Authors:
Susan Brosnan, Daniel Goins, Patricia Hogan, Jessica Snead
Abstract:
When ordering groceries through click-and-collect, Shoppers using Coupons with purchase requirements cannot be certain that these will be fulfilled. This solution is a method to provide alternative options stored in Customer Profile for ensuring that the coupon requirements can be fulfilled.
Background:
Often the most valuable coupons have a purchase amount requirement of a Total Order Amount or an Amount for items from a particular retailer. When ordering groceries online, the shopper has no idea if all the items will really be in stock. Therefore, it is quite possible that the customer could order sufficient items to appear to meet the threshold, but still not have enough of the order fulfilled to truly meet that threshold. And it's too late to handle that when the store calls to notify of the picked order -- everything is picked and rung up by that time.
One way to try to get around this issue, customers can allow substitutions for items in the order. But this is not ideal. Firstly, you may only want the item from that specific vendor for taste/size/preferences etc. Furthermore, getting a similar item from a different vendor might not fulfill the coupon (for example $10 off $30 of Kraft products and you get Cabot cheese slices). Or it might be cheaper and thus the total is under the threshold (for example substitute a store brand item and decrease the whole order cost).
Another way to try to get around this issue is by ordering significantly more than the threshold requirement (for example $120 for a $100 threshold). But that's not a great solution for a customer -- if everything is available, then the customer has spent excessive money and perhaps truly did not have that much extra available to spend.
What is needed is a way for the Customer to meet the threshold without spending excess money and the Store to be able to assist with that automatically during the Picking Phase of the process.
Description:
The solution is to allow the customer to set a list of items that are "backup purchases" of Staple Items (not part of the original order) to reach the threshold for the coupon requirement. That list could be staple items that the Shopper always needs and would be fine to have some extra. This could be...
-- A list for specifically Coupon on Total Order, ranked by preference and the amount "extra" for each item. For example:
- Cheerios - 2
- Snyder’s Mini Pretzels snack bags - 3
- Pete's Dark Roast Coffee Beans - 1
-- A list for a specific Vendor, if the customer often gets coupons for "amount per vendor", such as a Kraft List:
- Kraft American Singles - 1
- Claussen Dill Pickle Spears - 2
- Lemon Jell-O - 5
This would be an example of the Flow:
- Customer pre-sets the lists of "backup purchase items"
- When creating the online order, the Customer clicks a box that a $100 Total Order Coupon is present
- Customer can then select one of the pre-set lists as the backup items
- When picking the order, the Shopper Assistant finds that several items were out-of-stock and the Customer's Order is only $84
- The Pick App notifies the Shopper Assistant Picker that this order needs to reach $100 minimum
- The Pick App has the Pre-selected list from the Online order and starts going through the list in the Pick App
- As the Shopper Assistant adds items to the Order in the sequence/number of "backup item" list
- If the First list is exhausted, the Pick App could move to the next Pre-set List for that customer (ex. The Kraft Item Backup list)
- After going through several items, the Pick App notifies the Shopper Assistant to stop because the order is now at $101.45
- The Customer can still use their coupon
In addition, there might be a threshold value, whereby if the total is under a certain amount (for the whole order, vendor, etc.), then the program would notify the Shopper Assistant not try to level up the order with "backup purchases." For instance, if they are mega out of items and the order was only $50 toward the $100 goal, if the threshold is set at $70, then the application would say not to add backup items. Where if it was $72 toward the $100 dollar goal, it would pull from the backup list.
TGCS Reference 2946
