WO2021156884A1

WO2021156884A1 - Reward distribution method and system for referring code for a product recommendation

Info

Publication number: WO2021156884A1
Application number: PCT/IN2020/051061
Authority: WO
Inventors: Huxley JOSE
Original assignee: Jose Huxley
Priority date: 2020-02-03
Filing date: 2020-12-28
Publication date: 2021-08-12

Abstract

The present invention is a method and system to distribute net profit generated out of a sale with four of its key stake holders. First the Buyer, second the Buyer's (N-1) proposer, third the Buyer's (N-2) proposer and fourth the Portal. The payout is initiated upon the completion of a sale. Buyer Rewards are generated based on the rules such as number of buying's in a period, the number of recommendations, and or revenue or profits generated by the portal. Proposer Rewards are generated based on the rules such as, number of buying's in a period, the number of recommendations, revenue, or profits generated by the portal. The balance goes to the portal. The Complete member buying process ends with suitably rewarding and incentivizing all the stakeholders of the portal.

Description

REWARD DISTRIBUTION METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR REFERRING CODE FOR A

PRODUCT RECOMMENDATION

BACKGROUND

Field of the invention

The present invention generally relates to an engagement of members of an online portal, and more particularly towards a system and method for providing a three level incentive / reward structure for the members of this portal who make a purchase on this portal and or with portal’s affiliates in a specified rule based manner.

Description of the Related Art

More and more business is now being conducted on internet. From making goods and services purchases, to seeking jobs, education and even dating & marriage opportunities, there is practically nothing that is left and cannot be transacted over an internet. The Internet has proved to be the largest marketplace where we see buyers and sellers interact with each other almost for all products and services. As the transaction involves money, they are also referred to as ecommerce transactions.

The portals that allow such e-commerce transactions are becoming technologically sophisticated, secure and easy-to-use. They can have millions of users interacting and making an intelligent purchase every moment. The portals use of block-chain and artificial intelligence that understands users tastes, preferences and likings. As such a portal is able to make huge numbers of members (subscribers, customers or any users who accept the terms of the portal). The database of the members are the assets of such portal and there lies a potential opportunity for

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SUBSTITUTE SHEETS (RULE 26) portals to exploit such information. Due to privacy Several types of member referral programs exists. A typical membership referral program may consists of the following steps:

1. Identification of the target: They may be students, shoppers, employees? 2. Determine what the incentives: The incentives will be for both person- referring and person-referred. The better the incentive, the more effective your program is likely to be.

3. Set the program up: A tracking program to keep track of people who joined the program. Once a member joins, not only the member gets incentivized, but also the member, who had referred this person.

4. Promote: Promote your program. Mention it in social media, website, newsletter, etc.

Figure 1 is a flowchart depicting typical referral program as in the prior art. An organization provides incentives to current members to refer more members. These incentives are usually in the form of discounts on purchase of it’s goods and services. A unique coupon code is generated and the member is altered to share such coupon code with his contacts. In order to receive incentives, members generally circulate the coupon code among their friends, family and colleagues. Once the referred-member makes a of organization products or services by using the said unique coupon code, both the member and referred-member are provided incentives. Whereas incentives to member may be in the form of cash-back or discounts on next purchased, the referred-person usually gets an immediate discount. Such a program helps organizations to increase it’s membership as well as more and more people (referred-members) are

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SUBSTITUTE SHEETS (RULE 26) attracted to sign into their platform.

Our search at US & European Patent Database reveals several pending and issued patents relating to the specific application around use of technology to generate rewards to enhance membership.

United States Patent No. US5185695A issued to Michael A. Pruchnicki is titled as "Method and system for handling discount coupons by using centrally stored manufacturer coupons in place of paper coupons". The invention is a method and apparatus for creating and processing discount coupons includes central processor (16) for receiving from manufacturers information of product type, validation period and coupon value and for producing a central coupon list of available coupon discounts. The central list is transmitted to local processors (19) of retailers (18) whom hold manufacturer products for sale. The local processor (19) produces a local coupon list based on the central list containing only those manufacturers and product type which the retailer holds for sale. A coupon indicia (12) is printed by a printer (38) and is placed adjacent the product type listed in the coupon list to identify the product as having a discount. When the product is moved through the checkout station (20), the manufacturer and product type is obtained off the product by a scanner (40) and compared to the local coupon list by a coupon comparator.

China Patent No. CN101996377A issued to ¾ iWf

¾? is titled as "Sales data processing apparatus and sales data processing method". The invention discloses a sales data processing apparatus and sales data processing method capable of improving purchase desire of customers,

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SUBSTITUTE SHEETS (RULE 26) wherein the sales data processing apparatus includes a member rank accepting unit, a point accepting unit, an extraction unit, and a calculation unit.

The member rank accepting unit accepts an input of a member rank of a customer as of when a point voucher is used. The point accepting unit accepts an input of a number of points on the point voucher. The extraction unit extracts, from a storage unit which stores a point return rate defining how much should be returned in dollars for one point corresponding to a member rank, the point return rate corresponding to the member rank accepted by the member rank accepting unit. The calculation unit calculates an amount of return on the point voucher on the basis of the number of points accepted by the point accepting unit and the point return rate extracted by the extraction unit.

A particular drawback of existing portals/ organizations is that i) they do not provide a profit share to the buyer himself. Many portals provide incentives and or discounts to the buyer. But what is referred here is the actual profit share. All portals do earn a profit even after providing a discount or incentive. But they do not share this profit with the buyer. A key facet of this invention is that it provides for a Net Profit share even after granting a discount / incentive on the product the member purchases ii) A second tenet of this invention is that such profit sharing principle is even extended to this protal’s affiliated portals. Generally portals do not provide an incentive to it’s registered members for making purchase from affiliated portals. As a result, the options for the members to make purchases are limited and further there is no mechanism to

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SUBSTITUTE SHEETS (RULE 26) reward or incentivize continued engagement with portal among the buyers, proposers and sellers. This aspect is addressed via extending the profit share to affiliated portals iii) Some portals reward a proposer / referrer of a member for the purchases the member makes, provided the proposer / referrer themselves makes an investment or spending on the portal beforehand. So the third shortcoming of existing portals is that they coerce the referrer or proposer to make a self investment or spending as a pre requisite for any reward sharing. Current invention do not require the proposer / referrer to make any spending as a pre-requisite to earn incentives out of the purchase of his referee. This very aspect of rewarding a referrer / proposer without any spending by the referrer / proposer makes this invention stand out from the rest of the portals iv) The fourth dimension of this invention is that it goes beyond the first level referrer / proposer to reward referrer’s referrer who is the second level referrer / proposer of the buyer. Even this second level referrer / proposer need not make any investment or spending to get his/her share of reward /incentive v) The fifth dimension of this invention is that, it aims to reward an individual for his active direct and indirect social connections and networking, provided these connections are brought to this portal as referrals vi) The sixth aspect of this invention is that it also provides for a nominee of the proposer to whom all the rewards can be passed on at the untimely death of the proposer/ referrer. So a referrer can pass on all his referees to his nominee as an estate, so that the nominee continues to earn income from the purchases of this referee. Vii) The seventh aspect of this invention is that it aims to reward the proposer for his life time from the

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SUBSTITUTE SHEETS (RULE 26) purchases of the members he referred to this portal or affiliated portals. Since he can also pass on his referees to his nominee, his nominee can also earn for his life time. So refer one time and earn two life time is the key slogan of this invention The present invention is proposed in view of these problems and absence of all these seven dimensions together in the prior art, and its objective is to provide a system capable of providing suitable profit share for buyers and their proposers. This invention makes any individual with active social connections to earn income like a businessman. This is the first invention where a person can become an entrepreneur purely based on his social connections and with zero cash investment. This invention provides a web platform that assist in making an individual an entrepreneur without any capital cash investment. The prime motive of this invention is to provide a regular source of funds to common people based on the purchases of his referees

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

A key differentiator of the current invention is the role of a referrer / proposer. A referrer/ proposer is an individual who refers and recommends a member to the portal. A member who is getting referred is defined in this invention as referee. A key point is that the referred member, ie referee should not be part of the existing data base. To be accepted in the system, the referee must be a new entrant to the data base and also need to accept the referral by the referrer. Unaccepted referrals are null and void. In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, a method, system

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SUBSTITUTE SHEETS (RULE 26) and a rule is provided to reward members of an online portal who make a purchase from this portal and or through an affiliate portal or a website by way of “Profit Share”.

In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, a method, system and a rule is provided to reward the direct proposer of the

Buyer who makes a purchase from this portal or through an affiliate portal by way of “Profit Share”.

According to yet another exemplary aspect of the present invention, a method, system and a rule is provided to reward a proposer to a direct proposer of the Buyer who makes a purchase on an affiliate portal by way of “Profit

Share”.

According to yet another exemplary aspect of the present invention, a method, system and a rule is provided to reward the portal itself comprising of members who make a purchase on an affiliate portal. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

So that the manner in which the above recited features of the present invention can be understood in detail, a more particular description of the invention, briefly summarized above, may be had by reference to embodiments, some of which are illustrated in the appended drawings. It is to be noted, however, that the appended drawings illustrate only typical embodiments of this invention and are therefore not to be considered limiting of its scope, for the invention may admit to other equally effective embodiments.

Figure 1 is a flowchart depicting typical referral program as in the prior art.

Figure 2 is a flowchart depicting a reward distribution module among the

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SUBSTITUTE SHEETS (RULE 26) members of a portal.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the present description, some words are being used interchangeably to mean the same thing/ entity: Customers’ & ‘Users’; ‘He’ & “She”.

It is appreciated that present invention can be implemented in a variety of systems, devices, architectures and configurations, such as with any Telecommunication network, mobile platforms (iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows), distributed computing environment, a cloud computing environment, a client server environment, social networking websites, online sales and service portals etc. Embodiments described herein may also be discussed in the general context of computer-executable instructions residing on some form of computer-readable storage medium, such as program modules, executed by one or more computers, computing devices, or other devices.

Currently, no model exists to keep members of a portal continuously engaged and incentivized. Further, no portal is able to share incentives or rewards with its members based on a purchase made with affiliate portal. This module does not exist for any of the portals. A typical members of a portal are:

I. Customers: They have made purchases in the past through the portal.

II. Subscribers: They may be subscribed to a portal for newsletters, discount or as a part of the social media activities.

III. Direct Proposer: These Users are registered based on the nomination /proposal from an individual’s connections. The portal is going to utilize the social connections as the basis for registration. So who ever recommends a member first would be considered as the “Proposer” for

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SUBSTITUTE SHEETS (RULE 26) this particular member. A proposer can propose anyone, whether known personally or not, whether looking for a product or not. There is no bar to making the recommendations for proposer. Once proposed, the candidate is blocked under this proposer for a period of time or until the candidate accepts, whichever comes first.

IV. Indirect Proposer: Indirect Proposer is the one who proposes the proposer of a member. In other words, Indirect Proposer will be level 2 in hierarchy to a member. Had the Indirect Proposer not proposed the Direct Proposer, the member would not have been able to get the membership to the portal. Therefore, Indirect Proposer is a valuable component and needs to be duly incentived as per the preferred embodiment of the present invention. Portal: Though portal per-se is not a member, it also needs to be duly incentivized. A typical portal may be an individual (natural person) or group of individuals or a legal entity duly incorporated. In this approach a very generous incentive is shared with portal, based on the purchases being done by them through affiliate websites. Thus the portal becomes a platform, where people can introduce, themselves, their friends, family, acquaintances, social network connections, WhatsApp connections etc. as a potential future buyer of the products and services. They can recommend themselves as well as any of their connections as potential future member to a portal.

The present invention postulates the portal to be linked to other portals (hereinafter, “affiliate portal”) through contracts, Molls or financial arrangements, whereby a part of their net profit is shared with the portal.

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SUBSTITUTE SHEETS (RULE 26) Examples of such affiliate portals could be:

• Online retail store

• Online car rental portal

• Online food ordering portal

• Online ticket booking portal

• Online hotel booking portal

• Online Job portal

The portal is also linked with other established affiliate portals on a profit sharing basis. The traffic flows from the data base of this portal mainly consisting of

• Members

• Direct Proposers

• Indirect Proposers.

The existing technologies permit a tracking code to be embedded in both portals as well as the affiliate. The code can track members making a purchase with an affiliate portal. This makes the process of purchase by a member on an affiliate portal extremely transparent and reliable. Alternatively, a coupon code can also be generated for existing members that will provide them with a discount or cash-back. In this manner, it will be easy for the portal to track it’s members making an online purchase as they will use the coupon code to avail product discounts.

When any of the members of the database avail services of an affiliate, a share of the income is distributed with this portal.

This portal shares this income so earned with the members in a pre defined ratio and based on the total income generated. The income so shared has several parts:

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SUBSTITUTE SHEETS (RULE 26) • Profit sharing with the actual buyer of the product or service. Let us call this Mr. X (let us call this Level N member)

• Two levels of referential incentive, via a profit share, for the members who brought this buyer to the Portal data base (Level N-1 and Level N- 2 proposers)

• The profit share for the portal itself.

A member of the portal (could be registered as a customer, or a subscriber or a direct proposer or as an indirect proposer etc). But for an affiliate portal each member is a buyer: Assume the following

1. Mr. X comes to know about the portal and he registers as a member.

2. Mr. X proposes Mr. Y as a member to this portal which Mr. Y accepts

3. Mr. Y proposes Ms. Z as a member to this portal which she accepts

Example 1

Ms. Z buys a product from an affiliate portal, for example online retail store. Assume that such sale of the product provides a contract value of INR 100 to the portal (“net profit”). This net-profit could be shared in the following manner as an example

• Ms. Z (Buyer) - 25% of net profit

• Mr. Y (N-1 Referential incentive, who recommended this buyer to the portal) - 15% of net profit

• Mr. X (N-2 Referential incentive, who recommended Y to the portal) - 10% of net profit

• Portal - 50% of net profit

Example 2

Mr. Y buys a product from an affiliate portal, for example online ticket booking portal. Assume that such sale of the product provides a net profit of INR 100. This profit is shared in the following manner

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SUBSTITUTE SHEETS (RULE 26) • Mr. Y (Buyer) - 25%

• Mr. X (N-1 Referential incentive, who recommended this buyer to the portal)- 15%

• None: (N-2 Referential incentive to no one as X joined the site by himself) - 0%

• Portal - 60% of net profit Example 3

Mr. X buys a product from the sister portal, for example online hotel booking portal. Assume that such sale of the product provides a net profit of INR 100. This net profit is shared in the following manner

• Mr X (Buyer)- 25%

• None: (N-1 Referential incentive to no one as X joined the site by himself) - 0%

• Portal - 75% of net profit

The trigger for payouts could be either of any of the following

• The Buyer uses an allotted Coupon Code to make a purchase at an affiliate portal.

• The tracking code alerts that a member has made a purchase.

• An affiliate portal confirms that purchase has already been done.

• Buyer confirms that purchase has been done and/or seeks further discount from the portal.

Figure 2 is a flowchart depicting a reward distribution module among the members of a job portal as an example. A member of the portal (candidate, proposer, or recruiter) visits an affiliate site of interest to make a potential purchase. The Affiliate sites and corresponding rewards are clearly revealed to

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SUBSTITUTE SHEETS (RULE 26) the Member in advance. Upon the member making a purchase at an affiliate site, a trigger may be generated to inform the portal about the total payouts to be received from affiliate. At the same time, the Buyer’s linkages in terms of it’s proposers are identified, and total payout amount is calculated based on a pre defined formula. Such payout can take place immediately or upon portal receiving it’s pay-outs from affiliates. .

Thus, a system, hardware or method is conceptualized that calculates rewards for registered members based on a pre-defined rules that are set by the Portal (Admin). First the Buyer, second the Buyer’s (N-1 ) proposer, third the Buyer’s (N-2) proposer and fourth the Portal. The payout module is initiated upon the completion of a sale. Buyer Rewards are generated based on the rules such as number of buying’s in a period, the number of recommendations / referrals, and or revenue or profits generated by the portal. Proposer Rewards are generated based on the rules such as, number of buying’s in a period, the number of recommendations / referrals, revenue, or profits generated by the portal. The balance goes to the portal.

The Complete member buying process ends with suitably rewarding and incentivizing all the stakeholders of the portal.

The profits earn based on an individual’s social networking and connections. A referrer can pass on his referees to a nominee so that the nominee continues to earn even after the demise of the referrer. In a nutshell, Refer one time your social connections and earn two life time.

While the foregoing is directed to embodiments of the present invention, other and further embodiments of the invention may be devised without departing from the basic scope thereof, and the scope thereof is determined by the claims that follow.

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Claims

What is claimed is:

1. A method to provide reward distribution via net profit to members of a portal, such method comprising the steps of: · purchase to be made by a member of the said portal from the portal itself or from the portal’s affiliate portals;

• generating rewards for such buyer based on rules such as, but not limited to, net profits payouts from the portal itself and or from an affiliate portal; · generating rewards for a direct proposer, if any, based on the rules such as, but not limited to net profits payouts from the portal and or an affiliate portal;

• generating rewards for a proposer to such direct proposer, if any, based on the rules such as, but not limited to net profits payouts from the portal and or an affiliate portal; and

• generating rewards for the portal based on rules such as, but not limited to net profits payouts from the portal and or an affiliate portal; so as to make payouts to all eligible members in order to incentivize and reward the members of the portal.

2. A method of claim 1 , wherein members are registered as direct or indirect proposers.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein rewards may be in the form of

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SUBSTITUTE SHEETS (RULE 26) cuher Cash-Back or Coupons or profit share.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein such coupons may be Airline Discounts, Hotel Discounts or Online Shopping Discount Coupon.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising of carrying forward or transferring the reward points for another period or person, at the discretion of the portal.

6. A system for reward distribution among members of portal triggered with a purchase being made by such member, such system comprises of:

Buyer Rewarding Module based on rules such as, but not limited to net profits payouts from an affiliate portal;

Direct Proposer Rewarding Module based on the rules such as, but not limited to net profits payouts from an affiliate portal;

Proposer to the Direct Proposer Rewarding Module based on the rules such as, but not limited to net profits payouts from an affiliate portal; and

Portal Reward Generating Module based on rules such as, but not limited to net profits payouts from an affiliate portal; so as to make payouts to all eligible members in order to incentivize and reward the members of the portal.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein rewards may be in the form of either

Cash-Back or Coupons.

8. The system of claim 6, wherein such coupons may be Airline Discounts,

Hotel Discounts or Online Shopping Discount Coupon.

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SUBSTITUTE SHEETS (RULE 26) The system of claim 6, further comprising of carrying forward or transferring the reward points for another period or person, at the discretion of the owner.

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SUBSTITUTE SHEETS (RULE 26)