JP2005085222A - Article sales promoting system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a means of realizing the improvement of effects on investments in advertisement leaflets for article sales promotion in electronic commerce. <P>SOLUTION: The name of a person who distributed an advertisement leaflet is got out of a consumer who viewed the distributed advertisement leaflet, resulting in purchase of an article, by means of a questionnaire via the Internet. The information is recorded in a database. For example, by giving financial incentives to the distributor involved later, distributors of leaflets are encouraged in their aggressive acquirement of purchasers. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a merchandise sales system in electronic commerce via the Internet, more particularly to advertising medium distribution means, and more particularly to means for enhancing the investment effect of distribution of advertising medium using an information processing function by a computer.

  Due to dramatic progress in information processing technology and semiconductor integrated circuit manufacturing design technology, computers have been reduced in size and price, and personal computers have been widely used in general households. Internet technology that enables communication between personal computers is also open to the general public, and software that is easy to use and easy to handle for various Internet use can be obtained at a low price. It has become cheaper.

Therefore, various electronic commerce (Internet transactions) such as a product purchase system using the Internet, a ticket reservation sales system, an auction system, and an Internet bank have been devised and are already in operation. In these Internet transactions, there are many advantages such as that the customer does not need to go to the store and that the transaction can be performed 24 hours a day.
JP2002-99753

  In sales transactions for products using the Internet, as with regular store sales, product sellers want to increase product sales. In such a case, acquiring new customers by distributing advertising media such as advertising leaflets is an effective method.

  Conventional advertising media, especially advertising flyers, were distributed to an unspecified number of people without specifying the distribution target, so it was not always possible to obtain a sufficient return on investment for the cost of distributing advertising flyers. There was a problem.

  In addition, the same amount of wages was paid to flyer distributors regardless of whether or not the volume of advertising merchandise increased due to the distribution of flyers. In such a wage system, flyer distributors do not pay special attention to flyer distributors because they do not find the advantage of making efforts to increase product sales when distributing flyers. It tends to be a result. This distributor's mechanical flyer distribution was also the cause of the lack of investment effect.

  The present invention adopts an electronic commerce system using the Internet in order to increase the investment effect of advertising medium distribution, and when a customer purchases goods through the mediation of a person who distributes advertising media such as an advertising flyer, the sales will depend on the sales. In combination with a reward system that returns the reward to the distributor, the distributor's willingness to promote product sales is increased, thereby increasing the investment effect of the desired advertising medium distribution.

  The most common form of the advertising medium is a leaflet, but it may be provided in the form of a home page, and the specific providing method will be described in detail in the section of the best mode for carrying out the invention. It goes without saying that the present invention is not limited to the advertising medium shown in the embodiments, and the technical idea of the invention can be implemented in other forms.

  Further, in the product sales promotion system of the present invention, the sales by distributor are accumulated in the computer system of the merchant, and the accumulated information is used as necessary, for example, information such as totaling monthly sales by distributor. It also has means for processing and utilizing the processed information to further increase the distributor's willingness to promote product sales and, as a result, increase the advertising media distribution investment effect.

  In the merchandise sales system using the Internet of the present invention, if the distributor who distributes promotional media such as promotional flyers is informed in advance of the bounty system according to sales, the distributor is given priority over customers who are likely to have direct sales. A strong motivation to distribute promotional media such as leaflets was born, which increased the investment effect of advertising media.

  Since an increase in customer product orders results in an increase in rewards received by the media distributor, if the product seller provides the media distributor with information that leads to an increase in the customer product order, the distributor is voluntary and active. In this respect, the investment effect of the advertising medium is also increased because the sales activities for the customer and the effort to obtain more product orders will be made.

  The present invention realizes means for enhancing the effect of distributing advertising media such as leaflets for the purpose of sales expansion, and the technical idea thereof will be described by showing a specific application example. Although a specific example shows about the simplest Internet transaction system, it cannot be overemphasized that the technical idea of this invention is realizable also in a more complicated internet transaction system. The Internet transaction system described here is a system configured as shown in FIG. 1, and a product purchase applicant (hereinafter referred to as a customer) inputs a personal computer (computer 10 in FIG. 1) and enters other necessary information. The input information is transmitted to the Internet server (the seller's server 20 in FIG. 1) of the merchandise seller (hereinafter referred to as the seller) via the Internet (the Internet network 25 in FIG. 1). This is a system in which the merchant who receives the product sells the product according to the information, and more specific procedures will be clarified in the following explanation. In the following description, an advertising flyer is mainly taken as an example of the advertising medium, but the advertising medium is not limited to the advertising flyer in the practice of the invention.

  If the characteristic part about the advertising flyer, which is a requirement necessary for realizing the present invention, is described, the advertising flyer of the present invention is written with information (hereinafter referred to as distributor information) that can specify the flyer distributor. It is. Of course, other general information necessary for Internet transactions, such as the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) address of the seller's web page, the outline of the product for sale, the procedure of the transaction procedure, etc. are also written, and the person who receives the flyer is personal Needless to say, information necessary and sufficient for accessing the Internet transaction system provided by the seller from a computer or the like is described. FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an advertising flyer in which such distributor information is written. In the figure, reference numeral 31 is distributor information. This distributor information is information for identifying a distributor determined by a contract between the seller and the flyer distributor. For example, the distributor pays an admission fee and a monthly membership fee to the distributor, thereby distributing the distributor. Information can be written on the flyer. This distributor information is different for each contracted distributor. In the contract between the seller and the distributor, there is an agreement that when the customer inputs the distributor information when purchasing the product, the reward is paid to the distributor at a certain rate.

  The advertisement flyer uses paper and the necessary information may be printed on the paper, or in the form of an information storage medium in which information is optically written, such as a compact disc (CD). It may be a so-called IC card on which a semiconductor integrated circuit chip (IC chip) is mounted, and may be in the form of an information storage medium in which information is electrically written. The seller should create an advertising flyer with nothing written in the distributor information so that the distributor information can be described later, and devise to add the distributor information after the distributor decides This makes it possible to create a waste advertising flyer.

  In the case of a paper advertising flyer, the distributor information may be given as a series of printed strings that combine hiragana, katakana, kanji, numbers, symbols, etc., barcodes, geometric figures, etc. May be given in.

  FIG. 3 shows a processing flow portion of customer information and distributor information in the seller's Internet transaction system. The information processing flow will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

  A customer who wishes to purchase a product connects a personal computer to the Internet, and inputs the homepage URL address for Internet sales published by the product seller on the Internet (step 40 in FIG. 3). In response to this input, the merchant's server sends the merchant's Internet transaction home page to the customer's personal computer (step 41 in FIG. 3). Thereby, the customer's personal computer can remotely access the seller's Internet transaction system via the seller's Internet server, i.e., the customer's personal computer functions as an information input terminal for purchasing merchandise in the seller's system, To win. The seller's system responds to remote access from the customer, and various information necessary for ordering the product to the customer's personal computer, that is, the customer's name, telephone number, e-mail address, distributor information, product delivery address, hope Information input requests such as delivery date and payment method are also made (step 42 in FIG. 3). The customer responds to the request and inputs customer information. When the input is completed, a signal indicating completion is sent to the server of the seller. The seller's system transmits the signal to the computer 21 in FIG. 1 via the server, and the computer 21 checks whether all necessary information has been input (step 43 in FIG. 3). When the shortage information is found, the computer 21 informs the customer's personal computer 10 of the shortage of information (step 44 in FIG. 3) and waits for the customer's response. Steps 43 and 44 are repeated until the lack of information is resolved. In the conventional Internet transaction system, the customer information input processing step is completed when all necessary information is given (step 50).

  In the Internet transaction system of the present invention, the customer provides the privilege that the customer can purchase the product at a discount price by inputting the advertisement flyer distributor information, and this allows the customer to actively distribute the distributor information. It is devised to provide a mechanism for typing. Accordingly, after performing some or all of steps 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, step 50 is reached. Of course, the Internet transaction system of the present invention is configured so that the customer can select not to input distributor information and not to purchase a product at a discount price.

  When the computer 21 determines that all necessary customer information has been input in step 43, the system of the present invention proceeds to step 45, where it is checked whether or not distributor information has been input from the customer. If the distributor information has not been input, the computer 21 has not input the distributor information, and if the distributor information is input, the benefit of purchasing a product at a discount price can be obtained. A message is sent to the personal computer 10 indicating that the product can be purchased at the normal price without inputting. Then, the customer is requested to approve the purchase at the normal price (step 46). If the customer approves the purchase at the normal price, the customer information input processing step is completed (step 47, step 50). If the customer does not approve and the customer wishes to input distributor information, the computer 21 transmits a distributor information input request to the computer 10 (steps 47 and 48).

  The customer reads the distributor information input from the advertising flyer and inputs it to the customer's personal computer. If the distributor information is a printed character string, no special reading device is required. In the case of a barcode or geometric figure, it is read as a digital image by a digital camera, for example. In the case of a CD or IC card, information is read by a reader corresponding to the information storage medium. The read information is sent to the seller's server.

  When the customer transmits the distributor information, the seller's system checks whether the information matches one of the distributor information registered in the distributor database 22 in advance (step 49). ). If it does not match any information, it sends a message to the customer that the distributor information was not entered correctly, and the seller's system sends the distributor information entry window to the customer's personal computer again ( Step 48). This loop is repeated until the distributor information matches the information in the distributor database. If they match, the process proceeds to step 50 to exit from the customer information input process flow.

  The flow after exiting the customer information input processing flow is basically the same whether discounted purchase is selected or discounted purchase is not selected. The customer sends a request for merchandise catalog information to the merchant's server 20, and the merchant's system responds by sending the catalog to the customer's personal computer 10, and the customer selects the desired merchandise from the catalog and selects it. Proceed with the necessary procedures for purchasing a series of products, such as sending information to the seller's server.

  In the case of the first product purchase, the above-mentioned series of customer information and distributor information input processes cannot be omitted, but once the customer has registered the information, the product seller will identify the customer to the customer. By providing an identification mark such as a membership number that can be used, the customer may enter a mechanism that does not require troublesome customer information or the like if the identification mark is input from the next product order.

  In addition, the privilege obtained by the customer inputting the distributor information is not limited to the purchase of goods at a discount price. For example, the seller gives the distributor the discretion to determine the discount rate of the product sales price within a certain range, so-called dealer status, and the customer can enjoy the special benefits provided by the distributor. Can be devised.

  The merchandise seller's computer system accepts the order of the merchandise and simultaneously records the merchandise sales price and the name of the distributor of the leaflet associated with the order, and calculates the total sales price for each distributor. The total sales may be divided into periods, aggregated for each period, and the aggregated result may be notified to the corresponding distributor. At a later date, the distributor may adopt a system in which a reward is received from the merchandise seller according to the amount of sales. In addition, merchandise sellers provide each distributor with information such as a list of purchased products for each customer, which is part of the customer information, and total purchases. You may make it prompt.

  Distributor information and homepage URL may be used together. That is, a method is used in which each distributor has a different homepage URL and the different URL is described in the advertising flyer. The flowchart is shown in FIG. Customers will access their homepages based on different URLs. The customer knows the homepage S1 URL from the advertising flyer received from the distributor A and accesses the URL (step 60). This URL is provided by the computer 21 via the server 20 of the seller. The computer 21 requests only the customer name from the customer (step 62). When the customer's name is entered, the customer's name and URL address are registered in the customer information database of the computer 21 for the time being and connected to the master information processing flow (step 65). Collection of information other than the name (steps 70 to 74), display of a product catalog, order reception, and the like are performed. The processing on the home page that is different for each distributor is limited to steps 60 to 65, and the subsequent processing, that is, the processing after step 70, is a common flow even when accessed from different URLs. In this way, by adopting a configuration in which almost all processing is performed in a common flow, it is possible to prevent the system from being revised and managing due to multiple URLs and different processing programs.

  The present invention can be implemented as long as it is a merchandise sales system in electronic commerce using the merchandise Internet, and in particular, the improvement of capital investment efficiency in advertising media, which is the object of the present invention, is industrially desirable. The utility value is quite high.

It is a block diagram of the goods sales system using the internet of this invention. It is a figure which shows the example of the advertising flyer in which distributor information was written. It is a 1st flowchart which shows the process sequence of the customer information and distributor information of this invention. It is a 2nd flowchart which shows the process sequence of the customer information and distributor information of this invention.

Explanation of symbols

10, 11, 12 Customer's personal computer 20 Seller's Internet server 21 Seller's computer 22 Customer information and distributor information database connected to the seller's computer 25 Internet network 30 Advertising flyer 31 Distributor information

Claims (3)

  Promote the product between the seller's server that enables ordering and purchasing of products on the Internet, the purchaser's terminal that accesses the server to order and purchase the product, and the seller A product sales promotion system for promoting sales of the product in a commercial transaction on the Internet using the advertising medium, the advertising medium being distributed by a plurality of distributors who have contracted The merchandise sales promotion system, wherein the advertisement medium includes distributor specifying information for specifying the distributor.   2. The product sales promotion system according to claim 1, wherein the advertising medium is a homepage established by the distributor. The server has a distributor specifying information database in which the distributor specifying information is registered, and when the distributor specifying information is input from the terminal, the distributor specifying information is associated with the sales information of the product. The product sales promotion system according to claim 1 or 2, wherein processing is performed, and sales are totaled for each distributor for a predetermined period and notified to each distributor.

Images