Patent · US Expired

Inventory and price decision support

US6910017B1 · kind B1 · utility

205Cited by
20References
24Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateMar 5, 1999
Grant dateJun 21, 2005
Priority date
Expiry dateMar 5, 2019

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06Q30/0201
  • WIPO fieldIT methods for management
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

From data that includes prices and unit sales of an item of commerce for a succession of time periods during which the item was sold, a relationship is derived that represents variation of unit sales of the item as a function of price and time of sale. A maximum profit is predicted by optimizing the price or inventory or both over time in accordance with the relationship. The optimized price or inventory or both over time are used in connection with making price decisions or inventory decisions or both with respect to marketing the item of commerce. A group of the data is aggregated, the group being chosen so that the aggregated data for the group will have an enhanced signal-to-noise ratio with respect to information about sales trends. The aggregated data for the group is analyzed for use in making price decisions with respect to marketing the items of commerce. A series of charts illustrating variations in sales over time are generated automatically, different charts being for different selected sets of the data.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.