JP3537873B2 - Point management method - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a point management method . There is an increasing number of cases in which a plurality of shops that make up a shopping district are affiliated to form a union organization and provide services to customers throughout the shopping district. In this case, each merchant purchases the required amount of points (points converted into money) provided by the union to the customer, called stock points, and usually each store has a fixed amount for the customer's purchase price. Points are issued to the customer at the rate of, and the customer converts the points into a monetary amount and receives a discount service.

[0002] In such a point system, a member store increases the rate of points issued to a customer during various events (such as medium-term sales, year-end sales, etc.) and provides services to the customer. However, the union organization will bear a certain percentage of the points for the increased points. Such a process of returning pointers between the member stores and the union takes time and effort, and thus an improvement is desired.

[0003]

2. Description of the Related Art FIG. 7 is an explanatory view of a conventional example. In the figure, 9
0 is a customer, 91 is a member store affiliated with the union organization in the shopping district, and 92 is a union.

[0004] It is assumed that a large number of member stores in a shopping district gather to form an association for providing services to customers. The member store 91 purchases points from the union 92 in advance as points for providing points to customers. These purchase points are called stock points. For example, 1,000
If you apply to purchase points, the union
Is notified of the purchase of 1,000 points to the member store 91, and the amount corresponding to the stock point (for example,
If one point is 2 yen, a request is made to pay 2,000 yen to the union, and the member store 91 pays the amount by transferring it to the union within the day of applying for purchase.

[0005] The member store 91 holds a stock point of 1,000 points, and when the customer 90 makes a purchase, the ratio of the normal sales period to the purchase price, for example, 0.01
Points are issued at a rate of (1%), and the issued points are reduced from the stock points on hand. This point is issued by receiving a customer's card (for example, a magnetic card), inserting it into the card reader / writer 91a, and writing the result obtained by multiplying the purchase price by 0.01.

[0006] At the time of the next shopping, the customer enters the franchise store 9
Present the card when paying for the item purchased in step 1.
In the member store 91, the card is used as a card reader / writer 91
When a point is read out by inserting it into a, the service is provided to the customer by multiplying the number of points by a fixed amount per point (for example, 1 yen) and subtracting the amount from the purchase price.

[0007] In such a shopping district, during the period of the event sponsored by the union (such as mid-year sales and year-end sales held at each time), the service to the customers is strengthened more than usual. In that case, the following method is used.

[0008] That is, the member store 91 increases the number of points issued to the purchase price by the customer 90 more than usual only during the event period, for example, 2 points for 100 yen. In that case, the member store 91 does not bear all the amount corresponding to the issue point during the event, but a certain percentage, for example, 40% of the amount, by the union 92.
To bear. Therefore, in the member store 91, the customer 90 purchases and receives the price, issues points corresponding to the price to the customer's card, and makes the information of the issued points a document for a certain period (for example, on a daily basis). Send it to the union every time to request a return. The union 92 manually calculates the amount owed by the union, ie, 40% of the issuance points, and the amount per point by multiplying the issuance information from the plurality of member stores 91 by hand. Returned by transferring to a bank account.

As described above, during the event period, the member store 91
Sales increase, the number of issued points increases proportionately, and the number of stock points on hand decreases rapidly, so the purchase amount of stock points increases, and the union 92 returns money corresponding to the point issuance from the member store 91. Needs to be funded because of the increased demand for

[0010]

As described above, when conducting an event, the union side had to prepare funds for returning money to a certain extent, which was a heavy burden on fund management.

[0011] Further, in each member store in the shopping district, in order to increase the ratio of point issuance to the purchase price of the customer during the event period, the member store must have many stock points.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a point management method capable of reducing the fund management of a union at the time of an event and reducing the number of purchases of stock points by each member store.

[0013]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the principle of the present invention. In FIG. 1, 1 is a terminal installed in each member store, 2 is a processing unit, 3 is a memory, 4 is a card reader / writer, 5 is an input / output unit including a keyboard, a display, and the like.
Reference numeral 6 denotes a line control unit, 7 denotes a line such as a telephone line, 8 denotes a host computer provided in an association organized at a member store in a shopping street, 9 denotes a processing unit, 10 denotes a point reduction unit, 11 denotes a memory, and 12 denotes a line. The control unit 13 is an input / output unit.

According to the present invention, the point of return to the union member store generated during the event period is not performed in monetary amount, the number of points is returned according to the return rate, the union eliminates the cash operation, and the member store stores the points. Since the number of points increases, the number of point purchases is reduced.

[0015]

In FIG. 1, when purchasing stock points at the terminal 1 of the member store, the stock point purchasing means 2a of the processing unit 2 is operated by operating from the input / output unit 5,
A purchase request is sent to the host computer 8 via the line control unit 6, the line 7, and the line control unit 12. On the other hand, in the host computer 8, the stock point purchase request processing means 10a of the point redemption section 10 of the processing section 9 accepts the purchase of the requested stock point, sends a notification of confirmation to the terminal 1, and performs processing such as related billing. I do. Upon receiving the purchase confirmation, the terminal 1 stores the stock points 3a in the memory 3.

When the customer makes a purchase, the point issuing means 2
Issue points for the purchase price by b. During the event period, the issuance of the points is increased from the usual rate, and the points issued to the customer's card by the card reader / writer 4 are recorded and passed to the customer. The update is performed by storing the issue point 3b including the date in the memory 3 and subtracting the issued point from the stock point 3a of the memory 3 and storing it again.

The issuing point transmitting means 2c of the processing unit 2
The host computer 8 is called at a fixed period (for example, once a day) to transmit the information of the issue point 3b of the memory 3.

When the point redemption unit 10 of the processing unit 9 of the host computer 8 receives the information on the issue points from the terminal 1, the redemption point calculation means 10b operates and if the date of the issued points is an event period, the point redemption unit 10b The redemption point is calculated from the issued point using the redemption rate 11c set to 11 and stored as the redemption point 11b in the memory 11. This return point 11b is
When the redemption point transmitting means 10c is activated at a certain time,
It is transmitted to the terminal 1 of each member store. Upon receiving the redemption points, the terminal 1 takes out the current stock points 3a by the stock point updating means 2d, adds the redemption points, stores the added result in the stock points, and performs an update operation.

After calculating the redemption points by the host computer 8 of the union, the redemption points are not transmitted to the terminal at a certain point in time. May be added to the notification.

[0020]

FIG. 2 is a hardware configuration diagram for implementing the present invention. In FIG. 2, reference numeral 20 denotes a terminal provided in the member store, 21 to 26 denote devices provided in the terminal, and 21 denotes a device provided in the terminal.
Is a CPU, 22 is a RAM for storing data for performing processing such as calculations, 23 is a ROM for storing programs and data,
24, an operation unit including a keyboard and a display;
Reference numeral 5 denotes a card reader / writer for reading and writing the contents of the card held by the customer. The card reader / writer records points issued according to the purchase price when shopping, reads the points at the time of payment, and discounts the points. Used for

Reference numeral 26 denotes a disk device using a flexible disk as a recording medium, and reference numeral 27 denotes a line controller for transmitting / receiving data by connecting to a host computer via a telephone line. 28 is a telephone line, 29 is a host computer provided in the association, 30 to 35 are devices provided in the host computer, 30 is a CPU, 31 is a RAM, 3
2 is a ROM, 33 is a disk device, 34 is an operation unit, 35
Is a line control unit similar to 27.

FIGS. 3 to 6 show the operation of the point redemption system according to the present invention, which is executed by the configuration shown in FIG. 2 described above.
This will be described with reference to FIG. 3 is an operation sequence of the entire system including the terminal and the host computer, FIG. 4 is an example of event data set in the host computer, FIG. 5 is a processing flow of a reduction rate calculation based on issue point data, FIG.
Is the processing flow for the next point purchase.

FIG. 3 shows an operation using an example of specific data. In the drawing, reference numerals 20 and 29 denote the terminal of the member store and the host computer of the union, respectively, as in FIG.
First, A.A. between the terminal 20 of the member store and the host computer 29 in FIG. The operation at the time of point purchase shown in FIG. In this case, since the stock point of the terminal 20 of the member store is 0, a point purchase request is executed to the host computer 29. A. In the example shown in (1), a point purchase request for 1,000 points is input from the operation unit 34 and transmitted to the host computer 29. At this time, a point file 26 storing the point data of the terminal 20 of the member store
a (see disk device 26 in FIG. 2), the stock point is 0 and the issue point is 0 as shown in FIG.

When receiving the point purchase request (A.), the host computer 29 writes the same in the point purchase file 33a (see the disk device 33 in FIG. 2) (same as above) and transmits a point purchase determination of 1,000 points (see FIG. 2). same). When receiving the point purchase confirmation, the terminal 20 adds the purchase-confirmed point (1,000) to the current stock point number (0) of the point file 26a (the same). On the other hand, the union host computer 29 issues a transfer request to the member store that purchased the points in accordance with the number of purchased points (same as above). In this example, one point is 2 yen, and 2,000 for 1,000 points
Ask the bank to transfer the yen.

Next, at the time of the event (various selling periods)
The operation of the terminal 20 and the host computer 29 in FIG. Shown in In this case, the event period and the return rate (the rate paid by the union for points issued to the customer at the member store) are stored in the host computer 29 in advance.
Is set. The data used for the processing related to the event is stored in the point redemption rate management file 33b of the disk device 33 in FIG.

FIG. 4 shows an example of data setting of the point redemption rate management file. This point redemption rate management file 3
By inputting the data of 3b as needed from the operation unit 34, point redemption data setting processing 290 is executed, and the event number, the event name, the period during which the event is performed, and the redemption rate for each event are performed according to the setting input. It is set as shown in the example of the figure.

FIG. As shown in (2), when the customer makes a purchase at the terminal 20, points are issued according to the purchase price. In this example, 2 points are issued for 100 yen,
200 points will be issued for a purchase price of 10,000 yen. At the same time, the contents of the point file 26a of the terminal 20 are reduced by 200 points from the stock points (1,000 at the time of purchase) to 800, and the issued points are updated to 200. The 200 points provided to the customer are written on the customer's card by the card reader / writer 25 of the terminal 20 in FIG. Thereafter, the terminal 20 transmits the issuing point data (including the member store number and date) when the store is closed (B.). By this transmission, the point file 2 of the terminal 20
The issue point of 6a is set to 0.

When the host computer 29 receives the issuance point 200 from the terminal 20, the B.C. As shown in (2), the event period is determined, and if the event period is within the set event period, the calculation is performed using the return rate, and the result is written to the return point file (in the disk device 33 in FIG. 2).

FIG. 5 shows a process at the time of issuing point data reception. When the host computer 29 receives the member store number (NO), date, and issue point as issue point data, it temporarily stores it in the memory (RAM 31). Thereafter, after the reception from the member store is completed (closed), the return rate calculation processing 29
1 is started.

In this process, the received issuing point data is input (S1 in FIG. 5), and it is determined whether the date falls within the event period set in the point redemption rate management file 33b (S2). If it is not within the period, the process is terminated because no redemption is performed, but if it is within the period, the redemption rate of the corresponding event in the point redemption rate management file 33b is used.
Calculate the redemption point by multiplying the issue point (S
3). In this example, since the redemption rate is 40 (%), the redemption point is 80 for the issuance point 200. The redemption points obtained by the calculation are recorded in a format for updating the content of the redemption point file 33c provided in the disk device 33 in FIG. 2 (S4).

The redemption point file 33c has a redemption data table and a tally record. The redemption data table stores both data that has been redeemed to the member store and data that has not been redeemed, and has been executed by the redemption flag. (Set to "1") or not executed (set to "0"). The tally record is the tally of the day when the redemption point is calculated. The redemption point is stored for each member store, and the redemption flag is “0”.

Returning to FIG. 3, in this example, even if the redemption point is calculated, the redemption point is immediately transferred to the terminal 2 of the member store.
Instead of sending to 0, when purchasing the next stock point from the affiliated store, a return point is added to the purchase point for notification. As a result, the number of communications via the line can be reduced, and the load on the host computer can be reduced.

C. of FIG. Shows the operation when purchasing points next time. C. As shown in FIG. 5, in a state where the stock point 800 remains in the terminal 20, the above-mentioned A. Send a point purchase request in the same way as above. In this example, a purchase request for 500 points is made.

Upon receiving the point purchase request (C.), the host computer 29 writes (same) in the point purchase file (33a in FIG. 2). If there is a redemption point, the host computer 29 adds the redemption point. Send point purchase confirmation (same). In this example, the purchase points are 500 and the redemption points are 80, so the total is 5
80 points are notified to the terminal 20 as purchase points. When receiving the purchase confirmation of 580 points, the terminal 20 adds 580 points to the current stock points in the point file 26a and updates the total to 1,380 (same as above).

In FIG. 6 will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 6 shows the process at the time of the next point purchase. When the point purchase request data is received from the terminal after the previous stock point purchase, the point return process 292 is executed. In this process, point purchase request data is input (S1 in FIG. 6), and it is determined whether there is a redemption point (S2). At this time, it is determined with reference to the redemption point file 33c created in FIG. 5 whether there is data with the redemption flag of 0, and if so, the redemption point is added (added) to the purchase request point and the redemption flag is set. Update (set to "1") (S
3). After that, point purchase confirmation data (points of the addition result) is output (S4). The pointer purchase confirmation data output by the point redemption process 292 is transmitted from the host computer 29 to the terminal 20 (registration S5).

[0036]

As described above, according to the present invention, the return to the member store is automatically returned as a point, so that the work load on the member and the member store can be greatly reduced. In addition, this makes it easy to secure the operating funds for the event, and the member stores automatically add the return points to the stock points, thereby facilitating the event.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a principle configuration diagram of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a hardware configuration diagram in which the present invention is implemented.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an operation sequence of the entire system including a terminal and a host computer.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of data setting of a point redemption rate management file.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a process when receiving issuance point data.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing processing at the time of next point purchase.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram of a conventional example.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 Merchant terminal 2 Processing unit 3 memory 4 Card reader / writer 5 Input / output unit 6 Line control unit 7 lines 8 union host computer 9 Processing unit 10 points reduction section 11 memory 12 Line control unit 13 Input / output unit

Continuation of front page (56) References JP-A-5-225221 (JP, A) JP-A-4-290194 (JP, A) JP-A-1-99197 (JP, A) (58) Fields investigated (Int) .Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G06F 17/60 324

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. A point redemption point file which associates and records the point to be reduced to the point return rate was recorded in association with the reduction rate management file and the Member shops and the merchant in issuing period and the issuing period of with the door, a point management method executed on a computer that issues points for each merchant, the computer, the merchant from merchant information about point and its publication date issued to a customer Upon receipt
The issue date is the POI of the point redemption rate management file.
Judge whether it is during the issue period of the
If it is determined that it is a line period,
Calculate the redemption rate during the issue period for the points from
Between the issued points and the issue period of the points
Points to be returned to the member store from the return rate
That step a, the computer, and stearyl <br/>-up adding the reducing should do points obtained in step to determine the points to be reduced to the point to be reduced, which is recorded in the reducing point file, the computer Has the redemption point file
Sending a point to be redeemed to a corresponding member store. 2. The sending step includes, when the computer receives a point purchase request from the member store, returning the points to the member store in the redemption point file.
Ask for points to buy and ask for points for purchase
Calculate the points by adding the points to be reduced
The point management method according to claim 1, wherein the issued points are transmitted .