System and method for providing shopping aids and incentives to customers through a computer network

A method for distributing purchasing incentives and other shopping aids to customers over a communication network, the method comprising the steps of:

• logging in as a customer by providing at least an individual identification, a postal region code, and retail store selection;
• transmitting from a central site and receiving at a remote customer site, a plurality of incentive offers, each of which is exercisable only in the customer's postal region;
• selecting at the customer site one or more of the incentive offers and transmitting these selections back to the central site;
• generating at least one purchasing incentive containing in encoded form the identity of the retail store selected by the customer and the identity of the customer, and
• transmitting the at least one incentive to the customer.

A system for distributing purchasing incentives to retail customers, comprising:

• a communication network establishing two-way communication between a central site and each of a plurality of customer devices;
• a file at the central site containing a plurality of incentive offers;
• a computer located at the central site, the computer including
• means for storing customer information at the central site, based on information transmitted from any of the customer devices to the central site computer, over the communication network, the customer information including geographical region data and identification data;
• means for retrieving incentive offers from the file of incentive offers, based on the customer's geographical region, and transmitting the retrieved offers to the customer over the communication network;
• means for receiving customer selections made from the incentive offers transmitted to the customer, and for receiving a customer designation of a retailer at which the selected incentives are to be exercised;
• means for generating at least one purchasing incentive containing in encoded form the identity of the retailer designated by the customer and the identity of the customer;
• and
• means for transmitting the generated purchasing incentive to the customer over the communication network.

A method for distributing purchasing incentives and other shopping aids to customers over a communication network, the method comprising the steps of:

• logging in as a customer by providing at least a customer id. used by the customer in purchase transactions a retail store, and a customer postal region;
• transmitting from a central site and receiving at a remote customer site, a plurality of incentive offers, each of which is exercisable based on the customer's postal region. at least one of the offers being based on the customer's prior shopping behavior as determined from the customer id.;
• selecting at the customer site one or more of the incentive offers and transmitting these selections back to the central site;
• generating at least one purchasing incentive selected by the customer;
• and
• transmitting the at least one incentive to the customer.

A method for distributing purchasing incentives to retail customers, comprising the steps of:

• maintaining a consumer purchase history database derived in part from accumulated purchase data of identifiable consumers;
• maintaining a consumer database that identifies consumers by their electronic addresses;
• generating purchase incentives for selected consumers;
• and
• transmitting the purchase incentives to the selected consumers by electronic mail.