ARCHITECTURE AND METHODS FOR GENERATING INTELLIGENT OFFERS WITH DYNAMIC BASE PRICES
Methods and apparatus for generating intelligent offers with base prices are provided. In one embodiment, a promotion generator receives a current product base price, and also receives or calculates a remaining promotional program budget, a remaining promotional program duration, and a minimum discounted price for the product using the current product base price and any available previous base price data for the promoted product, creating or updating a predictive model of future product base prices.
1 . A computer-implemented method for calculating a price for a product, the method comprising:
calculating cost of promotion as a budget for a time period t equal to unit sales during the time period t multiplied by a base price for the time period t multiplied by a discount percentage for the time period t, wherein the base price for any given time period t differs from another given time period t; and
managing the discount percentage for each time period t to ensure a sum of the cost of promotion over n time periods does not exceed a total budget and any given discount percentage does not drop below a minimum threshold.
2 - 10 . (canceled)
11 . The computer-implemented method of claim 1 further comprising calculating total sales of promoted product by summing over n time periods the unit sales during the time period t.
12 . The computer-implemented method of claim 1 wherein the discount percentage is calculated by a predictive technique and at least one optimization technique.
13 . The computer-implemented method of claim 12 wherein the predictive technique includes at least one of Markov chains and machine learning.
14 . The computer-implemented method of claim 12 wherein the at least one optimization technique includes at least one of combinatorial optimizations and linear programming.
15 . The computer-implemented method of claim 1 wherein the base price for any given time period t is a function of commodity price fluctuation.
16 . The computer-implemented method of claim 1 further comprising calculating a net price for a given time period t as one minus the discount percentage for time period t multiplied by the base price for time period t.
17 . The computer-implemented method of claim 16 further comprising ensuring the net price for any given time period t is greater than a minimum price threshold.
18 . The computer-implemented method of claim 17 further comprising calculating a second optimized percentage discount subject to the minimum price threshold.
19 . The computer-implemented method of claim 1 further comprising deploying a promotion using the discount percentage over the n time periods.
20 . A computer program product stored on non-transitory computer memory which when executed on a computer system performs the steps of:
calculating cost of promotion as a budget for a time period t equal to unit sales during the time period t multiplied by a base price for the time period t multiplied by a discount percentage for the time period t, wherein the base price for any given time period t differs from another given time period t; and
managing the discount percentage for each time period t to ensure a sum of the cost of promotion over n time periods does not exceed a total budget and any given discount percentage does not drop below a minimum threshold.
21 . The computer program product of claim 20 , which when executed on the computer system further performs the steps of calculating total sales of promoted product by summing over n time periods the unit sales during the time period t.
22 . The computer program product of claim 20 , wherein the discount percentage is calculated by a predictive technique and at least one optimization technique.
23 . The computer program product of claim 22 , wherein the predictive technique includes at least one of Markov chains and machine learning.
24 . The computer program product of claim 22 , wherein the at least one optimization technique includes at least one of combinatorial optimizations and linear programming.
25 . The computer program product of claim 20 , wherein the base price for any given time period t is a function of commodity price fluctuation.
26 . The computer program product of claim 20 , which when executed on the computer system further performs the steps of calculating a net price for a given time period t as one minus the discount percentage for time period t multiplied by the base price for time period t.
27 . The computer program product of claim 26 , which when executed on the computer system further performs the steps of ensuring the net price for any given time period t is greater than a minimum price threshold.
28 . The computer program product of claim 27 , which when executed on the computer system further performs the steps of calculating a second optimized percentage discount subject to the minimum price threshold.
29 . The computer program product of claim 20 , which when executed on the computer system further performs the steps of deploying a promotion using the discount percentage over the n time periods.