US 12,293,328 B1
Product stock notification system including image-based replacement product prompting and related methods
Melissa Bube, High Point, NC (US); Justin A. Krull, Weirton, WV (US); Jason Wyatt, Advance, NC (US); Jules Amosah, Lewisville, NC (US); and Samuel Gonsalves, Austin, TX (US)
Assigned to INMAR CLEARING, INC., Winston-Salem, NC (US)
Filed by Inmar Clearing, Inc., Winston-Salem, NC (US)
Filed on Apr. 6, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/714,831.
Int. Cl. G06Q 10/08 (2024.01); G06Q 10/087 (2023.01); G06Q 30/0201 (2023.01); G06Q 30/0208 (2023.01); G06Q 30/0601 (2023.01)
CPC G06Q 10/087 (2013.01) [G06Q 30/0201 (2013.01); G06Q 30/0208 (2013.01); G06Q 30/0643 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A product stock notification system comprising:
a plurality of cameras within a store configured to capture a plurality of live images of available products on a display within the store;
a user device associated with a given user remote from the store; and
a virtual shopping server configured to
store a plurality of reference characteristics associated with the available products on the display within the store,
obtain the plurality of live images of the available products on the display within the store from the plurality of cameras,
apply image recognition to identify the available products on the display based upon at least one of the plurality of live images by matching product characteristics associated with the available products and comprising packaging size, packaging shape, packaging color, and optically recognized package text, to the plurality of stored reference characteristics and by matching a machine readable code on each of the available products,
determine a quantity of the available products on the display from the at least one live image based upon the identification of the available products on the display,
obtain a current stock quantity for each of the plurality of available products within the store,
provide the at least one live image to the user device for display thereon,
permit user selection of one of the plurality of available products for purchase associated with the at least one live image,
obtain historical stock data,
operate a machine learning algorithm to set a threshold, the machine learning algorithm accepting as input thereto, the historical stock data, the quantity of the available products on the display, and the current stock quantity, the machine learning algorithm generating as output a predicted product sales rate of each of the plurality of available products and set the threshold based upon the predicted product sales rate, the machine learning algorithm being updated based upon obtaining updated current stock quantity data, updated historical stock data, and updated quantity of available products with each iteration of the machine learning algorithm, and
when, for the user-selected available product, at least one of the quantity of available products is below the threshold and the current stock quantity is below the threshold,
obtain a live image of the display adjacent the available product and comprising a replacement product, the live image of the display adjacent the available product being captured by one of the plurality of cameras,
provide the live image of the display adjacent the available product and including the replacement product to the user device for display thereon so that the live image of the display including the replacement product is displayed with less than all the plurality of available products for purchase associated with the at least one live image, and
cooperate with the user device to prompt the given user to select the replacement product for purchase.