JP2002163437A - System and method for updating article price - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To automatically price articles and to update a price list so that an electronic store is continuously competitive in selling based mainly on pricing to other electronic stores handling articles of the same kinds. SOLUTION: Price information on a competing article of another specified store is extracted from downloaded homepage data of the store and a sellable price of an article which is inferior in price setting is calculated from its limit discount price defined in profitable value algorithm. Then the article has its price updated into the calculated sellable price. Consequently, the articles is always competitive to articles of the same kinds at other electronic stores.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a product price updating system and a product price updating system for pricing products and updating price lists in an electronic store that sells products on an electronic advertisement medium represented by a web site on the Internet. It relates to the update method.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing a system for price setting and updating of a price list in a conventional electronic store, for example. In FIG. 7, 21 is the WEB of the shop.
, A control terminal for operating the own shop WEB server 21, a remote shop WEB server 23 for building a web of another shop, 24 for the Internet, and 25 for WEB information connected to the Internet 24. It is a terminal to browse. Reference numeral 26 denotes own store homepage data configured on the own store WEB server 21, and reference numeral 27 denotes another store homepage data configured on the other store WEB server 23.

[0003] The own store homepage data 26 and the other store homepage data 27 are usually constituted by a homepage description language called HTML. The third party, the customer,
Using the terminal 25, this own shop homepage data 26
By browsing the other store homepage data 27, the user purchases a desired product by referring to the price information of the product.

[0004] In such a conventional product price updating system, when an attempt is made to maintain a superior sales competitiveness in comparing a product price list of the own store with a product price list of another store, a system administrator periodically updates the system. By browsing and checking the other store homepage data 27 and finding that the product price of the own store is inferior, the control terminal 22 updates the own store homepage data 26 so that the product price setting of the own store is sold. Change to something competitive.

[0005] In the example of FIG.
Assuming that the products a, b, and c of No. 6 are competitors with the products A, B, and C of the other store homepage data 27, the products a and c are lower in price than the products A and C, and the own store is superior. And the store b is inferior because the price of the product b is higher than that of the product B. At the time when this fact is confirmed, in order to have sales competitiveness, the own store homepage data 26 is revised using the control terminal 22 so that the price of the product b is revised from 150 yen to 130 yen, which is less than the competitive price of 140 yen. To change.

[0006]

The system for price setting and updating the price list of a product in a conventional electronic store is configured as described above, and the system administrator visually sets the price of the product in another store. Was monitored and compared with the product pricing of their own store. Thereafter, when it became apparent that the product prices of the own store were inferior, it was necessary to reconsider the product price settings of the own store and manually publish the new price by changing the homepage data.

[0007] In this method, the system administrator must constantly monitor the homepage data 27 of the other store, and the real-time property is insufficient due to the characteristics of the electronic store where the product information is always visible to the customer. There was a problem that a time zone where competitiveness was inferior occurred.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems, and the electronic store has an advantage over the electronic store of another store which handles the same kind of products by increasing the price competitiveness of the store. The purpose is to automatically update product pricing and price lists to maintain.

[0009]

In the merchandise price updating system according to the present invention, another merchandise data monitoring means for acquiring another merchandise price list at a predetermined interval, and a first merchandise price in the other merchandise price list. The second of the own shop price list corresponding to
The first product price is compared with the second product price.
Own store data comparing and correcting means for correcting the second product price when the product price is lower than the product price.

When the own store data comparison and correction means determines that the corresponding second product price or the corrected second product price is low by comparison with the first product price, the own store data comparison and correction means determines whether the second product price is low. The second feature is that the product prices are rearranged to the top of the own store price list.

[0011] The commodity price updating method according to the present invention is based on a comparison between a first commodity price of another store price list acquired at a predetermined interval and a corresponding second commodity price of the own shop price list. When the first commodity price is lower than the second commodity price, a step of providing the second commodity price corrected by the limit discount price for each of the predetermined number of ranges is provided.

[0012] In the step of providing the second commodity price corrected by the limit discount price for each predetermined number of ranges, the second commodity price or the second commodity price corresponding to the first commodity price may be compared with the first commodity price. When it is determined that the corrected second product price is low, the second product price is sorted to a higher rank in the own store price list.

[0013]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Embodiment 1 FIG. 1 is a system configuration diagram for realizing a product price updating system according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes a local WEB server for constructing a local WEB, reference numeral 2 denotes a control terminal for operating the local WEB server 1, reference numeral 3 denotes a remote WEB server for building a Web of another store, and reference numeral 3 denotes a Web server 1. Homepage data indicating the electronic store, which is its own store configured above, 4 is the Internet, 5 is the W connected to the Internet 4
A terminal for browsing EB information.

Reference numeral 6 denotes another store data monitoring means for automatically monitoring the homepage data of the other store WEB server 3;
Is the own store data comparison and correction means for comparing the extracted monitored product data of the other store with the corresponding competitor products of the own store and correcting the own store data as necessary. Store homepage data, 9 is another store WEB server 3
This is another store homepage data configured above.

FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram showing an example of the own store homepage data 8, and FIG.
FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram illustrating an example of the configuration. It is assumed that the products a, b, and c of the own store homepage data 8 shown in FIG. 2 are competitors with the products A, B, and C of the other store homepage data 9 shown in FIG.

[0016] In order to maintain the sales competitiveness mainly for the price setting with respect to the electronic store of another store handling the same kind of products,
First, the other store data monitoring means 6 downloads the other store homepage data 9 at the designated timing, and extracts price information of the competitor product of the designated other store. Next, the own store data comparison / correction means 7 compares the product price setting of the own store with the product price setting of another store. If the product price setting of the own store lacks superiority, the own store homepage data 8 is changed. I do.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the flow of processing from the time when the other store data monitoring means 6 downloads the other store homepage data 9 to the extraction of the price information of the specified competitor's competitor product. FIG. 5 shows the own store data comparison / correction means 7.
Is a flowchart showing the flow of processing until the product price setting of the own store is corrected with a limit discount price for each of a predetermined number of ranges.

FIG. 6 shows an example of downloaded other store homepage data 9. As shown in FIG. 6, the other store homepage data 9 is in the browsing display format 1.
1, which is internally displayed in HTML data format 12
Is stored in. The HTML data format 12 is an industry specification established for the purpose of standardizing the display format on the Internet. The data is structured by attaching a tag as a mark to each display component. Is intended to define the display format and does not include the meaning of data. That is, the HTML data format 12 is composed of a character string and a numeric string which are tags and data, and indicates individual tags within a range surrounded by <>.

The other store data monitoring means 6 monitors the other store homepage data 9 at the designated timing, and confirms whether the timing is the designated timing in step S1 of FIG. The specified timing is based on the passage of a certain time, for example, in units of several hours,
If the date and time at which the homepage data is likely to be updated due to the customs of another store is known in advance, it may be set to, for example, a specific time on a specific day. If it is the designated timing, the other store homepage data 9 is downloaded in step S2.

Next, in step S3, a designated product is searched from the other store homepage data 9. At this time, specifically, a search is performed to determine whether a character string indicating the designated product is included in the HTML data format 12. For example, when searching for a product B at another store, data including a character string "B" is searched.

In step S4, it is confirmed whether or not the search is successful. If the search is successful, the process proceeds to step S5. If not, the control terminal 2 is notified in step S6 that the search was not successful. .

Thereafter, a price corresponding to the designated commodity searched in step S5 is extracted. Shown below is H in FIG.
A part of the TML data format 12 is extracted, and the underlined parts are the product name “B” and the price information “1”.
40 ". <FONT FACE = "MS Mincho" LANG = "JA"><P ALIGN = "JUSTIF
Y "> B </ FONT></TD><TD WIDTH =" 52% "VALIGN =" TOP "><FONT FACE =" Century "><P ALIGN =" JUSTIFY "> 140 </ FONT>
<FONT FACE = "MS Mincho" LANG = "JA"> Yen </ FONT></TD> That is, the character that matches the character string "B" of the product name found on the HTML data format 12 in step S3. In step S5, the character string "B"
When it is confirmed that the numeral string “140” and the character string “yen” are present behind “,” the other store data monitoring means 6 can extract the price information of the product “B” as “140 yen”. become.

As described above, in the HTML data format 12, there is no rule for expressing the meaning of data, so the price information of competing products of other stores is posted as instructions of data to be monitored and extracted by the other store data monitoring means 6. The system administrator confirms the homepage data format 12 of the other store, and defines the mutual positional relationship between the product information and the price information to be searched as a search method. When the homepage data format 12 of another store is changed to an expression format that is incompatible with a previously defined search method, it becomes impossible to extract product information and price information. At this time, as shown in step S6, the other store data monitoring means 6 monitors the control terminal 2 for the specified other store homepage data 9 at the specified timing. Notify that information could not be extracted.

Next, with reference to FIG. 5, a process until the own store data comparison / correction means 7 corrects the product price setting of the own store with the limit discount price for each of the predetermined number of ranges will be described. In step S11, the own store data comparison and correction unit 7 compares the other store product price setting extracted by the other store data monitoring unit 6 with the own store product price setting, and determines whether the own store product price setting is inferior. Confirm. For the inferior products, step S12
The processing moves to. As shown in FIGS. 2 and 3 as an example,
When the products a, b, and c of the own store homepage data 8 are compared with the products A, B, and C of the other store homepage data 9, the products a and c are dominant, and the product b is Inferior. That is, the processing after step S12 is performed for the product b.

In step S12, a sellable price that is lower than the product price setting of another store and higher than the limit discount price is calculated by using the marginal discount price of the corresponding product calculated by applying the profit algorithm defined by the own store. As an example of a profitable algorithm, there is a uniform low-price algorithm such as "the own store product which is found to exceed the price of other store products is revised to a price that is 5 yen lower than the price of other store products". Also, in practice, there are few cases where such a simple algorithm can be applied to secure the profit margin at which the business of the store is established, and the expected value for the total sales of the corresponding product in the store,
The stock quantity, purchase price, average handling quantity, and the like are stored in advance as data, and a limit discount price is calculated for each predetermined number of ranges.

In step S13, it is confirmed whether or not the sellable price has been calculated, and if it has been calculated, the process proceeds to step S1.
The process proceeds to step S4, and in step S14, the product price setting of the corresponding product in the own store homepage data 8 is updated to a sellable price. If the sellable price cannot be calculated in step S13, the control terminal 2 is notified that the product price that is profitable could not be set in step S15. This notification allows management to review pricing strategies and update profitability algorithms.

Further, in the present embodiment, a measure for changing the order of commodities to be posted on the own store homepage data 8 can be added. Generally, in an online store that displays a large number of products, the products listed higher in the product catalog have a more effective advertising effect. This is because the size of the screen that can be displayed on the terminal 5 has an upper limit, and the products listed higher in the product catalog are more noticeable. When the calculated sellable price is significantly superior to the product price setting of other stores, not only will the price setting of the relevant product be revised, but also the order of the products will be changed, so that the price setting will be updated up to the point of the price revision. The merchandise that was inferior to the store can be advertised as a featured product of its own store, with an advantage over other stores. Similar processing can also be performed on a product that has already been found to be superior in comparison with the product price setting of another store.

[0028]

Since the present invention is configured as described above, it has the following effects.

The price information of the competitor's competitor specified by the other store is extracted from the downloaded other store's homepage data, and the product whose price is inferior is sold from the marginal discount price for each number range defined in the profit algorithm. Calculate the possible price. Thereafter, the price of the product is automatically updated based on the calculated available price. This allows
It is possible to always maintain sales competitiveness, mainly pricing, with respect to other electronic stores that handle similar products.

Further, when the calculated sellable price is significantly superior to the product price setting of another store, not only is the price setting of the corresponding product revised, but also the order of the product is changed, so that the price setting is changed. The merchandise in which the own store was inferior to the time of the revision can be advertised as a featured product of the own store to show its superiority over other stores.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a system configuration diagram for realizing a product price update system according to a first embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram showing an example of homepage homepage data 8 used in the first embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram showing an example of another store homepage data 9 used in the first embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a flow of processing from when the other store data monitoring means 6 downloads the other store homepage data 9 and extracts price information of a specified competitor's competitor product in the first embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a flow of processing until the own store data comparison and correction means 7 corrects the product price setting of the own store with a limit discount price for each of a predetermined number range in the first embodiment.

FIG. 6 shows an example of another store homepage data 9 downloaded in the first embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a system configuration diagram for setting a price of a product and updating a price list in a conventional electronic store.

[Description of Signs] 6 Other store data monitoring means 7 Own store data comparison and correction means

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. An other store data monitoring means for acquiring another store price list at a predetermined interval, and a second product price of the own store price list corresponding to the first product price of the other store price list. Comparing the first product price with the second product price when the first product price is lower than the second product price, and distributing or browsing the product price list. Product price update system. 2. The self-store data comparison and correction means comprises:
When it is determined that the corresponding second product price or the corrected second product price is low by comparing the product price with the product price, the second product price is rearranged to the top of the own store price list. The product price updating system according to claim 1, wherein: 3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first product price is obtained based on a comparison between the first product price of the other store price list acquired at a predetermined interval and the corresponding second product price of the own store price list. Providing the second commodity price corrected by a predetermined discount price for each of a predetermined number of ranges when the commodity price is lower than the second commodity price, and distributing or browsing the commodity price list. Update method. 4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the step of providing the second commodity price corrected by the limit discount price for each of a predetermined number of ranges includes comparing the second commodity price or the first commodity price with the first commodity price. 4. The method according to claim 3, wherein when it is determined that the corrected second product price is low, the second product price is rearranged to a higher rank in the own store price list.