METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR REAL-TIME TRACKING OF RETAIL SALES OF SELECTED PRODUCTS

摘要

A system for generating timely sales performance reports based on sales data recorded at point-of-sales (POS) terminals (14) in multiple stores (10) and transmitted to a central data processing site (18) on a periodic and frequent basis. Target items sold in each retail store are detected by their unique product codes and data records pertaining to these sales of target items are captured at the store, for transmittal to the central processing site. The data records are "cleaned" (34) to reduce the occurrence of anomalous or erroneous data, and consolidated into a relational database (40) that can be queried by users to obtain various sales performance reports. The database contains standard measures of sales performance derived from the data collected and the reports permit users to assess the effectiveness of a sales promotion, and to obtain early warning of distribution voids indicative of inventory or stocking problems.