JPH08202768A - System for adjusting accounts for merchandise - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To reduce processing time for shopping by shortening time required for adjusting the accounts of purchased merchandise by performing the adjustment of accounts for merchandise without interposing any operation of a salesclerk. CONSTITUTION: When all required merchandise is completely put into a shopping bag, a customer inserts an IC card 105 to an IC card reader/writer 110. A controller 175 receives a customer information table from the IC card reader/writer 110. Then, information on the IC card 105 of the customer, namely, the customer information table is transmitted to a central host 160. Next, a CPU 150 of the central host 160 retrieves a table 400 for amount calculation of that customer with the ID on the customer table as a key. Further, an IC tag sensor 115 reads all data generated from an IC tag 120 mounted on each of merchandise and transmits them to the central host 160. Afterwards, the CPU 150 performs summing-up processing and the adjustment of accounts by utilizing the table 400 for amount calculation. Then, information on the merchandise purchased by the customer is collected and stored.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a payment system for a product purchased by a customer in a store, and in particular, when purchasing a product in a store, the product price is read without contact and payment equivalent to cash is made. The present invention relates to a technology effectively applied to a product settlement system for paying for purchased products using a card-shaped payment medium.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in a large-scale retail store such as a supermarket, an individual customer freely roams within a certain area such as each floor of a building or a sales floor for a specific product on the floor to select a product, You can pay the purchased products by carrying them to the shopping checkout counters set up in the area, such as by putting them in the shopping basket prepared by .

After purchasing the product, the customer repacks the product in a carry-out bag and leaves the product in the area with the product.
Such a sales form is generally performed.

In the checkout process at the shopping checkout office, the store clerk inputs the price of each product to calculate the purchase amount, but the input work is speeded up, the load on the store clerk is reduced, and input mistakes are prevented. Point of Sales (PO
S) The system is also widely introduced.

In the POS system, the clerk does not manually input the price of each product by a numerical value, but the information displayed by a bar code or the like on the tag attached to each product is displayed on the scanner provided in the POS system. Scan the purchased items one by one and enter the price. However, the POS system does not have a means for automatically inputting the discount price of a product that is being discounted for sales promotion, such as a product with a discount by buying a certain number of items at once. Occurs.

[0006]

The present inventor has found the following problems as a result of examining the above-mentioned prior art.

[0007] That is, when paying for a product selected at the sales floor in the store and wanting to purchase, while waiting for the payment order to arrive at the shopping checkout place, the payment starts and the purchase price is calculated. For the time being, the customer simply has to wait without doing anything.

For example, “Keiki Arakawa: All about POS data utilization, P. 46, 47, published by PHP Research Institute, 199.
"December 15, 3rd" describes that the time required for settlement at the shopping settlement office is 30 seconds per customer. This is the time when there is no waiting at the shopping checkout office, and usually there are some waiting queues, and it may take quite a while before the checkout starts.

[0009] Therefore, the time it takes to actually complete the settlement depends on the number of customers in the line in front of the customer and the contents of the shopping, and there are dissatisfactions to be waited for. Irritation and so on also occur.

One of the causes of the waiting time is inputting the product price. Compared to stores that do not have the POS system, stores that have the POS system have significantly reduced the time required to enter the individual product prices when calculating the total price of the purchased products. Has been done.

However, even in a store where the POS system is introduced, it is necessary to manually scan the bar code of each product and input the product price one by one,
In addition, sales prices of discounted products due to the number of purchased products, etc. are all manually entered by the clerk, and each time a manual input operation other than scanning the bar code occurs, and compared with the case where there are no discounted products, You will have to wait longer.

In addition, when paying the calculated total amount of purchased commodities, when the total amount is paid by cash or a credit card, work such as delivery of cash and change and signature on a predetermined form is performed with a clerk. It occurs with the customer and becomes a factor of increasing the waiting time.

An object of the present invention is to provide a technology for enabling a customer to shorten the shopping time and reduce the number of staff at a store in a product settlement system for calculating and paying the purchase price of a product purchased in a store. To do.

The above and other objects and novel features of the present invention will be apparent from the description of this specification and the accompanying drawings.

[0015]

Among the inventions disclosed in the present application, the outline of typical ones will be briefly described as follows.

That is, in a product settlement system for calculating and paying the purchase price of a product purchased in a store, the tag is attached to each product carried by the purchaser to a predetermined position in the store. Product information receiving means for receiving product information such as product name and price for each product, purchase amount calculating means for calculating the purchase price of the product carried by the purchaser based on the received product information, and card-shaped payment medium input by the purchaser By doing so, the purchase amount is deducted from the cash information equivalent to cash registered in advance in the card-shaped settlement medium, and the settlement processing means for performing the settlement of the purchased product, and the product name and the purchase amount after the settlement. And means for collecting and storing information.

[0017]

According to the above-mentioned means, first, the product information such as the product name and the amount of money is transmitted from the tag attached to each product carried by the purchaser to the predetermined position in the store, and the product information receiving means is operated. The product information is received for each product.

Next, the purchase price calculation means calculates the purchase price of the product carried by the purchaser based on the received product information, and when the purchaser inputs the card payment medium into the payment processing means, the card payment is made. From the monetary information equivalent to cash registered in advance in the medium, the purchase amount is subtracted and the settlement process is performed.

Further, information on the product name and purchase price of the product settled in the settlement process is collected and the information is stored.

The present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings together with embodiments.

In all the drawings for explaining the embodiments, parts having the same function are designated by the same reference numerals and their repeated description will be omitted.

[0022]

EXAMPLES Examples of the present invention will be described in detail below.

In the following embodiment, an IC card is distributed to each customer as a card-shaped payment medium which can be used for shopping in the shop and which is equivalent to cash.
It is assumed that the IC card stores in advance the amount of money that can be used by a dedicated machine. Further, each product in the store is provided with an IC tag for storing and transmitting product information such as product name and price regarding each product.

(Embodiment 1) The purchased products are PO
A first embodiment, which is a system for temporarily storing in an S locker and paying for purchased commodities in the POS locker, will be described.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the schematic arrangement of this embodiment. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 145 is a POS locker, which is provided with a plurality of storage areas 140 for settlement and storage of products.

In each storage area 140, an IC for reading and writing the IC card 105 distributed in advance to the customer
Card reading / writing device 110, display device 125 for displaying settlement result and storage area 140 status, IC tag 12
Storage area 140 using IC tag sensor 115 and IC card 105 that receive product information transmitted from
A locking device 130 for locking the lock, a memory 135 linked to the locking device 130, a receipt output device 170 for outputting a receipt, and a control device 17 for controlling the device.
5 is equipped.

Further, 160 is a central host, and CP
It is composed of a U150 and a main memory 155 which stores the charge calculation table 400.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an outline of the sales floor in the store of this embodiment. In FIG. 2, reference numeral 240 denotes a sales floor, and an entrance 210 and an exit 23 through which shoppers enter and exit the sales floor 240.
0, a product shelf 220 and a POS locker 145 are installed.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a customer information table entered on the IC card 105 of this embodiment. FIG.
In FIG. 3, 300 is the customer information entered on the IC card 105.
10, name 320, gender 330, age 340, telephone number 350, address 360, delivery destination 370 are input and issued to each customer.

On the other hand, the customer pays cash in advance using a dedicated machine, and the amount of money is input to the amount of money 380 of the customer information table 300 protected by encryption.

FIG. 4 shows the central host 16 of the store of this embodiment.
It is a figure which shows the charge calculation table in 0. In FIG. 4, reference numeral 400 denotes a charge calculation table, which is the customer information 30.
Based on the data of 0, date and time 42 for each customer ID 410
0, item name 430, price 440, number 450 are written in the charge calculation table 400, and data is exchanged with the CPU 150 to calculate the total amount of purchase 460. If there is a discount depending on the number of items purchased, the discount amount 470.
Is calculated, the total amount 480 is calculated, and each calculated amount is written in the charge calculation table 400.

The product settlement system of the first embodiment will be described below.

FIG. 5 is a flow chart showing the procedure of settlement and storage processing of goods according to this embodiment. In the present embodiment, the customer holds a shopping bag (shopping bag when bringing the product home) in the sales floor 240 and purchases the product (IC) from the product shelf 220.
(Products to which the tag 120 is attached) are put in.

When the customer finishes putting all the necessary products in the shopping bag, he opens the door of the storage area 140, puts the shopping bag and closes the door. Then, the IC is read in the IC card read / write device 110 installed on the door of the storage area 140.
Insert the card 105. The control device 175 receives the customer information table 300 from the IC card reading / writing device 110 (step 502).

Next, it is determined whether the IC card read / write device 110 is in a re-input waiting state, that is, whether it is locked (step 510).

If locked, the customer information table 30
0 is read (step 520), the ID 310 and the memory 1 linked to the locking device 130.
35 is collated (step 522), and it is determined whether they match (step 524). If they match, the lock is released (step 526), and if they do not match, the display device 125
An error message is displayed on the screen (step 525), and the IC
The card 105 is returned (step 558), and the process ends.

If it is not locked, the information on the customer's IC card 105, that is, the customer information table 300 is transmitted to the central host 160 (step 530).

Next, the CPU 150 of the central host 160
Uses the ID 310 on the customer information table 300 as a key to search the fee calculation table 400 for that customer and determines whether there is a corresponding table (step 532).

If there is no corresponding table, an error message is displayed on the display device 125 (step 52).
9), return the IC card 105 (step 558),
finish.

When the corresponding table is searched, the CPU 150 in the central host 160 determines that the IC tag sensor 11
5 is activated, and the IC tag sensor 115 causes the IC tag 1 attached to each product placed in the storage area 140.
All the data (product name, price, etc.) emitted from 20 are read (step 540) and transmitted to the central host 160 (step 542).

Next, the CPU 150 makes the main memory 15
The transmitted information from the IC tag sensor 115 is written in the charge calculation table 400 (step 54).
4). CPU 15 using the charge calculation table 400
0 performs the aggregation process (step 546) and transmits the aggregated data to the storage area 140 (step 547). The display device 125 receives the aggregated data from the central host 160 and displays it on the monitor (step 548).

At the same timing as step 548, the CPU 150 makes the customer information table 300 on the customer's IC card 105 based on the aggregated data obtained in step 547.
Update (step 550). Specifically, the data of the amount of money 380 on the customer information table 300 is rewritten and the settlement is performed.

At the same time when the settlement is completed in step 550, the control device 175 operates the locking device 130 to lock the storage area 140 (step 552) and outputs the receipt by the receipt output device 170 (step 5).
53).

After that, the control device 175 puts the IC card read / write device 110 into a re-input waiting state (step 5
54), and to that effect is displayed on the display device 125 (step 5).
56), the IC card read / write device 110 returns the IC card 105 (step 558), and ends the processing.

Further, the information on the products purchased by the customer is collected and stored to manage the sales for each customer.

As described above, I can make a payment equivalent to cash.
By using a C-card and an IC tag that stores the product information to settle and store the purchased products in a dedicated locker, the operation of unmanned settlement work, elimination of waiting for settlement and securing of a temporary storage place for purchased products Thus, the effect of speeding up the settlement work and reducing the number of store staff can be obtained.

Further, by using an IC card capable of payment equivalent to cash, the purchase history information can be easily collected for each customer.

(Embodiment 2) Next, in the product settlement system of the present invention, a storage place such as a locker is not required,
An example will be described in which an unattended POS device for a customer who returns home immediately after the end of shopping in that section carries out settlement with an IC card. In the second embodiment, the customer information table 300 of FIG. 3 and the calculation table 400 of FIG. 4 of the first embodiment are used.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing a schematic structure of this embodiment. In FIG. 6, 650 is an unmanned POS device, 610 is an IC card insertion slot, and 615 is an IC.
A card outlet, 620 is an IC tag sensor, 630 is a carrying device for carrying goods, 640 is a display device, 660 is a receipt output device, and 6
70 is a control device.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an outline of the sales floor in the store of this embodiment. In FIG. 7, reference numeral 740 is a sales floor, and an entrance 710 and an exit 73 through which shoppers enter and exit the sales floor 740.
0, a product shelf 720 and an unmanned POS device 650 are installed.

The product settlement system in the second embodiment will be described below.

FIG. 8 is a flow chart showing the procedure for settlement of products according to this embodiment. In the present embodiment, the customer holds a shopping bag (shopping bag when taking home) in the sales floor 740 and puts products (products with the IC tag 120 attached) to be purchased from the product shelf 720. When all the necessary products have been put in the shopping bag, the customer places the shopping bag on the carrier device 630 of the unmanned POS device 650 installed in the sales floor 740 and inserts the IC card 105 into the IC card insertion slot 610. (Step 805). The customer information table 300 read from the IC card 105 is transmitted to the central host 160 (step 810).

Next, the CPU 150 in the central host 160
Uses the ID 310 on the customer information table 300 as a key to search the charge calculation table 400 for that customer and determines whether there is a corresponding table (step 815).

If there is no corresponding table, an error message is displayed on the display device 640 (step 87).
5) return the IC card 105 (step 870),
finish. When the corresponding table is searched, the CPU 150 in the central host 160 determines that the IC tag sensor 620
Operate.

That is, the IC tag sensor 620 reads all the data (product name, price, etc.) emitted from the IC tag 120 attached to each product placed on the carrying device 630 (step 830), and the central host 160. (Step 835).

Next, the CPU 150 uses the main memory 155.
The transmitted information from the IC tag sensor 620 is written in the charge calculation table 400 (step 84).
0), totaling processing is performed using the charge calculation table 400 (step 845), and the totaling data is transmitted to the unmanned POS device 650 (step 850). Display device 6
40 receives the totalized data from the central host 160 and displays it on the monitor (step 855).

At the same timing as step 855, the customer information table 300 on the customer's IC card 105 is updated based on the aggregated data obtained in step 850 (step 860).

Specifically, the data of the amount of money 380 on the customer information table 300 is rewritten and the settlement is performed. At the same time as the settlement is completed in step 860, the receipt output device 6
A receipt is output according to 60 (step 865).
Then, the IC card take-out port 615 returns the IC card 105 (step 870) and ends.

Further, the information regarding the products purchased by the customer is collected and stored, and the sales management for each customer is performed.

As described above, I can make a payment equivalent to cash.
By using a C-card and an IC tag that stores product information to settle purchased products with an unmanned POS device, the settlement work can be unmanned and the waiting for settlement can be eliminated. The effect of doing is obtained.

Further, by using an IC card which can be settled equivalent to cash, the purchase history information can be easily collected for each customer.

Although the present invention has been specifically described based on the above embodiments, the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments, and various modifications can be made without departing from the scope of the invention. Of course.

For example, in the product settlement system of this embodiment, an IC card is used as a card-shaped settlement medium in which cash information equivalent to cash is registered, but a prepaid card in which the money information is magnetically recorded in advance is used. It can also be used.

[0064]

The effects obtained by the typical ones of the inventions disclosed in the present application will be briefly described as follows.

That is, in the product settlement system for calculating and paying the purchase price of the product purchased in the store, the tag is attached to each product carried by the purchaser to a predetermined position in the store. Product information receiving means for receiving product information such as product name and price for each product, purchase amount calculating means for calculating the purchase price of the product carried by the purchaser based on the received product information, and card-shaped payment medium input by the purchaser By doing so, the purchase amount is deducted from the cash information equivalent to cash registered in advance in the card-shaped settlement medium, and the settlement processing means for performing the settlement of the purchased product, and the product name and the purchase amount after the settlement. Since the means for collecting and storing information is provided, the product can be settled without the operation of a store clerk, and the time required to settle the purchased product can be shortened. During the settlement of goods, the customer without being bound, it is possible to reduce the processing time of shopping.

Further, since it is possible for the store side to carry out shopping without a cashless person, not only can the number of persons required for settlement be reduced, but also the risk of cash transportation and the time required for clerical work can be greatly shortened.

Furthermore, the present invention has the effect of significantly increasing the speed of the flow of currencies, products, and customers in the specific area, which leads to activation in the specific area. Furthermore, the money amount information, product information, and personal information are all digitized, and
By linking with an S system, an inventory management system, etc., detailed customer data and inventory information can be accumulated, and more effective sales promotion, inventory management, and detailed service to customers can be performed.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration in a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an outline of the inside of a store according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a customer information table used in the settlement systems according to the first and second embodiments.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a charge calculation table used in the settlement systems according to the first and second embodiments.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing settlement and storage processing of the first embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a second embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an outline of the inside of a store according to the second embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing a settlement process according to the second embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

105 ... IC card, 110 ... IC card read / write device, 115 ... IC tag sensor, 120 ... IC tag, 1
45 ... POS locker, 160 ... Central host, 300 ...
Customer information table, 400 ... Charge calculation table, 61
0 ... IC card insertion slot, 615 ... IC card ejection slot, 6
20 ... IC tag sensor, 650 ... unattended POS device.

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Megumi Yonezawa 12 890 Kashimada, Saiwai-ku, Kawasaki-shi, Kanagawa Hitachi Information Systems Division, Ltd. (72) Naomi Sato 890 Kashimada, Sachi-ku, Kawasaki-shi, Kanagawa 12 Information Systems Division, Hitachi, Ltd.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. In a product settlement system for calculating and paying a purchase price of a product to be purchased in a store, it is transmitted from a tag attached to each product carried by a purchaser to a predetermined position in the store. Product information receiving means for receiving product information such as product name and price for each product, purchase amount calculating means for calculating the purchase price of the product carried by the purchaser based on the received product information, and card-shaped payment medium input by the purchaser By doing so, the purchase amount is deducted from the cash information equivalent to cash registered in advance in the card-shaped settlement medium, and the settlement processing means for performing the settlement of the purchased product, and the product name and the purchase amount after the settlement. A product settlement system comprising means for collecting and storing information.