PROMOTION SYSTEM SUPPORTING SELLER PREMISES TRANSACTION COMPLETION
An online sales/automatic rebate and coupon redemption system provides online customers automatic retrieval and redemption of all applicable rebates and coupons during purchase. Purchase orders from customers are selectively fulfilled and products are shipped to the customers either by the system for online sales with automatic rebate and coupon redemption or by other merchant or manufacturer environments. The system purchases from merchants using applicable coupons and rebates and then sells the products to the customers, passing the savings to them. The system makes it possible to automatically retrieve coupons and rebates for items in a shopping cart during the activity of an online purchase at an electronic mall or an online merchant site. The system provides coupons to potential customers via email, based on customer profile, geographical information, etc. Manufacturers and merchants can update coupon value and content based on ongoing sales and volume of customer activity.
1 . A promotion system supporting a plurality of customer computers used by a corresponding plurality of customers, the promotion system comprising:
a promotion management service having a customer interface and a seller interface, the seller interface being used by both a first seller and a second seller respectively via a computer of the first seller and a computer of the second seller, to correspondingly establish a first promotion for the first item and a second promotion for the second item;
the promotion management service gathering via the customer interface a plurality of customer information associated with each of the plurality of customers, the plurality of customer information comprising first customer information associated with a first customer of the plurality of customers;
the promotion management service using the first customer information to select one of the first item and the second item;
a promotion email service that constructs an email offering a promotion for the selected one of the first item and second item, and delivers the email for receipt by the first customer;
the promotion management service delivering for display on the first customer computer, a webpage of the promotion management service that includes a description of the promotion and the selected one of the first item and the second item; and
the promotion management service, responsive to input received via the first customer computer, communicates to the first customer computer information related to the promotion for storage on the first customer computer, the information related to the promotion to be used by the first customer to support completion of a transaction at a physical seller location of one of the first seller and the second seller corresponding to the selected one of the first item and the selected item, at a later time without involvement of the promotion management service.
2 . The promotion system of claim 1 , wherein the promotion management service comprises a promotional server that hosts promotion offer postings from a plurality of sellers including the first seller and the second seller.
3 . The promotion system of claim 1 , wherein the first promotion and the second promotion each have an associated geographical region.
4 . The promotion system of claim 3 , wherein the first customer information comprises a geographical region that corresponds to geographical region of the selected one of the first item and the second item.
5 . The promotion system of claim 1 , wherein first promotion comprises a first plurality of parameters and the second promotion comprises a second plurality of parameters.
6 . The promotion system of claim 5 , wherein each of the first and second pluralities of parameters comprises two or more of: an amount or value of a respective promotion, a quantity of a respective promotion, one or more goods and/or services associated with a respective promotion, one or more geographical regions to which a respective promotion applies and a time limit or expiration date of a respective promotion.
7 . The promotion system of claim 1 , wherein the first promotion comprises a first coupon and the second promotion comprises a second coupon.
8 . The promotion system of claim 1 , wherein the first item comprises a first good and/or service and the second item comprises a second good and/or service.
9 . The promotion system of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of customer information comprises a plurality of customer profiles.