JP2000222460A - Information service method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To make detectable a commodity in which a purchaser takes an interest by allowing a client side to select guide information submitted for reading of the guide information on plural commodities and allowing an information server side to count the number of selection times of the guide information and to accumulate counted results about plural commodities. SOLUTION: A user starts a browser on a client 1 and accesses the home page of an information server 3. Display information is sent to the client 1 from the server 3 and the display information is shown on the client 1. When the user of the client 1 select a commodity on an index display picture, a read instruction about it is sent to the server 3. The server 3 analyzes it and detects that the button about the product is operated. The server 3 counts the number of button operation times about the product and updates a variable to be stored. It is shown as commodity guide information on the client 1.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to an information service method for providing information from an information server to a client via a network such as the Internet.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in a supermarket, a convenience store, or the like, a POS terminal or the like is used to count the number of products sold, sales, and the like for each product type, and accumulate the counting results in a host computer. Also,
The accumulated results are tabulated on a weekly or monthly basis, and the manager analyzes the tabulated results to find top-selling or dying products.

[0003] In this way, the purchase of goods for the next month and the like are determined, and the goods are sold with high profit and sales efficiency. In addition, a system has been proposed in which a register and a host computer are connected instead of the POS terminal to provide the same function as the POS terminal.

[0004]

Conventionally, in a system of this kind, since the products offered for sale are to be counted, the consumers who took the shopping but did not make the purchases. It is difficult for the manager to know the products that are just noticed, that is, the products that the product purchaser is interested in but did not purchase for some reason.

[0005] Further, as an information service method of a product for sale, a method of distributing an advertisement or a flyer printed on paper or an information service system using the Internet or the like is known. This is one-sided information provided by the merchant, and the merchandise seller cannot know the merchandise that the merchandise buyer is interested in.

[0006] In view of the above, an object of the present invention is to provide an information service method that allows a purchaser to detect a product of interest and a degree of interest without relying on the sales result of the product. It is in.

[0007]

In order to achieve the above object, according to the present invention, a plurality of clients and an information server are connected to a network, and a client accessing the information server from the information server is provided. On the other hand, in the information service method for providing guidance information of a plurality of products, the client side selects the guidance information to be provided for browsing among the guidance information of the plurality of products, and the information server side selects the number of times of selection of the guidance information. And the information server counts the counting result for the plurality of products.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the information service method according to the first aspect, the information server is provided at a predetermined interval.
It is characterized by outputting the result of the aggregation.

[0009]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a system configuration of an information service system to which the present invention is applied. In FIG. 1, a client 1 is connected to a network 2 such as the Internet and displays guide information provided by an information server 3 described later. The information server 3 is connected to the network 2,
When there is an access from the client 1, the guide information of the product is presented to the client 1. General-purpose computers can be used for the client 1 and the information server 3. The client 1 is equipped with a browser (display software) for displaying product guidance information described in the form of an HTML document and communication software for communicating with the server 3. These software are available on WWW (W
Known software known as browser software for old Wide Web can be used.

The information server 3 is provided with communication software for communicating with the client 1 and application software (FIG. 3) for guiding the product in response to the access from the client 1 and providing the client 1 with the application software. Product Information (HTM
L document) has been implemented.

An information service method according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 2 schematically shows screen contents displayed on the client 1 side. FIG. 3 shows the contents of application software executed by the CPU on the information server 3 side. Although the processing procedure shown in FIG. 3 is expressed in terms of functions for convenience of description, it is actually described in a program language executable by the CPU and stored in a storage device in the information server 3. In addition, the above application program is stored on
The information may be stored in a recording medium such as a ROM and installed in the information server 3.

The user starts a browser on the client 1 and accesses a home page of the information server 3.
Normally, a communication address called a URL is assigned to the information server on the Internet, so the client 1 accesses the information server 3 using this communication address in the same manner as in the related art.

When the information server 3 receives the access from the client 1, it starts the application program shown in FIG.

The display information for the index (reference numeral 10 in FIG. 2) is sent from the information server 3 to the client 1, and the client 1 displays the display information (more precisely, the display information read by the client 1) (step). S10).

The display information is described in the HTML language, and the client 1 analyzes a command (called a tag) described in the HTML language and performs information processing corresponding to the command. This information processing includes displaying a character string, setting the format of the designated character string, receiving a button operation, and executing a process defined for the operated button. In the present embodiment, the button indicated by reference numeral 11 in FIG.
One is prepared. Products A to E are associated with the five buttons 11, and when the user operates any of the buttons 11 using a mouse, product guidance information 12 corresponding to the operated button 11 is displayed as shown in FIG. , A tag related to the button 11 is defined. The product guidance information 12 of the present embodiment is also transferred from the information server 3 to the client 1 in the form of an HTML document. In the present embodiment, the product guidance information includes a photograph and a character string (text) for product guidance. On HTML documents,
The file name and display position attached to the photo, the text and its format are described. The browser of the client 1 reads the photo from the HTML document from the information server 1, and combines the read photo and text. To display.

Note that a button 13 for returning to the index screen is provided in the product guidance information, and when this button is operated, display information for the index is displayed.

Returning to FIG. 3, the user of the client 1
For example, when a product A is selected on the index display screen, an instruction to read an HTML document related to the product A is sent to the information server 3. The information server 3 analyzes this read command, and detects that the button for the product A has been operated in the determination processing of step S20.

The information server 3 updates the variable AA for storing the number of times of operation of the button for the product A by 1 (step S21). These variables are provided corresponding to the products A to E and are stored in a storage device in the information server 3.

Thereafter, as in the conventional case, in response to a read command from the client 1 regarding the product A, the product guide information (HYML document) is read from the storage device and transferred to the client. Thereby, the product guidance information 12 is displayed on the client 1 as shown in FIG. In response to the operation of the return button 13, the display information for the index is sent from the information server 3 to the client 1, and the display information 10 for the index is displayed on the client 1 as shown in FIG. 2 (steps S23 → S22). ).

When the product B is operated on the index display screen, the processing procedure of FIG. 2 proceeds to steps S31 to S33, and the information server 3 counts the number of times the product B is selected and provides guidance on the product B. Information is displayed on the client 1 side. Similarly, when the client 1 requests browsing of the product guidance information on the remaining products C to E, the above-described processing is executed.

In this way, the information server 3 accepts accesses from the plurality of clients 1 and provides the guide information of the product requested by the client 1 and, every time a product to be guided is selected, the number of selections Is counted.

When the information server 1 detects from the internal clock that the current date and time has reached the total time of one day, it outputs the values of the variables AA to EE from the internal storage device (steps S40 to S41). . The output form may be any form desired by the system user. Examples are display by a display device, printing by a printer connected to the information server 3, and connection to the information server 3 by the Internet or another signal cable. Transfer to a computer. Thereafter, the information server 3 uses the variables WEEKA to WEE indicating the results of the tallying for the tallying on a weekly basis.
While accumulating today's total result in KE, the variable AA
EE are all initialized to 0 (zero) to prepare for the next day's totaling (step S42).

When it is detected from the internal clock that one week has elapsed from the totaling date and time of the previous week, the information server 3
Outputs the values of the totaling results WEEKA to WEEKE, initializes the values of the variables storing the totaling results, and prepares for the next week's totaling (steps S50 to S52).

The greater the number of selections of the product guide information, that is, the greater the number of times of browsing, the higher the interest of the product purchaser, indicating that the number of times of browsing can be used as an index of the degree of interest in the product. The system user (management, merchandise distributor) can know high-interest products or low-interest products without waiting for the sales results of the products by looking at the output results of the day or the week. .

The following embodiment can be carried out in addition to the above embodiment.

1) In the above-described embodiment, the number of times of browsing the product guide information is counted by the number of button operations. However, the number of times of reading the product guide information may be counted for each product.

2) In the above embodiment, the Internet is introduced as a network, but the present invention can be applied to a wide area network (LAN).

3) In the above-described embodiment, a system for guiding a product is introduced. However, mail-order sales of the product may be performed in association with the guidance of the product.

In the above-described embodiment, the tallying is performed at one-day and weekly intervals. However, needless to say, tallying may be performed on a monthly or yearly basis.

4) In addition to the method described above, the method of outputting the result of counting the number of times of browsing of the guidance information is a method of transferring a document describing the result of counting to another server or client by e-mail, or the method of sending the document by facsimile. A method of transmitting to a specific FAX transceiver can also be adopted.

5) The number of times of browsing for each product obtained in the above embodiment can be used as an index of the audience rating information of each user.

[0033]

As described above, according to the first aspect of the present invention, when guiding a product, the information server counts and totals the number of selections of the guide information for each product. In addition, a product seller can know a product that the product purchaser is interested in or a product that is not interested. In addition, by comparing the result with the sale of the product, it is possible to know the product that the product purchaser (consumer) is interested in but has not purchased.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, by outputting the totaling result at a predetermined interval, the operator does not have to perform the manual output operation.
It is also possible to output the total result.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a system configuration according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a display example according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure of the information server 3.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 client 2 network 3 information server

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. An information service method in which a plurality of clients and an information server are connected to a network, and guidance information of a plurality of products is provided from the information server to a client accessing the information server. The client selects the guide information to be browsed from among the guide information, the information server counts the number of times the guide information is selected, and the information server totals the counting result for the plurality of products. An information service method comprising: 2. The information service method according to claim 1, wherein the information server outputs a totaling result at a predetermined interval.