INTEGRATED SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MANAGING ELECTRONIC COUPONS

摘要

A networked electronic coupon management system is disclosed for managing electronic coupons. The system includes tightly integrated database, application server, and client components facilitating performing electronic coupon definition, issuance, and redemption operations. The operations include creating electronic coupons, wherein each electronic coupon includes a unique coupon ID, creating customer accounts, wherein each customer account comprises a unique customer ID; creating manufacturer accounts, wherein each manufacturer account comprises a Unique ID; and creating retailer accounts, wherein each retailer account comprises a unique retailer ID; and assigning a unique electronic coupon ID to a unique customer ID. Thereafter the system validates the electronic coupon with a product purchase transaction by a customer associated with the unique customer ID. Furthermore, funds transfers associated with the product purchase transaction are tracked, and historical transactional level data is maintained for all customer, manufacturer and retailer accounts.

主权项

1. A system to enable electronic promotional transactions in real time, comprising:
a storage device; a network device; and a processor communicatively coupled to the storage device and the network device, wherein the processor executes application code instructions that are stored in the storage device to cause the system to:
receive a request from a consumer computing device associated with a consumer to associate an electronic coupon with a consumer account;identify a unique consumer identification associated with the consumer account based on stored identification criteria;create a unique electronic coupon identification associated with the electronic coupon;associate the unique electronic coupon identification only with the unique customer identification associated with the consumer account;receive, from a point of sale computing device associated with a retailer, a notification of an initiation of a financial transaction between the consumer account and a point of sale terminal, the notification comprising data to identify the unique customer identification;identify the unique customer identification based on the notification;identify the unique electronic coupon identification based on the unique customer identification;communicate the electronic coupon having the unique electronic coupon identification to the point of sale computing device for association with the financial transaction;receive a request for a redemption of the electronic coupon from the retailer;provide funds to the retailer to redeem the electronic coupon.