EP0834854A2 - Method of displaying a product information message by an electronic price label - Google Patents

Abstract

Product information messages 38 relating toproduct promotions, sale restrictions of products orproducts eligible for government subsistence programs, arestored in an EPL additional data file 28 in the memory 24 ofan EPL computer 12, together with product informationindicators 39 which uniquely identify each productinformation message 38. When a product information message38 is to be displayed by an EPL 14 associated with aparticular product, a product information indicatorcorresponding to the message 38 to be displayed is input byan operator to the record for that product in a price look-up(PLU) file 36. A control message addressed to the EPL(14) associated with that product is generated by readingthe product information indicator 39 from the PLU file 36and the corresponding product information message 38 fromthe EPL additional data file 28. The control message istransmitted to the EPL 14 and the product informationmessage is displayed by a display 22 of the EPL 14.No paper labels, tags or notices need be installed in orderto convey the information message to a customer.

Description

The present invention relates to electronic pricelabels, and in particular, to a method of displaying aproduct information message by an electronic price label(EPL).

EPL systems typically include a plurality of EPLs,each associated with a particular product on display inlarge retail establishments such as supermarkets ordepartment stores. The EPLs are typically attached to arail along the leading edge of a shelf on which items of theassociated product are stored and display the price of theproduct item. In large retail establishments, thousands ofindividual EPLs may be used in order to display the pricesof all products which are available for purchase within thestore. Each EPL within a retail establishment is typicallycoupled to a central EPL computer in which informationrelating to the EPL is stored in memory in an EPL data file.Price information displayed by the EPL is stored in memoryin a price look-up (PLU) file.

In retail establishments, there are frequently specialpromotions where certain products may be offered at a lowerretail price than usual, or where special offers or prizesmay be associated with the purchase of the product. Othermerchandise products may have legal restrictions imposed ontheir sale. For example, in many countries, the sale ofalcohol is not permitted to persons under a certain age oris not permitted during certain hours or on certain days.Laws may also require that identification be presented to acashier on purchase of products such as alcohol, cigarettesand some solvents. In some countries, various products maybe eligible for government subsistence programs,for example, where government-issued food stamps may be used towards thepurchase of a product or where a product can be bought atreduced price under an infant children scheme.

Traditionally, in all of the above instances, theindividual product items which are subject to the promotion,sale restriction or government program, have been markedwith special tags or labels, or sometimes large banners ornotices have been installed on or adjacent the shelves onwhich the product is stored, so as to convey the informationregarding the product to a customer. These tags and paperprice labels, banners or notices must be printed or markedwith the appropriate information and are then installedmanually by store personnel. This procedure is time-consuming,inefficient and costly.

It is an object of the present invention to provide anefficient and cost effective manner of displaying productinformation that avoids the use of paper products such astags, labels, banners or other notices.

In accordance with a first aspect of the presentinvention there is provided a method of displaying a productinformation message by an electronic price label (EPL) of aretail system, characterized by the steps of:

storing the product information message to be displayedand a product information indicator associated with thatproduct information message, at a first location in theretail system;

storing a product information indicator for a productat a second location in the retail system;

generating a control message addressed to the EPLassociated with the product, including the substeps of

reading the product information indicator for theproduct from the second location; and

reading the product information message associated withthat product information indicator from the first location;

transmitting the control message to the EPL;

receiving of the control message by the EPL; and

displaying of the product information message by theEPL associated with the product.

In accordance with a further aspect of the present inventionthere is provided a retail system comprising a electronicprice label (EPL) associated with a merchandise product,characterized by

first memory means for storing a product informationmessage and a product information indicator associated withthat product information message;

second memory means for storing a product informationindicator for a product;

control means for generating a control messageaddressed to the EPL associated with the product, thecontrol means including means for retrieving the productinformation indicator for the product from the second memorymeans and for retrieving the product information messageassociated with that product information indicator from thefirst memory means;

means for transmitting the control message to the EPL;the EPL associated with the product including receivingmeans for receiving the control message and display meansfor displaying the product information message.

Embodiments of the present invention will now bedescribed by way of example with reference to theaccompanying drawings, in which:

Figure 1 is a block diagram of a retail systemaccording to the present invention;

Figure 2 is a perspective view of an EPL displaying aproduct restriction message;

Figure 3 is a perspective view of an EPL displaying aproduct promotional message; and

Figure 4 is a flow diagram illustrating a method ofdisplaying a product information message by an EPL.

Referring to Figure 1, theretail system 10 showntherein comprises an electronicprice label computer 12which is associated with amemory unit 24 and whichcomminicates with a plurality of electronic price labels 14(EPLs), only one of which represented in Figure 1. Theretail system 10 further comprises atransaction server 32which is associated with aninput device 30 and amemoryunit 34. Thetransaction server 32 communicates with theEPLcomputer 12.

EachEPL 14 includes acontrol circuit 16, amemoryunit 20 and adisplay unit 22. Thecontrol circuit 16controls the internal operation of theEPL 14 and receivescommands from and transmits response commands to theEPLcomputer 12. Thecontrol circuit 16 also controls theoperation of thedisplay unit 22 to display price andadditional product information. Thememory unit 20 storesproduct information and other data necessary for theoperation of theEPL 14. Thedisplay unit 22 is preferably aliquid crystal display (LCD) and displays the price of theproduct with which theEPL 14 is associated and other productinformation.

TheEPL computer 12 records, schedules and transmitsall commands including price change commands and diagnosticcommands to theEPL 14, and analyses status commands fromtheEPL 14. Communication between theEPL computer 12 andtheindividual EPLs 14 may be by remote communication suchas radio or infrared communication, by cable or by acombination of both.

Thememory unit 24 of theEPL computer 12 includes anEPLbasic data file 26 and an EPLadditional data file 28.The EPLbasic data file 26 contains records for all the EPLsof theretail system 10 in which general productinformation, identification data, product price verifierdata and status data for the product with which the EPL isassociated, is stored. The EPLadditional data file 28storesproduct information messages 38 and associatedproduct information indicators 39 which uniquely identifyeachproduct information message 38. Theproductinformation messages 38 may be related to a productpromotion, a product restriction or a product which iseligible under a government subsistence program, and mayinclude text and or special graphic images.

Promotional messages identify products which are forsale at a reduced price or which are subject to otherspecial offers, e.g three items for the price of two.Product restriction messages identify products such asalcohol, cigarettes, solvents etc, the sale of which isrestricted by law. Such laws may require that the productmay not be sold at certain times or to customers under acertain age, or that identification be presented to thecashier on purchase of the product. Government programmessages identify products eligible for sale under specialgovernment programs, such as a food stamp program or infantchildren program.

Theproduct information messages 38 andproductinformation indicators 39 are stored in table form in theEPLadditional data file 28. Examples of such tables andtheproduct information messages 38 stored therein, areshown below; Table 1 illustrates a product promotion datafile, Table 2 illustrates a product restriction data fileand Table 3 illustrates a government program data file,respectively.

Indicator	Promotional Information Message
00	(No information)
01	(ICON)
02	BUY ONE/GET TWO (FLASHING)
03	LOW PRICE
04	Both 01 and 03 information displayed simultaneously)

Indicator	Product Restriction Information Message
00	(No information)
01	ID REQUIRED
02	NO SALE BETWEEN 15.00pm and 18.00pm
03	NO SALE TO PERSONS UNDER 18
04	(Both 01 and 03 information displayed simultaneously)

Indicator	Government Program Information Message
00	(No information)
01	FOOD STAMPS MAY BE USED FOR PURCHASE
02	INFANT CHILDREM PROGRAM
03	(Both 01 and 02 information displayed simultaneously)

Thetransaction server 32 is a host computer andcommunicates with a plurality of individual transactionterminals (not shown in Figure 1) within the retail system.The primary function of thetransaction server 32 is tocommunicate price information and product information to thetransaction terminals from a price look up file (PLU) 36stored in thememory unit 34 of thetransaction server 32. It should be understood that theEPL computer 12 and thetransaction server 32 may comprise a single computer. ThePLU file 36 also containsproduct information indicators 39for preselected products. Theseproduct informationindicators 39 may be manually input to thePLU file 36 by anoperator via theinput device 30. Theinput device 30 maybe a keypad or any other suitable input device.

Referring now to Figures 2 and 3, anEPL 14 is shown inmore detail. In Figure 2, a productrestriction informationmessage 38 informing customers that identification must bepresented to the cashier in order to purchase this product,is being displayed in thedisplay unit 22 of theEPL 14.This productrestriction information message 38 isassociated with product information indicator "01" in theEPL additional product data file 28 (Table 2). In Figure 3,apromotional information message 38 informing customersthat the product is for sale at a reduced price, is beingdisplayed in thedisplay unit 22 of theEPL 14. Thispromotional information message 38 is associated with theproduct information indicator "03" in the EPL additionalproduct data file 28 (Table 1).

The method of displaying a product information messagewill now be described with reference to the flow diagram ofFigure 4. The method begins withstep 40 and instep 42,all EPLproduct information messages 38 are stored in theadditional product data file 28 in thememory unit 24 of theEPL computer 12. Instep 44, an operator enters aproductinformation indicator 39 for a particular product in thestore for which a product information message is to bedisplayed, via theinput device 30 of thetransaction server32. In the case of a product promotion, new priceinformation for the product may also be entered during thisstep. Instep 46, thisproduct information indicator 39 andany new price information is processed by thetransaction server 32 and is stored in the record associated with thatproduct in thePLU file 36 of thememory unit 34.

ThePLU file 36 is read by theEPL computer 12 instep48, and theproduct information indicator 39 and any newprice information is retrieved therefrom. Thisproductinformation indicator 39 and any new price information isstored in the record of theEPL 14 associated with thatproduct in the EPL basic data file 26 of thememory unit 24of theEPL computer 12. Instep 50, the EPL basic data file26 is periodically read by theEPL computer 12, in order toretrieve anyproduct information indicators 39 which havebeen entered therein. Instep 52,EPL computer 12 creates acontrol message addressed to theEPL 14 associated with theproduct, by reading theproduct information indicator 39 inEPL basic data file 26 and retrieving aproduct informationmessage 38 corresponding to thatproduct informationindicator 39 from EPL additional product data file 28.

Instep 54, theproduct information message 38 istransmitted by theEPL computer 12 to thecontrol circuit 16of the addressed EPL 14 (i.e, to thecontrol circuit 16 oftheEPL 14 associated with the particular product for whichthe product information message is to be displayed). Instep 56, theproduct information message 38 is received bythecontrol circuit 16 of theEPL 14 and an acknowledgementsignal is transmitted to theEPL computer 12. Instep 58,theproduct information message 38 in stored in thememoryunit 20 of theEPL 14, and instep 60, thecontrol circuit16 controls thedisplay unit 22 of theEPL 14 to display theproduct information message 38 associated with the productinformation indicator. Theproduct information message 38may be displayed as a permanent message (i.e not flashing),or as a flashing message and may be displayed integrallywith or separately from the price information normallydisplayed by theEPL 14. Instep 62, the method ends.

The method of the present invention is advantageous inthat it is no longer necessary to print or mark specialtags, labels, banners or other notices with the relevantproduct information and to install the paper tags, labelsetc, on or in close proximity to a particular product, inorder to convey special product information to a customer.Hence, considerable savings in time and costs are achieved.

It should be understood that theEPL computer 12 andthetransaction server 32 and their associated memory unitsand input devices may be a single computer which functionsto control both all the EPLs and the transactions terminalsin the retail establishment.

Claims (10)

1. A method of displaying a product informationmessage (38) by an electronic price label (EPL) (14) of aretail system (10) characterized by the steps of:

   storing the product information message (38) to bedisplayed and a product information indicator (39)associated with that product information message (38) at afirst location (28) in the retail system (10);

   storing a product information indicator (39) for aproduct at a second location (26, 36) in the retail system(10);

   generating a control message addressed to the EPL (14)associated with the product, including the substeps of

   reading the product information indicator (39) for theproduct from the second location (36, 26) and

   reading the product information message (38) associatedwith that product information indicator (39) from the firstlocation (24);

   transmitting the control message to the EPL (14);

   receiving of the control message by the EPL (14); and

   displaying of the product information message (38) bythe EPL (14).
2. A method according to claim 1, characterized inthat the second location is a price look-up (PLU) file in amemory unit (34) of the retail system (10).
3. A method according to claim 1, characterized inthat the second location is an EPL basic data file (26) inthe memory unit (24) of an EPL computer (12).
4. A method according to claim 2, characterized inthat the step of generating the control message addressed tothe EPL (14) further includes the substeps of copying theproduct information indicator (39) read from the PLU file to an EPL basic data file (26) and reading the productinformation indicator (39) from EPL basic data file (26).
5. A method according to any of claims 1 to 4,characterized in that the first location is an EPLadditional data file (28) in the memory unit (24) of an EPLcomputer (12).
6. A method according to any preceding claim,characterized in that the product information message (38)is a promotional message.
7. A method according to any preceding claim,characterized in that the product information message (38)is a product restriction message.
8. A method according to any preceding claim,characterized in that the product information message (38)is a government program message.
9. An electronic price label (14) having displaymeans (22) for displaying a product information message (38)according to the method of any preceding claim.
10. A retail system (10) comprising an electronicprice label (EPL) (14) for displaying a product informationmessage (14) associated with a merchandise product,characterized by

    first memory means (28) for storing a productinformation message (38) and a product information indicator(39) associated with that product information message (38);

    second memory means (26, 36) for storing a productinformation indicator (39) for a product;

    control means (12) for generating a control messageaddressed to the EPL (14) associated with the product, thecontrol means including

    means for reading the product information indicator(39) for the product from the second memory means (36, 26)and for retrieving the product information message (38)associated with that product information indicator (39) fromthe first memory means (28); and

    means for transmitting the control message to the EPL(14);

    whereby the EPL (14) includes receiving means (16) forreceiving the control message and display means (22) fordisplaying the product information message (38).

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