US 11,379,891 B2Granted

Method, apparatus, and computer program product for forecasting demand

AssigneeGroupon, Inc.

InventorsShafiq Shariff, Rajesh Parekh, Bob Beaty, Feili Hou

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

Loading patent…

Abstract

Provided herein are systems, methods and computer readable media for forecasting demand. An example method comprises generating a virtual offer for one or more combinations of a category or sub-category, location, and price range, accessing consumer data comprising one or more users and user data related to each of the one or more users, calculating a probability that a particular user would buy a particular offer in a particular time frame for at least a portion of the plurality of users and for each of the virtual offers, and determining an estimated number of units of to be sold for at least a portion of the one or more virtual offers as a function of at least the probability associated with each of the one or more virtual offers.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A method for supply identification of one or more merchants, based on at least a demand forecast, comprising:

receiving, by one or more processors via a communication interface, a demand forecast, wherein the demand forecast comprises a residual demand calculated as a function of the demand forecast and an available inventory, and dynamically adjusted subsequent to a process in which merchants are contacted based on availability to meet the residual demand based on a change in the available inventory of a promotion with a closed contract and diversity restriction requiring diversity among merchants, categories, sub-categories, locations, and price ranges;
accessing, by the one or more processors, a current offer inventory comprising available offers;
determining, by the one or more processors, the residual demand based on at least the demand forecast and the current offer inventory;
determining, by the one or more processors based on a merchant repository, one or more new merchants to fill the residual demand, wherein each of the one or more new merchants are associated with a sales value for the current offer inventory;
and
prioritizing, by the one or more processors, the one or more new merchants based on the determined sales value for each of the one or more new merchants;
and
generating, by the one or more processors, a list of prioritized merchants.

5 more elements

An apparatus comprising one or more processors and at least one memory including computer program code, the at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to:

receive, by the one or more processors via a communication interface, a demand forecast, wherein the demand forecast comprises a residual demand calculated as a function of the demand forecast and an available inventory, and dynamically adjusted subsequent to a process in which merchants are contacted based on availability to meet the residual demand based on a change in the available inventory of a promotion with a closed contract and diversity restriction requiring diversity among merchants, categories, sub-categories, locations, and price ranges;
access, by the one or more processors, a current offer inventory comprising available offers;
determine, by the one or more processors, the residual demand based on at least the demand forecast and the current offer inventory;
determine, by the one or more processors based on a merchant repository, one or more new merchants to fill the residual demand, wherein each of the one or more new merchants are associated with a sales value for the current offer inventory;
and
prioritize, by the one or more processors, the one or more new merchants based on the determined sales value for each of the one or more new merchants;
and
generate, by the one or more processors, a list of prioritized merchants.

5 more elements

A computer program product comprising at least one computer readable non-transitory memory medium having program code instructions stored thereon, the program code instructions which when executed by an apparatus, cause the apparatus at least to:

receive, by one or more processors via a communication interface, a demand forecast, wherein the demand forecast comprises a residual demand calculated as a function of the demand forecast and an available inventory, and dynamically adjusted subsequent to a process in which merchants are contacted based on availability to meet the residual demand based on a change in the available inventory of a promotion with a closed contract and diversity restriction requiring diversity among merchants, categories, sub-categories, locations, and price ranges;
access, by the one or more processors, a current offer inventory comprising available offers;
determine, by the one or more processors, the residual demand based on at least the demand forecast and the current offer inventory;
determine, by the one or more processors based on a merchant repository, one or more new merchants to fill the residual demand, wherein each of the one or more new merchants are associated with a sales value for the current offer inventory;
and
prioritize, by the one or more processors, the one or more new merchants based on the determined sales value for each of the one or more new merchants;
and
generate, by the one or more processors, a list of prioritized merchants.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 16/855,778Filed 22 Apr 2020 · continuation
Priority: 4 Oct 2012
Published: US 2021/0035171 A14 Feb 2021
Granted: 5 Jul 2022
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification17 codes

G06Q 30/0282
Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising: rating or review of business operators or products
G06N 5/02
Computing arrangements using knowledge-based models: knowledge representation; Symbolic representation
G06N 5/04
Computing arrangements using knowledge-based models: inference or reasoning models
G06N 20/00
Machine learning

Family

Application61/709,623Us provisional application · filed 4 Oct 2012
Application61/730,046Us provisional application · filed 26 Nov 2012
Application13/826,333Parent of this continuation · filed 14 Mar 2013
Application15/953,635Parent of this continuation · filed 16 Apr 2018
US 9,947,022 B1Parent of this continuation · filed 17 Apr 2018
US 2021/0035171 A1Pre-grant publication · published 4 Feb 2021
US 2021/0357993 A9Pre-grant publication · published 18 Nov 2021
US 10,657,567 B2Parent of this continuation
US 2018/0365716 A1Published application
US 11,379,891 B2This patent

From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.