WO2018047140A1

WO2018047140A1 - A stock management system and method

Info

Publication number: WO2018047140A1
Application number: PCT/IB2017/055485
Authority: WO
Inventors: Yoel DSOUZA; Zeri DSOUZA
Original assignee: Dsouza Yoel; Dsouza Zeri
Priority date: 2016-09-12
Filing date: 2017-09-12
Publication date: 2018-03-15

Abstract

A system and a method for providing stock management for at least one online retail store are disclosed. A server [102] is configured for storing a list of one or more retail items wherein each of the retail item is provided with an associated status pertaining to quantity of the at least one item. The list can be accessed by at least one customer device [106] for placing an order of at least one retail item. The server [102] analyses the order placed by the customer to determine the associated status of the at least one retail item. Based on the analysis of the received order, the associated status is updated in real time, and is further notified to the at least one customer device [106] and the at least one vendor device [104] in real time.

Description

A STOCK MANAGEMENT SYSTEM AND METHOD

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention generally relates to a stock management and more particularly, to system and method for providing stock management of retail products.

BACKGROUND

The following description of related art is intended to provide background information pertaining to the field of the present disclosure. This section may include certain aspects of the art that may be related to various aspects of the present disclosure. However, it should be appreciated that this section be used only to enhance the understanding of the reader with respect to the present disclosure, and therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.

Over the years, online shopping has grown in popularity because customers/consumers find this a convenient and easy option of shopping while enjoying the comfort of their home or office. The e-commerce websites and applications provide diversified product details to the consumers, thereby allowing them to directly buy products/services using the Internet.

Currently, there are thousands of e-commerce web sites offering various products and services. These websites or applications typically maintain one or more databases for storing details of inventories that can be further displayed to the consumers/customers. The details of inventories include for example, various lists of products/goods, price of the goods, description and features of the goods, quantity of the goods available with the respective stores etcetera. The details of inventories not only facilitate a consumer to select and buy any product, but also facilitates the vendors to manage the stock of their respective stores. Various solutions have been known in the art for providing stock management. However, the existing solutions possess several limitations and thus, fail to effectively cater to the needs of the users and vendors. Most of the existing solutions are not compatible with the vendors' system. For example, the existing solutions may lack software compatibility and the vendors may require to buy specific software or license to implement stock management for their stores.

Further, maintaining a stock of products on a shelf within the stores may be difficult due to limited shelf space. Also, the quantity of the goods/products on the shelves keep varying due to the sales, variation in demand and supply of the goods, damages of goods etc. Hence, the shelved quantity of goods within a store generally changes by various unpredictable events. Thus, the stores may require sufficient staff/human resources for constantly monitoring each and every product on the shelves. Monitoring each and every product on the shelves store by human staffs can be tedious specially when millions of e-commerce consumers purchase products and stocks of the stores vary very rapidly. Thus, the task of stock management may be difficult as well as expensive for the vendor. Further, timely update of the stock is also not possible by limited staffs and poor stock management solutions that are existing in the art.

Further, it is also inconvenient and disappointing for shoppers/customers to visit an online site to purchase an item only to find out that the item is out of stock. Therefore, such undesirable shopping experience of the shoppers/customers result in poor sales for retail businesses, especially the small retailers.

Hence, in light of the drawbacks which are aforementioned and inherent in the existing art, there is a need to facilitate stock management for online retailers and consumers. Further, there is a need for a system and method to provide an efficient stock management system for providing accurate information of the retail items that eventually satisfies customer and vendor needs.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

This section is provided to introduce certain objects and aspects of the present invention in a simplified form that are further described below in the detailed description. This summary is not intended to identify the key features or the scope of the claimed subject matter.

In view of the above shortcomings of the existing systems, as discussed in the background section, it is an object of the invention is to eliminate or at least substantially reduce the limitations of the prior art systems by providing a system and a method for stock management for online retailers and consumers. Another object of the invention is to provide an improved stock management system and method that provide efficient and cost-effective inventory management system and method.

Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a periodic update of stock information and notify the updated information to vendors and customers dynamically.

In view of the above-mentioned objects, the invention discloses a stock management system for an online retail store wherein, a server is configured for storing a list having details of at least one retail item. The server also stores an associated status to the at least one retail item wherein the associated status is a status pertaining to quantity of the at least one item. A vendor device may be configured for generating and sending the list to the server which can be accessed by at least one customer device for placing an order of the at least one retail item at the server. The server may be further configured to analyse the order placed by the customer to determine the associated status of the at least one retail item. Thereafter, the associated status of the at least one retail item is updated in real time, based on the analysis of the received order. The updated associated status is notified to the at least one customer device and the at least one vendor device in real time.

In one embodiment of the present invention, a method is disclosed for providing stock management for a retail store. The method comprises the steps of: storing a list received from at least one vendor device, the list having at least one retail item; storing an associated status to the at least one retail item, the associated status pertaining to quantity of the at least one item; receiving an order of the at least one retail item from at least one costumer device; analysing the received order to determine the associated status of the at least one retail item; updating in real time, the associated status of the at least one retail item based on the analysis of the received order; and notifying the updated associated status to the at least one customer device and the at least one vendor device. Other objects, features, and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated herein, and constitute a part of this invention, illustrate exemplary embodiments of the disclosed charger casing assembly in which like reference numerals refer to the same parts throughout the different drawings. Components in the drawings are not necessarily to scale, emphasis instead being placed upon clearly illustrating the principles of the present invention. Also, the embodiments shown in the figures are not to be construed as limiting the invention, but are illustrated herein to highlight the features and advantages of the invention. Figure 1 is a block diagram of a system for stock management for online retailers and consumers, in accordance with the present invention.

Figure 2 is a flowchart illustrating the method for stock management for online retailers and consumers, in accordance with one of the embodiments of the present invention.

It may be evident to skilled artisans that mechanical components in the figures are only illustrative, for simplicity and clarity, and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the mechanical components in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other components to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION In the following description, for the purposes of explanation, various specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the disclosed embodiments. It will be apparent, however, that the disclosed embodiments may be practiced without these specific details. Several features described hereafter can each be used independently of one another or with any combination of other features. Figure 1 is a block diagram of a system for stock management for online retailers and consumers, in accordance with the present invention. The system comprises a server [102], a vendor device [104], and a customer device [106]. The server [102], the vendor device [104] and the customer device [106] are capable of communicating with each other across a communication network such as the Internet. The server [102], the vendor device [104] and the customer device [106] send and receive communication or perform data transaction for the purpose of stock management or inventory management of various online stores.

In various embodiments of the present invention, each of the vendor device [104] and the customer device [106] is an electronic communication device comprising a processing unit, a data storage unit, and a display unit (not shown). The data storage unit may store data pertaining to the customization of the payment modes according to the embodiments of the present invention. The storage unit may include various forms of media including a computer readable/writeable non-volatile storage medium for storing computer instructions or computer program to be executed by the processing unit. The computer program may include program instructions pertaining to e-commerce and stock management of online stores. The electronic devices [102], [104] may also include various means and components for managing data transaction between the electronic devices [102], [104]. For instance, the electronic devices [102], [104] may be equipped with instant messaging platforms to enable the users to exchange messages relating to online purchase of one or more items and stock management of the online store. Further, each of the at least one customer device [106] and the at least one vendor device [104] includes at least one of a mobile, a smart phone, a tablet, a phablet, a laptop and a desktop. The at least one vendor device [104] and the at least one customer device [106], on its respective display screen, receive the information from the server [102]. At least one customer may select at least one retail item displayed on the screen and place an order via the at least one customer device [106]. Further, the server [102] is a centralized server that provides a central location for vendors and consumers/customers for initiating and processing online requests of selling/purchasing any retail product or item, and also facilitating in the stock or inventory management for online stores. The server [102] is configured for storing a list having details of at least one retail item for sale, wherein the details of the products may include but not limit to, price of the products, quantity of product currently available, description of the products, etc. In one embodiment of the present invention, a database may be maintained by the server [102] to store and update information pertaining to description, image, price and quantity of the at least one retail item.

As described above, the list having details of the at least one retail item, is created and provided to the server [102] by the vendors. The list is implemented by the server [102] in providing efficient stock management as per the embodiments of the present invention. The vendor device [104] may be configured for generating and sending the list to the server [102]. The list can be accessed by the server [102] while performing analysis of the order placed by at least one customer places using at least one customer device [106]. In one embodiment herein, the server [102] may be accessed by the vendor device [104], via a website, mobile application, and/or other form of communication, to send the list and to provide several information pertaining to the retail items for the online shopping and stock management. Along with the list, the server [102] also stores the associated status of the at least one retail item wherein the associated status is a status pertaining to quantity of the at least one retail item. According to the present invention, the server [102] analyses the order placed by the customer to determine the associated status of the at least one retail item. The analysis of the received order determines current quantity of the at least one retail item, and whether or not the at least one retail item is out-of-stock. The at least one retail item is out-of-stock in an event the quantity of the at least one retail item available for purchase, is at least one unit/count less than the quantity ordered/required by the customer. Thereafter, based on the analysis of the received order, the associated status of the at least one retail item is updated in real time. The associated status of the at least one retail item is updated by reducing by at least one count in the current quantity of the at least one retail item. Thus, the updated associated status comprises one of a reduced quantity of the at least one retail item and the out of stock information of the at least one retail item. The updated associated status is notified to the at least one customer device [106] and the at least one vendor device [104] in real time. Figure 2 is a flowchart illustrating the method for inventory/stock management for online retailers and consumers, in accordance with one of the embodiments of the present invention. The method involves at least the following steps.

At step 202, at least one list of retail items is prepared and provided to the server [102] by at least one vendor. The list of the retail items comprises details of at least one retail item provided by at least one vendor that is required to be uploaded. The list may be uploaded on the server [102] by using the at least one vendor device [104] by the vendors. The details of the items or products provided by the vendors may include but do not limit to, price of the products, quantity of product currently available, description of the products, etc. According to the embodiments of the present invention, the server [102] is configured for storing the list received from the at least one vendor device [104] storing the associated status to the at least one retail item, the associated status pertaining to quantity of the at least one retail item.

At step 204, the customers view the retail items on respective customer devices [106] and select the at least one retail item for shopping. At least one customer place order of the at least one retail item using the at least one costumer device [106]. Step 204 thus includes viewing of the retail products along with their details, as provided by the vendors, on the online platform by the customers. The present invention encompasses display of information related to products in multiple languages (familiar to customer) to allow the customers to view products and their related information in the language of their choice. Thereafter, the customers select the desired products along with their respective quantities to be purchased and subsequently place the orders on the server [102] or the online platform. The invention further encompasses displaying details of the various retail products including the availability of the one or more products that are being searched by the customers in the neighbourhood or nearest store. In an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the customers are provided with a 'my-list' option that helps the customers to choose products which have been purchased or favourited by them. This enables easier and effective shopping as it not only enables the customers to easily find what they are looking for and accordingly create a shopping list based on previous purchases and products favourited; but also provides a personalized suggestion/recommendation. This enhances the selection process of the products by the customers.

At step 206, the vendor receives the order of the at least one retail item placed by the customer using the customer device [102]. The details of the order placed by the customer are sent to the server [102].

At steps 208 and 210, the order of the at least one retail item is received by the server [102] for analysis. The received order is analysed to determine the associated status of the at least one retail item. The associated status is checked to determine whether or not the quantity of the selected at least one retail item needs to be decreased and whether or not it has been decreased. In one embodiment of the present invention, the change in the quantity of the retail items is done either by human intervention or automatically by the server [102]. The server [102] automatically updates the quantity when the inventory count is maintained by the vendors. The analysis also includes checking of the availability of the retail items according to customers' requirements. In an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the analysis by the vendor may include tracking the availability and shelf location of the products, that facilitates in determining whether or not the products are available on the retail store shelf or within a distribution centre etc. Step 210 includes checking by the online portal whether or not the vendors have reduced the quantities of the products/retail items on the server [102] or the online platform. In the event the vendors have reduced the quantities of the products, the method leads to step 212, else step 220 is processed in the event of the products quantities not being reduced. At steps 212 the received order is analysed to determine the current quantity of the at least one retail item, and whether or not the at least one item is out-of-stock. At step 214, if the current quantity of the at least one item is found to be less than the ordered quantity, then the at least one retail item is marked as "out of stock" in the list. Accordingly, the vendor device [104] and the customer device [106] is notified of the at least one retail item being "out of stock". Step 212 thus includes checking the quantities of the products and declaring Out of stock' products when the products are either un-available for further shopping or when the ordered quantity of the product is more than the available quantity. In the event when the products are declared as out of stock, the step 214 is processed. On the other hand, if the products are not declared as out of stock, the step 218 is processed. Step 214 further includes marking of the said products (as mentioned in previous step 212) as Out of stock' products in order to notify any new customers that the Out of stock' products are no longer available for sale.

At step 216 and step 218 the vendor device [104] and the customer device [106] are notified of the updated status of the at least one retail item, wherein the updated associated status comprises one of a reduced quantity of the at least one item and the out of stock information of the at least one item. The notification may be sent through emails, text messages, postal messages, phone calls, alert message on the online portal or a combination thereof. Step 220 includes continuing with the processing of the order/s placed by the customers. Additionally, the present invention facilitates the vendors to periodically update their stock. In an exemplary embodiment, the vendors, through the online platform, the vendors are provided with an option to put the product back in his stock being displayed to the consumers. The vendors are simply required to change the associated status of the product from Out of stock' to 'stock available' i.e. when the associated status of any retail item is more than or at least equal to the ordered quantity, the stock is available again to be purchased.

The invention further encompasses providing through the server [102], a 're-fill and auto-fill' feature that facilitates the vendors to automatically get their products (supplied from their suppliers) refilled when they are out of stock. In another exemplary embodiment, the vendors are provided with the option to add or remove any product, at any moment, in the online stock that will be updated accordingly and displayed to the customers. Thus, the vendors are provided with features of customizing the online stock. In yet another exemplary embodiment, the updation of stock information by the vendors will automatically be updated in the database. Thus, the features of customization and dynamic updation of the online stock provide a customer-oriented stock management process/system to the customers, and a vendor- oriented stock management process/system to the vendors. The present invention further encompasses a safe, transparent and reliable payment method of online payment customization by enabling a 'refund/return' option in case any out of stock item is purchased by the customer. This ensures that the payment will be sent/transferred to respective customer's wallet or bank account.

Although the present invention has been described in considerable detail with reference to certain preferred embodiments and examples thereof, other embodiments and equivalents are possible. Even though numerous characteristics and advantages of the present invention have been set forth in the foregoing description, together with functional and procedural details, the disclosure is illustrative only, and changes may be made in detail, especially in terms of the procedural steps within the principles of the invention to the full extent indicated by the broad general meaning of the terms. Thus, various modifications are possible of the presently disclosed system and process without deviating from the intended scope and spirit of the present invention. A person having ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the customization of payment modes discussed hereinabove is exemplary and are not limiting in any manner.

Claims

We claim

1. A system for providing stock management for a retail store, the system comprising:

a server [102] configured for storing a list having at least one retail item and an associated status to the at least one retail item, the associated status pertaining to quantity of the at least one item;

a vendor device [104] configured for sending the list to the server [102]; and a customer device [106] placing an order of the at least one retail item at the server [102]; wherein the server [102] is further configured to: analyse the received order to determine the associated status of the at least one retail item, update in real time, the associated status of the at least one retail item based on the analysis of the received order, and notify the updated associated status to the at least one customer device [106] and the at least one vendor device [104].

2. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein a database is maintained by the server [102] to store and update information pertaining to description, image, price and quantity of the at least one retail item.

3. The system as claimed in claim 2, wherein each of the at least one vendor device [104] and the at least one customer device [106], on its respective display screen, receives the information from the server [102].

4. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the analysis of the received order determines current quantity of the at least one retail item, and whether or not the at least one item is out-of-stock.

5. The system as claimed in claim 4, wherein the at least one retail item is out-of-stock in an event the quantity of the at least one item is at least one unit less than that of an ordered quantity.

6. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the associated status of the at least one retail item is updated by reducing by at least one count in the current quantity of the at least one retail item.

7. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the updated associated status comprises one of a reduced quantity of the at least one item and the out of stock information of the at least one item.

8. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the at least one customer device [106] and the at least one vendor device [104] comprises at least one of a mobile, a smart phone, a tablet, a phablet, a laptop and a desktop.

9. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the server [102], the at least one customer device [106] and the at least one vendor device [104] are capable of communicating across a communication network.

10. A method for providing stock management for a retail store, the method comprising:

- storing a list received from at least one vendor device [104], the list having at least one retail item;

- storing an associated status to the at least one retail item, the associated status pertaining to quantity of the at least one item;

- receiving an order of the at least one retail item from at least one costumer device [106];

- analysing the received order to determine the associated status of the at least one retail item;

- updating in real time, the associated status of the at least one retail item based on the analysis of the received order; and

- notifying the updated associated status to the at least one customer device

[106]and the at least one vendor device [104].

11. The method as claimed in claim 10, wherein a database is maintained by the server [102] to store and update information pertaining to description, image, price and quantity of the at least one retail item.

12. The method as claimed in claim 11, further comprising displaying the information to each of the at least one vendor device [104] and the at least one customer device [106].

13. The method as claimed in claim 10, wherein the analysis of the received order determines current quantity of the at least one retail item, and whether or not the at least one item is out-of-stock.

14. The method as claimed in claim 13, the at least one retail item is out-of-stock in an event the quantity of the at least one item is at least one unit less than that of an ordered quantity.

15. The method as claimed in claim 10, wherein the associated status of the at least one retail item is updated by reducing by at least one count in the current quantity of the at least one retail item.

16. The method as claimed in claim 10, wherein the updated associated status comprises one of a reduced quantity of the at least one item and the out of stock information of the at least one item.