CN107240000B

CN107240000B - Self-service vending method, system and electronic equipment

Info

Publication number: CN107240000B
Application number: CN201710413651.7A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 张光卫
Original assignee: Beijing Daxiang Intelligent Technology Co ltd
Current assignee: Beijing Daxiang Intelligent Technology Co ltd
Priority date: 2017-06-05
Filing date: 2017-06-05
Publication date: 2020-10-23
Anticipated expiration: 2037-06-05
Also published as: CN107240000A

Abstract

The embodiment of the invention provides a self-service vending method, a self-service vending system and electronic equipment. The self-service vending method is applied to a cloud server of an unattended entity store, and comprises the following steps: providing the client with the commodity details and a purchase entry of the commodity sample according to the access of the client to the purchase link of the commodity sample in the entity store; changing first inventory data of at least one commodity in a cloud inventory database into second inventory data according to an adding or deleting request of a client to the at least one commodity in a virtual shopping cart; generating a corresponding purchase order according to the settlement requests of all the commodities in the virtual shopping cart finally determined by the client; sending the purchase order to a local server of the physical store. The embodiment of the invention also provides a self-service vending system and electronic equipment. The embodiment of the invention can realize self-service goods selling, goods picking and goods discharging, realize unattended operation of the entity store and provide good shopping experience for users.

Description

Self-service vending method, system and electronic equipment

Technical Field

The invention relates to the technical field of self-service selling, in particular to a self-service selling method, a self-service selling system and electronic equipment.

Background

Under the impact of an electronic commerce platform and the improvement of labor cost, a new way is sought in the traditional retail industry, an unattended store and self-service shopping become a choice, intelligent retail equipment or stores such as an automatic vending machine, an unattended vending machine and an unattended convenience store appear, and the system has the characteristics that customers can carry out self-service and pay conveniently, the business is carried out for 7 x 24 hours, the unattended labor cost can be reduced, the online and offline are tightly combined, and the like.

The existing vending machine adopts an all-in-one machine mode, namely, a storage shelf of commodities is combined with a key device for selecting the commodities by customers and a purchase payment device, and the vending machine has the following defects: 1. the integrated machine mode is inconvenient to carry and install; 2. the single machine is independently installed, so that the atmosphere of a shop or a market is avoided, and the user experience is poor; 3. the storage variety of the commodity is few and difficult to expand; 4. the storage quantity of the commodities is small, the commodity supply cannot be met, and particularly the demands of large customer flow and high purchasing frequency are met; 5. the commodity selection is inconvenient, and the commodity selection is usually carried out through keys; 6. only one commodity can be purchased through one-time payment, and the purchase and payment are not convenient; 7. in order to prevent theft, the goods of the vending machine are completely sealed and isolated, and a user can only watch the goods through the transparent glass, so that the user experience is very poor.

The solution of an unattended shop is also proposed by idederelie company and amazon in the united states, but the former emphasizes an automatic data acquisition technology, has higher operation requirement on customers, and delays time if the customers are unfamiliar with the operation; the latter relies on powerful computer vision, artificial intelligence and deep learning calculation methods to complete shopping automation, and has higher requirements on configuration of physical stores.

The inventor finds that in the process of implementing the invention, the prior art does not provide a scheme which is relatively simple and low in cost and can realize unattended self-service vending by combining the fun of supermarket shopping and the advantage of online shopping. For example, in supermarket shopping, adding a commodity to a shopping cart means that the current time is occupied by the commodity, and a customer can also take different commodities to watch and compare the commodities, so that the commodity is suitable for the customer.

Disclosure of Invention

In order to solve at least one technical problem in the prior art, in a first aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides a self-service vending method applied to a cloud server of an unattended entity store, including:

providing, to a client, item details of an item sample and a purchase portal to the client according to access of the client to a purchase link for the item sample within the physical store, the purchase portal including at least a virtual shopping cart;

changing first inventory data of at least one commodity in a cloud inventory database into second inventory data according to an adding or deleting request of a client to the at least one commodity in a virtual shopping cart;

generating a corresponding purchase order according to the settlement requests of all the commodities in the virtual shopping cart finally determined by the client;

and sending the purchase order to a local server of the physical store for the local server to pick and deliver according to the purchase order.

In the embodiment, the purchase link of the commodity corresponding to the commodity sample is provided for the user shopping in the physical store, so that the user can hold the commodity through the shopping cart, and the purchase order can be transmitted to the physical store for on-site picking and delivery, thereby realizing unattended self-service vending.

In a second aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides a self-service vending method, applied to a local server of an unattended entity store, including:

receiving a purchase order from a cloud server, and sending a picking instruction matched with the goods of the purchase order to a picking device in a storage area of the physical store, wherein the picking instruction comprises a goods storage position and a goods quantity;

in response to a completion notification that the picking device has performed the picking instruction, sending a delivery instruction to a delivery device within the storage area to deliver items picked by the picking device to a pickup area of the physical store.

In the embodiment, the customer can get the goods on the spot by placing the order in the unattended shop by performing base goods and stock goods on the shopping order sent by the cloud server.

In a third aspect, an embodiment of the present invention further provides a non-volatile computer storage medium, which stores computer-executable instructions, where the computer-executable instructions are used to execute the self-service vending method according to the first aspect of the present invention.

In a fourth aspect, an embodiment of the present invention further provides a non-volatile computer storage medium storing computer-executable instructions, where the computer-executable instructions are used to execute the self-service vending method according to the second aspect of the present invention.

In a fifth aspect, embodiments of the present invention also provide a computer program product comprising a computer program stored on a non-volatile computer-readable storage medium, the computer program comprising program instructions which, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform the self-service vending method of the first aspect.

In a sixth aspect, embodiments of the present invention also provide a computer program product, the computer program product comprising a computer program stored on a non-volatile computer-readable storage medium, the computer program comprising program instructions that, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform the self-service vending method of the second aspect.

In a seventh aspect, an embodiment of the present invention further provides an electronic device applied to a cloud server of an unattended entity store, where the cloud server includes: at least one processor; and a memory; wherein the memory stores a program executable by the at least one processor, the instructions being executable by the at least one processor to enable the at least one processor to perform the self-service vending method of the above-described first aspect of the invention.

In an eighth aspect, an embodiment of the present invention further provides an electronic device applied to a local server of an unattended entity store, where the electronic device includes: at least one processor; and a memory; wherein the memory stores a program executable by the at least one processor, the instructions being executable by the at least one processor to enable the at least one processor to perform the self-service vending method of the above-described second aspect of the invention.

In a ninth aspect, an embodiment of the present invention further provides a self-service vending system, including the electronic device applied to the cloud server of the unattended physical store according to the seventh aspect of the present invention, and the electronic device applied to the local server of the unattended physical store according to the eighth aspect of the present invention.

In the embodiment of the invention, by providing a whole set of scheme of the unattended self-service shop, the user can experience the pleasure of shopping in the supermarket in the unattended shop and the convenience of online payment can be realized.

Drawings

In order to more clearly illustrate the embodiments of the present invention or the technical solutions in the prior art, the drawings used in the description of the embodiments or the prior art will be briefly described below, and it is obvious that the drawings in the following description are some embodiments of the present invention, and those skilled in the art can also obtain other drawings according to the drawings without creative efforts.

Fig. 1 is a flowchart of a self-service vending method according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 2 is a flowchart of a self-service vending method according to a second embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 3 is a flow chart of a self-service vending method according to a third embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 4 is a flowchart of a self-service vending method according to a fourth embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 5 is a flowchart of a self-service vending method according to a fifth embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 6 is a flowchart of a self-service vending method according to a sixth embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 7 is a flowchart of a self-service vending method according to a seventh embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 8 is a flowchart of a self-service vending method according to an eighth embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 9 is a flowchart of a self-service vending method according to a ninth embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 10 is a flowchart of a self-service vending method according to a tenth embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 11 is a three-terminal interaction diagram of a self-service vending method according to an eleventh embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 12 is a schematic structural diagram of a self-service vending system according to a twelfth embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 13 is a schematic structural diagram of an electronic device according to a thirteenth embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed Description

In order to make the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the embodiments of the present invention clearer, the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the drawings in the embodiments of the present invention, and it is obvious that the described embodiments are some, but not all, embodiments of the present invention. All other embodiments, which can be derived by a person skilled in the art from the embodiments given herein without making any creative effort, shall fall within the protection scope of the present invention.

Referring to fig. 1, a flowchart of a self-service vending method according to an embodiment of the present invention is shown, where the technical solution of the embodiment is applicable to a cloud server of an unattended physical store. The cloud server may manage a plurality of unattended physical stores, and one of the physical stores is taken as an example in the following.

As shown in fig. 1, in step 101, providing the client with item details of an item sample and a purchase entry according to the access of the client to a purchase link of the item sample in a physical store, wherein the purchase entry at least comprises a virtual shopping cart;

in step 102, changing the first inventory data of at least one commodity in the cloud inventory database into second inventory data according to an adding or deleting request of a client to the at least one commodity in the virtual shopping cart;

in step 103, generating a corresponding purchase order according to the settlement requests of all the commodities in the virtual shopping cart finally determined by the client;

in step 104, the purchase order is sent to a local server of the physical store for the local server to pick and deliver the purchase order.

In this embodiment, for step 101, the cloud server provides, to the client, the item details of the item sample and a purchase entry according to the access of the client to the purchase link of the item sample in the physical store (for example, scanning a barcode or a two-dimensional code on the item sample), where the purchase entry includes at least a virtual shopping cart, for example, a component of "join shopping cart", or may also include a component of "purchase immediately". In some optional embodiments, in order to ensure that the client is indeed a purchase link acquired at the physical store, the purchase link may be, for example, a unique purchase link dedicated to the physical store, or may be limited to become an invalid link when the client does not access the purchase link for more than a predetermined time, or may also acquire the location information of the user when the client accesses the purchase link, and if the location information is not in the location area of the physical store, the client cannot access the purchase link, so that the user can be ensured to be in the physical store when adding or placing an order to the goods, a situation that the stock is occupied maliciously by a remote operation can be prevented, and a situation that a part of the user leaves the physical store to perform an order placing by a misoperation can be reduced.

Thereafter, for step 102, the cloud server changes the first inventory data of the at least one commodity in the cloud inventory database into the second inventory data according to an addition or deletion request of the at least one commodity in the virtual shopping cart by the client. The cloud storage database stores the inventory data of one or more entity stores. When the inventory data of any one of the cloud inventory database and the local inventory database changes, the change of the inventory data can be correspondingly synchronized to the other inventory database, for example, after the cloud server receives a ordering request, the corresponding inventory is deducted and the inventory change is synchronized to the local server, and after the local server completes replenishment, the corresponding inventory data is added and the inventory change is synchronized to the local server. The above-mentioned changing the first stock data of at least one kind of goods into the second stock data may be directly adding or subtracting the corresponding stock data, or locking or unlocking the corresponding stock data, and the user may be enabled to possess the corresponding goods by means of both deduction and unlocking, so as to prevent the goods from being lost when placing a bill. For example, in response to the client adding 1 item a to the shopping cart, the cloud server may "subtract 1" from the number of items a in the inventory data of the physical store in the cloud inventory database, and may also lock one number of items a, after which others cannot purchase the locked share, in response to the client deleting 3 items B from the shopping cart, the cloud server unlocking the number of items B in the inventory data of the physical store "plus 3" or the lock corresponding to the previous 3 shares, after which other users may normally add and purchase the shopping cart. When the client operates the commodities of the shopping cart, the cloud server can correspondingly change the data in the inventory database of the entity store in the cloud inventory database, so that a user can experience a commodity sample corresponding to a real commodity in the virtual shopping process, the occupation experience same as that of the real shopping cart can be realized through the virtual shopping cart, the selected commodities do not need to be taken all the time, and the burden of the user is reduced.

Next, in step 103, the cloud server generates a corresponding purchase order according to the settlement requests of all the commodities in the virtual shopping cart finally determined by the client. That is, the client submits an order placing request, and the cloud server generates a corresponding purchase order according to the order placing request, where the purchase order may include the number of the entity store, the order number, the number and quantity of each commodity in the order, and the like.

Finally, for step 104, the cloud server sends the purchase order to a local server of the entity store corresponding to the purchase order for the local server to pick up and deliver the purchase order. For example, the cloud server sends the purchase order to the local server corresponding to the number of the entity store according to the number of the entity store contained in the purchase order, and then the local server picks and delivers the goods according to the number and quantity of each goods in the purchase order.

In this embodiment, the cloud server responds to the access of the client to the purchase link in the entity store, then, inventory is changed by adding and subtracting the commodities in the shopping cart for the client, real-time picking and delivery are provided for the purchase order of the client, so that a client user can conveniently and quickly carry out online shopping, can experience online shopping, see real objects, possess corresponding commodities after the shopping cart is added, and immediately take the corresponding commodities after the order is placed, and unattended operation of the entity store can be realized, full automation is realized, and manpower and material resources are reduced.

Further referring to fig. 2, it shows a flowchart illustrating a self-service vending method provided by the second embodiment of the present invention, and the technical solution of this embodiment may be applied to a cloud server of an unattended physical store. The flow chart is a detailed flow of step 101 in fig. 1.

As shown in fig. 2, in step 201, in response to an access request of a client to a purchase link of a commodity sample, location information of the client is obtained;

in step 202, the client is provided with item details and a purchase entry for the item sample when the location information of the client is located within the location area of the physical store.

In this embodiment, for step 201, in order to ensure that the client is located in the entity store when sending the access request, the cloud service end may obtain the location information of the client after the client sends the request. Thereafter, for step 202, if the cloud server determines that the location information of the client is located in the location area of the physical store, the client is provided with item details and a purchase entry, wherein the item details may include information of a manufacturer, a production place, materials, a formula, a shelf life and the like of the item, and the purchase entry may include an entry for direct ordering and an entry for a user to add a shopping cart.

In this embodiment, the cloud server acquires real-time location information of the client by responding to the client request, and determines whether the client is located in the physical store. Where indoor location technology may be used if the store is located indoors, such as using WiFi, bluetooth, infrared nodes, etc., the application is not limited in this respect. If the store is located outdoors, outdoor location techniques such as GPS may be used, and the application is not limited in this respect. Therefore, the client can be ensured to be positioned in the entity store when a shopping cart is added or the order is placed, and the subsequent goods taking is convenient. And can also distinguish the client terminal purchased remotely from the client terminal purchased to the store, thereby providing more services suitable for the physical store for the client terminal.

In a further alternative embodiment, the purchase link may be a purchase link dedicated to a sample of the item within the physical store, which can be provided to the user in the form of a barcode, for example, affixed to the sample of the item in the form of a two-dimensional code for scanning by the client. The two-dimensional codes of the commodities in each physical store are different even if the commodities are the same, and at least the commodities are provided with information such as IDs of the physical stores so as to distinguish the commodities of different physical stores. And the two-dimensional codes of the commodities in the physical stores are different from the two-dimensional codes of the commodities in the corresponding online stores, so that the two-dimensional codes scanned by the user can be ensured to be unique and can not be confused with the two-dimensional codes obtained by other stores or modes.

Referring to fig. 3, a flowchart of a self-service vending method according to a third embodiment of the present invention is shown, and the technical solution of the present embodiment is applicable to a cloud server of an unattended physical store. The flow chart is a flow chart of steps subsequent to step 104 in fig. 1.

As shown in FIG. 3, step 301, a purchase order is sent to a local server of a physical store;

step 302, in response to the local server notifying the completion of shipment of the goods of the purchase order, sending a corresponding reminder for picking up goods to the client of the purchase order.

In this embodiment, step 301 is the same as step 104 in fig. 1, and is not described herein again. For step 302, the cloud server receives the shipment completion notification of the goods of the purchase order from the local server, which indicates that the corresponding goods have arrived at the pickup area, and at this time, the cloud server sends a pickup prompt to the client of the purchase order, so that the user can be prompted to pick up the goods at the pickup port.

Referring to fig. 4, a flowchart of a self-service vending method according to a fourth embodiment of the present invention is shown, and the technical solution of the present embodiment is applicable to a cloud server of an unattended physical store. The application scenario of this embodiment may be that the cloud server reminds the client to pick up goods, but the client does not reach the specified goods pick-up port to pick up goods, so that the local service temporarily registers the corresponding goods.

As shown in fig. 4, in step 401, in response to the registration notification of the local server for the goods of the purchase order, sending a corresponding registration reminder to the client of the purchase order;

in step 402, a pick-up request is received from a client and a shipping instruction is sent to a local server to ship goods for a registered purchase order.

In this embodiment, for step 401, after receiving the commodity registration notification of the purchase order from the local server, the cloud server sends a registration prompt to the corresponding client, so as to prompt the user that the commodity is registered. Then, for step 402, after the client receives the prompt and needs to pick up goods, the client sends a goods picking request to the cloud server, and after receiving the goods picking request of the client, the cloud server can send a corresponding goods delivery instruction to the local server, so that the user of the client can pick up goods for the goods delivered by the purchase order.

In some optional embodiments, it may also be that the cloud server receives a registration request of a purchase order from the client, and sends a registration instruction to the corresponding local server to register the corresponding commodity. For example, if the user is in an emergency and cannot get goods in time, the user may initiate a deposit request at the client, for example, the time for deposit may be specified, so that the user has a better shopping experience. Of course, if the user does not claim the goods beyond the time of registration, the subsequent return operation can be taken.

In some alternative embodiments, the following application scenarios may also arise: since the goods are not taken by people for a long time, for example, the goods are still not claimed after the cloud server sends the registration prompt, the local server sends a return instruction to the cloud server. At this time, the cloud server restores the second inventory data in the inventory database to the first inventory data in response to a return instruction of the purchase order by the local server. The return instruction is not issued by the user, but the product is not claimed by the user for a long time, so that the return instruction actively initiated by the local server is directed to the situation that the product is not claimed by the user. For example, since the client added 3 items a to the shopping cart before, the cloud server deducts 3 inventories of the items a in the inventory database of the physical store accordingly, and now receives the return request, adds back 3 inventories of the items a. Of course, in a real scenario, it is considered that the returned goods in the unattended store may not be returned to the shelves in the storage area immediately, or the return instructions may not be processed temporarily, and all return instructions may be processed when the store is not busy, for example, after early morning. At this time, the worker can also replenish the corresponding commodity to the shelf in a replenishment mode, wherein replenishment is introduced in the fifth embodiment and is not described herein again. This delayed processing of the return instruction can also reduce the load on the server to some extent.

Referring to fig. 5, a flowchart of a self-service vending method according to a fifth embodiment of the present invention is shown, and the technical solution of the present embodiment is applicable to a cloud server of an unattended physical store. The application scenario of the embodiment may be, for example, that the cloud server regularly checks the inventory conditions of each entity store every day, and then sends a replenishment notice to the corresponding replenishment mechanism to replenish the entity store.

As shown in fig. 5, in step 501, in response to receiving a replenishment notice of a local server, a replenishment request of a physical store corresponding to the local server is sent to a replenishment system;

in step 502, the inventory quantity of the one or more items of the physical store in the cloud inventory database is updated in response to the replenishment quantity of the one or more items returned by the local server.

In this embodiment, for step 501, when the cloud server receives a replenishment notification from the local server, the cloud server sends a corresponding replenishment request to the replenishment system to replenish the physical store corresponding to the local server. And then the replenishment system replenishes the corresponding local server. After the replenishment is completed, the cloud server receives a replenishment completion notification returned by the local server and the replenishment quantity of one or more commodities so that the cloud server can update the inventory of the corresponding commodities in the cloud inventory database. Therefore, the replenishment function of the unattended entity store can be realized, and all links can be unattended.

In some alternative embodiments, there may be only a cloud inventory database, so that the cloud server monitors the inventory amount of each item in the physical store, for example, a threshold may be set for the inventory of each item, and an alarm may be given when the inventory is below the threshold. Then, the cloud server generates a replenishment notification corresponding to the one or more commodities and sends the replenishment notification to the corresponding replenishment mechanism in response to the inventory quantity of the one or more commodities being lower than the threshold value. Finally, the stock quantity of the one or more items in the physical store is updated in response to the replenishment quantity of the one or more items returned by the local server. Therefore, the replenishment function of the unattended entity store can be realized, and all links can be unattended. Of course, in order to enable the entity store to realize the vending function even when the network is not well communicable with the cloud server, the local inventory database is also required, so that when the entity store can communicate with the cloud server, data in the local inventory database can be synchronized to the cloud end, and vending can be resumed. Referring to fig. 6, a flowchart of a self-service vending method according to a sixth embodiment of the present invention is shown, where the technical solution of the present embodiment is applicable to a local server of an unattended physical store.

As shown in fig. 6, in step 601, receiving a purchase order from a cloud server, and sending a picking instruction matched with the goods of the purchase order to a picking device in a storage area of a physical store, wherein the picking instruction comprises a goods storage position and a goods quantity;

in step 602, in response to the completion notification that the picking device has executed the picking instruction, a delivery instruction is sent to a delivery device within the storage area to deliver the goods picked by the picking device to a pickup area of the physical store.

In this embodiment, for step 601, the local server accepts a purchase order from the cloud server and sends a picking instruction to a picking device in the storage area of the physical store, wherein the local server may be, for example, an upper computer system in the physical store for controlling the picking device and the conveying device in the physical store and storing the position and number of each item on the intelligent shelf. After the purchase order is received, a corresponding order picking instruction can be generated according to the number and the quantity of each commodity in the purchase order, the order picking instruction can comprise the storage position of the commodity and the quantity of the commodity, so that the order picking device is controlled to go to the corresponding storage position to pick the corresponding quantity of the commodity to be placed on the conveyor belt, and then the local server sends the conveying instruction to the conveyor belt. Thereafter, for step 602, the cloud server receives a notification that the picking instruction is executed, and sends a transmission instruction to the transmission device. Of course, the picking device and the delivery device may store the received instructions in the corresponding task list so that the picking instructions and the delivery instructions are sequentially executed in order.

In this embodiment, through the control of local server and the cooperation of choosing goods device and conveyer, can realize unmanned on duty's choosing goods and shipment.

In some optional embodiments, after step 601, there may be a step of sending, by the cloud server, an shipment completion notification of the purchase order to the cloud server in response to detecting that the item corresponding to the item quantity of the purchase order arrives at a shipment area. The commodity quantity detection device is characterized in that a gravity sensor is mounted on the conveying device, the quantity is detected by sensing gravity, or an infrared sensor can be mounted above the conveying device, so that when commodities pass through, the commodities can be sensed, the commodity quantity can be detected in other modes, and the commodity quantity detection device is not limited in this respect. Further optionally, the goods picking area may have a baffle, the goods are clamped by the baffle after coming, and when the number of the detected goods is consistent with the number of the goods of the purchase order, the baffle is opened to enable the user to take away the purchased goods after the goods delivery completion notification is sent to the cloud server. Further optionally, in order to prevent the user from taking the goods by mistake, the blocking plate may have a locking device, the goods taking area may have a scanning device, and when the purchase voucher consistent with the purchase order is scanned, the blocking plate can be unlocked, so that the user can take the goods away.

In some alternative embodiments, the picking instructions sent by the local server to the picking device may be optimized calculated picking instructions via the local server. In some embodiments, there may be multiple items in the purchase order, but it may not be an optimal solution if picking is done in order on the purchase order, and the local server may then optimize it. For example, the order of the goods in the purchase order is ABCD, but after shortest path calculation is performed based on the storage locations of the goods in ABCD, the order of the BADC is found to be optimal, and then the corresponding picking instructions can be generated according to the optimized order. The order picking device picks the order according to the order of picking after this optimization, can shorten the time of picking the order to a great extent, improves shipment efficiency, promotes user experience.

Referring further to fig. 7, which shows a flowchart of a self-service vending method according to a seventh embodiment of the present invention, the technical solution of this embodiment may be applied to a local server of an unattended physical store. The flow of this embodiment is the flow of step 602 and subsequent steps in fig. 6.

As shown in fig. 7, in step 701, in response to a completion notification that the picking device has performed the picking instruction, transmitting a delivery instruction to a delivery device within the storage area to deliver goods picked by the picking device to a pickup area of the physical store;

in step 702, an shipment completion notification for the purchase order is sent to the cloud server in response to a notification sent by the conveyor that the picked item arrived at the pickup area.

In this embodiment, step 701 is the same as step 602 in fig. 6, and is not described herein again. For step 702, the local server receives a notification that the goods of the purchase order sent by the transmitting device arrive at the pick-up area, and sends an shipment completion notification of the purchase order to the cloud server. Therefore, the cloud server can be informed that the commodity reaches the goods picking area, and the goods picking reminder is sent to the client through the cloud server.

In some optional embodiments, after the goods arrive at the pick-up area, the local server may further send a broadcast instruction to the broadcast system to control the broadcast system to broadcast information of the corresponding purchase order to notify the customer to pick up the goods at the pick-up area. For example, the order number or the name of the customer may be broadcast in the form of a broadcast or text.

In other alternative embodiments, order information may also be printed on the outsourcing of the goods in order to prevent the customer from taking the wrong goods. Furthermore, the customer can be controlled to pick up goods in a secondary verification mode, for example, after the goods of the purchase order reach the goods picking port, the goods are not directly opened to the customer but locked, the customer needs to make the machine scan the goods picking voucher, and the goods can be unlocked after the verification, so that the goods cannot be picked up by mistake or picked up by other people.

Referring further to fig. 8, which shows a flowchart of a self-service vending method according to an eighth embodiment of the present invention, the technical solution of this embodiment may be applied to a local server of an unattended physical store. The flowchart of this embodiment may be the flow of steps after and after step 702 in fig. 7.

As shown in fig. 8, in step 801, in response to a notification sent by a conveyor that a picked item arrives at a pick-up area, an shipment completion notification of a purchase order is sent to a cloud server;

in step 802, in response to the notification sent by the conveying device that the goods of the purchase order arrive at the pick-up area and are not picked up by people, sending a register instruction to the conveying device to convey the goods of the purchase order to the register area;

in step 803, a registration notification of the purchase order is sent to the cloud server;

in step 804, in response to the shipment instruction of the cloud server, the deposit area is opened.

In this embodiment, step 801 is the same as step 702 in fig. 7, and is not described herein again. For step 802, in response to the notification sent by the transmitting device that the goods of the purchase order reach the pick-up area and are not taken by people, for example, a timer and a gravity sensor may be arranged on the transmitting device, so that whether the goods are taken out and the time when the goods are placed on the conveyor belt may be detected, for example, the time may be set to 1 minute, when the goods reach the pick-up area and are taken out by people for more than 1 minute, the transmitting device may send the notification that the goods of the purchase order do not reach the local server, and then the local server sends a register instruction to the transmitting device to transfer the goods of the purchase order to the register area. The deposit area can be positioned below the goods lifting area, and the goods can be transferred from the goods lifting area to the deposit area in an inclined mode. Of course, the delivery area and the register area may also be in other achievable position relationships, and the application is not limited in this respect. Then, for step 803, the local server sends a registration notification to the cloud server. Finally, in step 804, after the local server receives the shipment instruction from the cloud server, the depository is opened to allow the customer to pick up the goods. Therefore, commodities which are not taken by people can be firstly registered, then the register area is opened for customers to take after the drawing instruction is waited for, the condition that some customers cannot draw for the time to cause the customer waiting at the back is prevented from happening, the customers which cannot draw for the time are given the opportunity again, the commodities are firstly registered, the commodities are prevented from being taken away by other customers, and the safety factor is higher.

In some optional embodiments, in the case of no-pick, it may be that the transmitting device detects no-pick for more than a predetermined time, and the transmitting device directly transmits the goods to the deposit area and sends a deposit notice of the purchase order to the local server. And after receiving the registration notification of the transmission device, the local server sends the registration notification to the cloud server. Therefore, on the basis of the embodiment, the steps can be simplified, and the burden of the local server is reduced. In the case where the article is extracted, the gravity sensor-equipped conveyance device can recognize and automatically execute the next conveyance instruction sent from the local server.

Referring to fig. 9, which shows a flowchart of a self-service vending method according to a ninth embodiment of the present invention, the technical solution of the present embodiment is applicable to a local server of an unattended physical store.

As shown in fig. 9, in step 901, in response to the unattended retrieval notification of the purchase order in the deposit area sent by the transmission device, a transfer instruction is sent to the transmission device to transmit the goods of the purchase order to the goods return area;

in step 902, a return instruction for the purchase order is sent to the cloud server.

In this embodiment, for step 901, the local server receives an instruction that the purchase order is not taken by people in the deposit area, for example, if the purchase order is stored in the deposit area for one hour, the local server sends a transfer instruction to the transfer device, so as to transfer the corresponding item to the goods return area. Wherein, the goods returned district can be located the below of depositing the district to after the commodity overtime unmanned of depositing the district of claiming, can directly topple over to the goods returned district downwards, there is the mode of rethread replenishment after the staff arrangement afterwards to put back the warehouse district, the goods returned district can be that the locking is not opened to the customer. Of course, the goods returning area and the storage area may have other position relationships, and the application is not limited in this respect. In order to save steps, the conveying device can also detect that the commodities are not picked up in the register area within preset time, automatically convey the commodities to the goods returning area and send a transfer instruction to the local server. Thereafter, for step 902, the local server sends a return instruction to the cloud server. Therefore, goods which are not claimed by people for a long time can be automatically returned, loss caused by misoperation of customers is prevented, and user experience is improved.

Referring to fig. 10, a flowchart of a self-service vending method according to a tenth embodiment of the present invention is shown, where the technical solution of the present embodiment is applicable to a local server of an unattended physical store to implement a service logic of replenishment.

As shown in fig. 10, in step 1001, the inventory amount of each item in the local inventory database of the physical store is monitored;

in step 1002, when it is monitored that the inventory quantity of one or more commodities is lower than a threshold value, generating a replenishment notice corresponding to the one or more commodities, and sending the replenishment notice to a cloud server;

in step 1003, in response to the scanned bar code of the goods to be replenished in the replenishment area, determining the goods number and the replenishment quantity of the goods to be replenished, and generating a corresponding replenishment instruction;

in step 1004, in response to completion of replenishment, updating the stock quantity of the goods to be replenished based on the replenishment quantity;

in step 1005, a replenishment completion notification and the replenishment quantity of the commodity to be replenished are sent to the cloud server.

In this embodiment, for step 1001, the local server monitors the inventory amount of each item in the local inventory database of the physical store, for example, the inventory amount may be detected every 5 minutes or every hour, and the present application is not limited in this respect. Then, for step 1002, when it is monitored that the inventory quantity of one or more of the commodities is lower than the threshold, a replenishment notice corresponding to the one or more commodities is generated and sent to the cloud server, for example, a corresponding threshold may be set for the inventory of each commodity, and when the inventory quantity of the one or more commodities is lower than the threshold, a replenishment notice is generated and sent to the cloud server. Then, in step 1003, the physical store may set a scanning device in the replenishment area, so as to scan and identify the replenished goods, further determine the goods number and the replenishment quantity of the goods, and generate a corresponding replenishment instruction to control the picking device to replenish the goods. Thereafter, in step 1004, when the local server receives the replenishment completion notification sent by the picking device, the inventory quantity of the corresponding item in the local inventory database is updated based on the replenishment quantity of the certain item. Finally, in step 1005, after completing the replenishment, the local server further needs to send a notification of completion of the replenishment and the replenishment quantity of each product to the cloud server, so that the cloud server can also update the inventory quantity of the corresponding product in the physical store, and ensure the consistency between the cloud inventory database and the local data.

In some optional embodiments, in the step 1003, in response to the scanned barcode of the item to be restocked in the restocking area, determining the item number and the restocking amount of the item to be restocked, and generating the corresponding restocking instruction further includes the following steps (not shown in the figure): responding to the scanned bar codes of the goods to be replenished in the replenishing area, and determining the goods number and the replenishment quantity of the goods to be replenished; acquiring an inventory position corresponding to the goods to be replenished based on the goods number; and generating a corresponding replenishment instruction based on the commodity number, the replenishment quantity and the stock position of the commodity to be replenished. The present embodiment differs from the above-described embodiments in that the present embodiment is directed to a case where stock locations are stored in a local server, and the above-described embodiments are directed to a case where stock locations are stored in a picking device such as a robot. Since the stock position is stored in the local server, after the product number is obtained by scanning, the stock position of the product associated with the product number can be obtained through the product number (the stock position is unique for each product for example), and then a corresponding replenishment instruction can be generated based on the product number, the replenishment quantity and the stock position to control the picking device for example, a manipulator replenishment.

In some specific application scenarios, for example, the cloud server sends a series of replenishment instructions to a client of a replenishment operator, then the replenishment operator places corresponding quantities of commodities in a replenishment area one by one according to the instructions, after the replenishment is completed, a placement determination instruction is sent to the cloud server, the cloud server sends the replenishment instructions to the local server, the local server sends corresponding instructions to the conveying device and the picking device to perform replenishment operation, after the picking device completes replenishment, a notification of completion of replenishment is sent to the local server, and the local server updates storage positions and storage quantities of the commodities correspondingly and feeds back the notification to the cloud server to update stock quantities of the commodities in the entity store synchronously.

Referring to fig. 11, a three-terminal interaction diagram of a self-service vending method according to an eleventh embodiment of the invention is shown. As shown, the three terminals are a client, a cloud server and a local server, respectively.

Firstly, after a customer scans the bar codes of the commodity samples in the experience area of the physical store and operates, a request for adding or deleting corresponding commodities in a shopping cart is sent to the cloud server. Then, the cloud server updates the inventory data based on the add or delete request, and preempts the corresponding commodity share for the add operation of the customer. After the customer submits the corresponding order placing request, the cloud server generates a corresponding purchase order and sends the purchase order to the local server. The local server then picks and delivers the item based on the purchase order. When the local server receives the notice that the order reaches the goods lifting area, the local server sends a corresponding notice to the cloud server to remind the customer to pick up the goods. When the commodity responding to the purchase order is not claimed within the first preset time, the local server sends a register notice to the cloud server, and then the cloud server sends the register notice to the client. And when the commodities of the purchase order are unmanned and taken at the second preset time, the order is transferred to a goods returning area, the local server sends a goods returning request to the cloud server, and then the cloud server performs corresponding stock reduction operation after receiving the goods returning request. Of course, a corresponding replenishment process (not shown in the figure) is also included, which may specifically refer to the descriptions in the fifth embodiment and the tenth embodiment, and is not described herein again.

Through the scheme, all links of the entity store can be unattended, the commodity share is pre-occupied for the user when the user adds the shopping cart, the deposit area and the goods return area are set for the user, and the user experience can be greatly improved.

Referring further to fig. 12, a schematic structural diagram of a self-service vending system according to a twelfth embodiment of the present invention is shown.

As shown in fig. 12, the self-service vending system includes a cloud server of an unattended physical store, a local server of the unattended physical store, and the unattended physical store itself. Wherein the unattended store comprises at least: the experience area is used for displaying the commodity sample, wherein the commodity sample comprises information for providing commodity details and a purchase entrance of the commodity sample to the client, and the purchase entrance at least comprises a virtual shopping cart; the warehouse area is associated with the experience area and can be arranged independently of the experience area and used for storing inventory commodities, and comprises an intelligent three-dimensional shelf, a goods picking device and a conveying device; the goods taking area is arranged outside the storage area and is connected with the conveying device of the storage area and used for taking goods; and the goods supplementing area is arranged outside the storage area and connected with the conveying device of the storage area and is used for supplementing goods to the storage area. Wherein, the storage area can be adjacent setting with experience district, also can be independent of experience district, sets up in other places that convenience of customers got goods, and this application does not have the restriction in this aspect. The goods picking area can be arranged at the place where the warehousing area and the experience area are connected, and is convenient for customers to pick up goods after ordering. The replenishment area can be arranged on one side of the storage area, which is far away from the experience area, so that the customers do not influence shopping and picking in the experience area.

Wherein, storage equipment (like intelligent three-dimensional goods shelves, sorting device, conveyer etc.) can assemble, avoids monomer unmanned vending machine to be difficult to the extension, shortcoming such as inconvenient installation transport, adopts assembled components of a whole that can function independently design. The goods to be sold can be regularly placed in the storage box of the storage equipment according to a certain code and addressing, so that the goods can be conveniently extracted. The warehousing equipment can automatically take out the specified goods to a conveying belt outside the storage cabinet according to the control command, and the operation is called shipment. The warehousing equipment can also automatically deposit designated goods into the storage cabinets according to control instructions, which is called inventory. The automated transfer device may transfer the goods to a designated shipment port so that the user may take the purchased goods at the shipment port. Meanwhile, the commodities can be placed in the storage box with determined specifications to support the storage of various irregular commodities (including cold and fresh foods), and the storage variety of the commodities can be infinite as long as the size of a field allows, and the storage capacity of a single commodity can be large enough.

According to the invention, the open type experience shopping shelf is arranged in the commodity experience area, so that customers can take off commodities, feel and observe the commodities and enjoy the pleasure of shopping in the supermarket. The commodity of goods shelves has alarming function is purchased in open experience, prevents to carry the experience commodity body privately and walk out experience district. Meanwhile, the commodities in the storage area can be prevented from being eaten and carried privately to a great extent due to not being opened to customers. The user can scan codes through software such as a smart phone APP or WeChat to select goods and place an order, and the user is supported to purchase multiple goods at one time. The user can check information such as manufacturers, production places, materials, formulas, shelf lives and the like of the commodities through code scanning, and the method is convenient and fast. After the user paid through smart mobile phone APP or little letter, many commodities that the customer purchased were conveyed to getting the goods mouth by automatic packing, and user customer's handbag leaves convenient and fast.

The embodiment of the invention designs the intelligent vending store for realizing unattended self-help shopping of customers based on the technologies of automatic storage, mechanical arms, automatic article conveying and the like and by combining the technologies of mobile internet, mobile third-party payment, computer information processing, internet of things, artificial intelligence and the like.

In other embodiments, the present invention further provides a non-volatile computer storage medium, where the computer storage medium stores computer-executable instructions, and the computer-executable instructions may execute the self-service vending method in any of the above method embodiments;

as one embodiment, a non-volatile computer storage medium of the present invention stores computer-executable instructions configured to:

As another embodiment, the non-volatile computer storage medium of the present invention stores computer-executable instructions configured to:

As a non-volatile computer-readable storage medium, may be used to store non-volatile software programs, non-volatile computer-executable programs, and modules, such as program instructions/modules corresponding to the self-service vending method in embodiments of the present invention. The one or more program instructions are stored in the non-transitory computer readable storage medium and when executed by a processor perform a self-service vending method of any of the method embodiments described above.

The non-volatile computer-readable storage medium may include a storage program area and a storage data area, wherein the storage program area may store an operating system, an application program required for at least one function; the storage data area may store data created according to the use of the information delivery apparatus, and the like. Further, the non-volatile computer-readable storage medium may include high speed random access memory, and may also include non-volatile memory, such as at least one magnetic disk storage device, flash memory device, or other non-volatile solid state storage device. In some embodiments, the non-transitory computer readable storage medium optionally includes memory located remotely from the processor, and the remote memory may be connected to the information delivery device via a network. Examples of such networks include, but are not limited to, the internet, intranets, local area networks, mobile communication networks, and combinations thereof.

Embodiments of the present invention also provide a computer program product comprising a computer program stored on a non-volatile computer-readable storage medium, the computer program comprising program instructions that, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform any of the self-service vending methods described above.

Fig. 13 is a schematic structural diagram of an electronic device according to a thirteenth embodiment of the present invention, and as shown in fig. 13, the electronic device includes:

one or more processors 1310 and a memory 1320, one processor 1310 being illustrated in fig. 13.

The apparatus of the self-service vending method may further include: an input device 1330 and an output device 1340.

The processor 1310, the memory 1320, the input device 1330, and the output device 1340 may be connected by a bus or other means, such as by a bus in FIG. 13.

The memory 1320 is a non-volatile computer-readable storage medium as described above. The processor 1310 executes various functional applications of the server and data processing by executing nonvolatile software programs, instructions and modules stored in the memory 1320, so as to implement the self-service vending method of the above-mentioned method embodiment.

The input device 1330 may receive input numeric or character information and generate key signal inputs related to user settings and function controls of the information delivery device. The output device 1340 may include a display device such as a display screen.

The product can execute the method provided by the embodiment of the invention, and has corresponding functional modules and beneficial effects of the execution method. For technical details that are not described in detail in this embodiment, reference may be made to the method provided by the embodiment of the present invention.

As an embodiment, the electronic device is applied to a cloud server of an unattended entity store, and includes: at least one processor; and a memory communicatively coupled to the at least one processor; wherein the memory stores instructions executable by the at least one processor to enable the at least one processor to:

As another embodiment, the electronic device is applied to a local server of an unattended physical store, and includes: at least one processor; and a memory communicatively coupled to the at least one processor; wherein the memory stores instructions executable by the at least one processor to enable the at least one processor to:

The above-described embodiments of the apparatus are merely illustrative, and the units described as separate parts may or may not be physically separate, and parts displayed as units may or may not be physical units, may be located in one place, or may be distributed on a plurality of network units. Some or all of the modules may be selected according to actual needs to achieve the purpose of the solution of the present embodiment. One of ordinary skill in the art can understand and implement it without inventive effort.

Through the above description of the embodiments, those skilled in the art will clearly understand that each embodiment can be implemented by software plus a necessary general hardware platform, and certainly can also be implemented by hardware. With this understanding in mind, the above-described technical solutions may be embodied in the form of a software product, which can be stored in a computer-readable storage medium such as ROM/RAM, magnetic disk, optical disk, etc., and includes instructions for causing a computer device (which may be a personal computer, a server, or a network device, etc.) to execute the methods described in the embodiments or some parts of the embodiments.

Finally, it should be noted that: the above examples are only intended to illustrate the technical solution of the present invention, but not to limit it; although the present invention has been described in detail with reference to the foregoing embodiments, it will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that: the technical solutions described in the foregoing embodiments may still be modified, or some technical features may be equivalently replaced; and such modifications or substitutions do not depart from the spirit and scope of the corresponding technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention.

Claims

1. A self-service selling method is applied to a cloud server of an unattended entity store, and comprises the following steps:

responding to an access request of a client to a purchase link of a commodity sample, and acquiring the position information of the client;

providing item details of the item sample and a purchase portal to the client when the location information of the client is within a location area of the physical store, the purchase portal including at least a virtual shopping cart;

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the purchase link is a purchase link specific to a sample of merchandise within the physical store.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein after sending the purchase order to a local server of the physical store, the method further comprises:

and responding to the shipment completion notification of the local server to the commodity of the purchase order, and sending a corresponding shipment reminding to the client side of the purchase order.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

responding to a registration notice of the local server to the commodity of the purchase order, and sending a corresponding registration prompt to a client of the purchase order;

and receiving a goods picking request from the client, and sending a goods delivery instruction to a local server so as to deliver goods of the registered purchase order.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

in response to receiving a replenishment notification of the local server, sending a replenishment request of a physical store corresponding to the local server to a replenishment system;

updating the inventory quantity of the at least one commodity of the physical store in the cloud inventory database in response to the replenishment quantity of the at least one commodity returned by the local server.

6. A self-service selling method is applied to a local server of an unattended entity store, and comprises the following steps:

receiving a purchase order from a cloud server in the method according to any one of claims 1-5, sending a pick-up instruction matching items of the purchase order to a pick-up device within a storage area of the physical store, the pick-up instruction including an item storage location and an item quantity;

7. The method of claim 6, wherein after sending a pick instruction matching an item of the purchase order to a pick device within a storage area of the physical store, the method further comprises:

in response to detecting that the goods corresponding to the number of goods of the purchase order arrive at a pick-up area, sending an shipment completion notification for the purchase order to the cloud server.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein after sending a transfer instruction to a transfer device within the storage area, the method further comprises:

sending an shipment completion notification for the purchase order to the cloud server in response to the notification sent by the conveyor that the picked item arrived at the pickup area.

9. The method of claim 7 or 8, wherein after sending the shipment completion notification for the purchase order to the cloud server, the method further comprises:

in response to the notification sent by the conveying device that the goods of the purchase order arrive at the goods picking area and are not picked by people, sending a register instruction to the conveying device to convey the goods of the purchase order to a register area;

sending a registration notice of the purchase order to the cloud server;

and responding to a shipment instruction of the cloud server, and opening the register area.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

in response to the notice that the purchase order sent by the conveying device is not picked up in the register area, sending a transfer instruction to the conveying device so as to convey the commodities of the purchase order to a goods returning area;

and sending a return instruction of the purchase order to the cloud server.

11. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

monitoring the inventory quantity of each commodity in a local inventory database of the physical store;

when the condition that the stock quantity of one or more commodities is lower than a threshold value is monitored, generating a replenishment notice corresponding to the one or more commodities, and sending the replenishment notice to a cloud server;

responding to the scanned bar codes of the goods to be supplemented in the goods supplementing area, determining the goods number and the goods supplementing quantity of the goods to be supplemented, and generating a corresponding goods supplementing instruction;

updating the stock quantity of the goods to be restocked based on the restocking quantity in response to completion of restocking;

and sending a replenishment completion notice and the replenishment quantity of the goods to be replenished to a cloud server.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the determining the item number and the replenishment quantity of the item to be replenished in response to the scanned barcode of the item to be replenished in the replenishment area, and the generating the corresponding replenishment instruction further comprises:

responding to the scanned bar codes of the goods to be replenished in the replenishing area, and determining the goods number and the replenishment quantity of the goods to be replenished;

acquiring an inventory position corresponding to the goods to be replenished based on the goods number;

and generating a corresponding replenishment instruction based on the commodity number, the replenishment quantity and the stock position of the commodity to be replenished.

13. An electronic device applied to a cloud server of an unattended physical store, comprising:

at least one processor; and the number of the first and second groups,

a memory communicatively coupled to the at least one processor;

wherein the memory stores instructions executable by the at least one processor to enable the at least one processor to perform the method of any one of claims 1-5.

14. An electronic device applied to a local server of an unattended physical store, comprising:

at least one processor; and the number of the first and second groups,

a memory communicatively coupled to the at least one processor;

wherein the memory stores instructions executable by the at least one processor to enable the at least one processor to perform the method of any one of claims 6-12.

15. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing computer instructions for causing a computer to perform the method of any one of claims 1-5.

16. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing computer instructions for causing a computer to perform the method of any one of claims 6-12.

17. A self-service vending system comprising the electronic device of claim 12 applied to a cloud server of an unattended physical store and the electronic device of claim 13 applied to a local server of the unattended physical store.

18. The self-service vending system of claim 17, further comprising an unattended physical store, the physical store comprising:

the experience area is used for displaying the commodity sample, wherein the commodity sample comprises information for providing commodity details and a purchase entrance of the commodity sample to the client, and the purchase entrance at least comprises a virtual shopping cart;

a storage area associated with and capable of being set independently of the experience area for storing inventory items, the storage area including intelligent stereoscopic shelves, a picking device, and a conveying device;

the goods taking area is arranged outside the storage area and is connected with the conveying device of the storage area and used for taking goods; and

and the goods supplementing area is arranged outside the storage area, is connected with the conveying device of the storage area and is used for supplementing goods to the storage area.