according to an example of the present invention; and

[0009] Figure 6 is a simplified block diagram of a system according to an example of the present invention,

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[00010] Current loyalty programs are typically created and managed by individual retailers or groups of affiliated retailers. Accordingly, the information relating to the purchases made by each customer are generally used by the retailer for use only in their own loyalty program.

[0001 1 ] Examples of the present invention, however, provide systems and methods that enable information relating to customer purchases made with a retailer to be used with multiple loyalty programs. This enables new models of customer loyalty programs to be created. Such systems and methods may, in some examples, enable a customer to participate in both a retailer loyalty program and in a vendor, or multiple vendor, loyalty programs. In this way, this may help a retailer improve customer loyalty through customer participation in the retailer loyalty program, and at the same time may help improve loyalty to a vendor through participation in a vendor loyalty program. As used herein, the term vendor is intended to cover any vendor, manufacturer, supplier, importer, company, organization, or entity, etc. providing any item, goods, product, or service to a retailer for purchase by a customer. In the following description the terms items, goods, products, and services are used interchangeably.

[00012] Referring now to Figure 1 there is shown a simplified block diagram of a system 100 according to one example of the present invention. Further reference is made to the simplified flow diagram of Figure 2 which outlines example operations performed by elements of the system 100 in accordance with an example of the present invention.

[00013] The system 100 comprises a loyalty program broker 104 that obtains (202) details of purchases made by a customer during a shopping transaction. The loyalty program broker 104 additionally obtains (204) customer loyalty program identifiers. In one example a customer loyalty program identify identifies a particular customer in a particular loyalty program system. In the present example the purchase details and loyalty program identifiers are obtained from a purchase and loyalty program identifier (PLPS) module 102. The PLPI module 102 may be, in one example, a point-of-sales (POS) terminal. The PLP! module 102 may comprise a checkout terminal which operates to record customer purchases made during a shopping transaction. The PLP! module 102 may, for example, obtain details of customer purchases by scanning or reading a bar code, RFID tag, or other similar computer readable code on each item. The PLPI module 102 may convert the obtained code into a retailer item code or retailer stocktaking unit (SKU) using a suitable database.

[00014] The loyalty program broker 104 processes (208) the obtained purchase details to transform, if appropriate, the received purchase into a form acceptable to different ones of the available loyalty program systems 106a to 108n. At (208) the loyalty program broker 104 distributes, as appropriate, at least some of the purchase details (modified or not, as the case may be) to appropriate ones of the available loyalty program systems 106a to 106n. Each determined loyalty program system then processes the received item details in an appropriate manner. Each loyalty program system may, for example, be an appropriate processing system, such as a computing processing system.

[00015] Referring now to Figure 3a, there is shown a loyalty program broker 104 in greater detail, according to an example of the present invention. The loyalty program broker 104 comprises an item data processor 302, a retailer item database 304, a retailer to vendor mapping database 308 and a loyalty program distributor 308.

[00016] In one example, shown in Figure 3b, the loyalty program broker 104 may comprise a microprocessor 352 coupled, via a communication bus 358, to a memory 354 and an input/output interface 356. The memory 354 stores item data processor instructions 302' and loyalty program distributor instructions 308'. The instructions 302' and 308" are processor understandable instructions that, when executed by the processor 352, provide the functionality of the item data processor 302 and loyalty program distributor 308 as described further below. The input/output module 356 provides access to the retailer item database 304 and the retailer to vendor mapping database 306.

[00017] In one example the databases 304 and 306 may be implemented by a single database.

[00018] Operation of the loyalty program broker 104 according to an example of the present invention is also described with additional reference to Figure 4.

[00019] The item data processor 302 receives (402), or otherwise obtains, item purchase data relating to item purchases made by a customer from a PLPI 102. In one example the item purchase data comprises retailer item code data or retailer stocktaking unit (SKU) data. The item data processor 302 also receives (404), or otherwise obtains, an identifier or identifiers identifying the customer having made the purchases. In one example the one of the identifiers may be customer loyalty program identifiers. An example of received purchase data is shown below in Table 1 .

TABLE 1 - EXAMPLE ITEM PURCHASE DATA [00020] At 408 the item data processor 302 determines whether the received item purchase data may be transmitted to an available loyalty program system without requiring any mapping or transformation of the received item purchase data. This may be the case, for example, where the loyalty program broker 104 is provided by and used by a retailer, and wherein one of the available loyalty program systems is the retailers own loyalty program system. In this example, the PLPI 102 may be a retailer point-of-sale (POS) terminal, in which case the item purchase data 302 may not require mapping or transformation prior to it being transmitted to the retailer loyalty program system 108a. if no mapping is required, the item data processor 302 forwards the item purchase data to the loyalty program distributor 308 which in turn transmits or distributes (408) the item purchase data to the identified loyalty program system, without performing any mapping or transformation on the item purchase data.

[00021 ] The loyalty program broker 104 may also be used to send item purchase data to other loyalty program systems, such as vendor loyalty program systems, 106b to 106n. In this case mapping or transformation of the received item purchase data may be required, as described further below.

[00022] At 410 the item data processor 302 determines the vendor of each purchased item. The vendor information may be obtained, for example, by performing a lookup of item purchase data in a retailer item database 304. Table 2 below shows example purchase data with identified vendor data.

TABLE 2 - EXAMPLE ITEM PURCHASE DATA WITH VENDOR DATA

[00023] If a vendor does not run a loyalty program, or if the loyalty broker 104 is not configured to send item purchase data to a particular loyalty program the retailer to vendor mapping data database 308 may, in some examples, not contain any mapping data for that vendor. Accordingly, purchased items from such a vendor will be unable to be mapped to a vendor item code. In at least some examples such data may be removed from the item purchase details.

[00024] At 412 the item data processor 302 performs, for each purchased item, a mapping from the retailer item code to a corresponding vendor item data of vendor item code. The mapping is performed through use of a retailer to vendor mapping database 308. The data in the mapping database 308 may be compiled by the retailer in order allow the retailer to forward item purchase data to different ones of the vendor loyalty program systems. In the present example a single retailer to vendor mapping database 308 is shown that includes mapping data for different vendors. In other examples, however, separate databases may be used to store mapping data for just a single vendor. Although shown as a database, in other examples the mapping database may be accessed remotely, through a web interface, through a mapping service, or in any other suitable manner. [00025] The reason for performing the mapping is that retailers typically use internal retailer item codes or retailer SKUs which are different from the corresponding vendor item codes of vendor SKUs. According, retailer SKUs may not be accepted by vendor loyalty program systems.

[00026] This process continues (414) until all the item purchase data has been processed.

[00027] Table 3 shows an example of mapped item purchase data.

TABLE 3 - EXAMPLE MAPPED ITEM PURCHASE DATA

[00028] At 416 the mapped item purchase data, such as shown in Table 3, is passed to the loyalty program distributor 308 which determines which mapped item data to transmit to which ioyaity program system.

[00029] For example, a vendor V loyalty program may only accept item purchase data for goods made or supplied by that vendor, whereas a vendor W ioyaity program may accept item purchase data for goods made or supplied by vendor W and vendor V. Details of which loyalty programs accept item purchase data from which vendors may be stored in a suitable memory or data store (not shown) in the loyalty broker 104.

[00030] At 418 the ioyaity program distributor 308 transmits the mapped, or vendor, item purchase data to the appropriate Ioyaity program system or systems. For example, details of all purchased items identified as being from vendor Hewlett Packard may be sent to loyalty program system 108b, whereas details of all purchased items identified as being from vendor Microsoft may be sent to loyalty program system 106n.

[00031 ] In a further example vendor rules may be available, for example either locally or remotely, which define qualifying items for which the loyalty program distributor 308 is to send to a particular vendor loyalty system, in this way, only qualifying items are sent to the appropriate vendor loyalty systems.

[00032] If, following a purchase, a customer returns an item to the retailer for an exchange or a refund, the PLP! module 102 forwards the item purchase details and loyalty program identifier(s) to the loyalty program broker 104 which processes the details of the returned item, for example, as described above with reference to Figure 4. In this way the appropriate customer loyalty program system or systems can be informed that an item has been returned and appropriate accounting updates may be made to the customers loyalty program account. In this way, fraud may be prevented by preventing a customer from obtaining loyalty points for purchased items which are subsequently returned to the retailer.

[00033] Referring now to Figure 5 there is shown a retailer system 500 according to one example of the present invention. The system 500 includes a retailer IT infrastructure 504 comprising multiple purchase and loyalty program identifier (PLPl) modules 102, a retailer item database 304, a retailer to vendor mapping database 308, a loyalty program broker 506, and a retailer loyalty program system 108a. As described previously, item purchase data received by the loyalty program broker 508 may be sent, if appropriate, to the retailer loyalty program system 106a without mapping or transformation. Item purchase data may also be sent, if appropriate, to different ones of the vendor loyalty program systems 106b or 106n. The vendor loyalty program systems 106b and 106n are external to the retailer IT infrastructure 504 and are accessible via a network, such as the Internet, 502. [00034] In a further example, as shown in Figure 8, a !oyaity program broker 604 is provided by a third party and is independent from a retailer IT infrastructure 620. in this example the loyalty program broker 604 receives, from a PLPI module 602, textual item description data rather than a retailer item code or retailer SKU as in previous examples. The textual item description data may be in a full or in an abbreviated descriptive format. For example, a transaction receipt may include abbreviated printed text such as "HP OFJT 6550" to identify a purchased HP OfficeJet 6500 all-in-one color ink-jet printer. In one example the PLPI module 602 includes an imaging module (not shown) that enables a printed retailer transaction action receipt to be obtained, and textual item description data obtained therefrom, for example by using suitable optical character recognition techniques.

[00035] Accordingly, the loyalty program broker 604 does not have access to retailer resources, such as retailer item databases. The loyalty broker 604 receives textual data at an item data processor 606 and passes the data to a vendor item determination module 610.

[00036] The vendor item determination module 610 attempts to determine a vendor item code, vendor SKU, or other appropriate vendor code, from the received textual data. For example, if the retail item description includes a description or abbreviated description of an item the retailer item to vendor item determination module 810 may perform a search or lookup of a vendor item database 812 in order to determine the closest matching vendor item that corresponds thereto. The vendor item determination module 610 may then obtain the corresponding vendor item code for onward transmission to the corresponding the vendor loyalty program system in a manner similar to that described above.

[00037] In some examples the loyalty broker 604 may additionally receive price data and may use the received price data in identifying a corresponding vendor item code. The loyalty program broker 604 may send mapped vendor item and a loyalty program identifier to an appropriate loyalty program system 106b to 106n via a network, such as the Internet, 614. In one example, the loyalty broker 604 does not have access to the retailer infrastructure 620, and therefore is not able to provide item purchase details to the retailer loyalty program system 106a, However, in a further another example, the loyalty broker 804 may have access to the retailer loyalty program system 106a via a network (not shown).

[00038] It will be appreciated that embodiments of the present invention can be realized in the form of hardware, software or a combination of hardware and software. Any such software may be stored in the form of volatile or non-volatile storage such as, for example, a storage device like a ROM, whether erasable or rewritable or not, or in the form of memory such as, for example, RAM, memory chips, device or integrated circuits or on an optically or magnetically readable medium such as, for example, a CD, DVD, magnetic disk or magnetic tape. It will be appreciated that the storage devices and storage media are examples of machine-readable storage that are suitable for storing a program or programs that, when executed, implement examples of the present invention. Still further, examples of the present invention may be conveyed electronically via any medium such as a communication signal carried over a wired or wireless connection and examples suitably encompass the same.

[00039] Ail of the features disclosed in this specification (including any accompanying claims, abstract and drawings), and/or all of the steps of any method or process so disclosed, may be combined in any combination, except combinations where at least some of such features and/or steps are mutually exclusive.

[00040] Each feature disclosed in this specification (including any accompanying claims, abstract and drawings), may be replaced by alternative features serving the same, equivalent or similar purpose, unless expressly stated otherwise. Thus, unless expressly stated otherwise, each feature disclosed is one example only of a generic series of equivalent or similar features.