International Business Machines Corporation
Point of purchase based physical item offer optimization

Abstract:

An offer specifying a physical product, a physical location, a time limit, and an upper limit of instances of the physical product is configured. An optimal item exhaustion rate corresponding to the offer is determined. An expected conversion rate corresponding to the offer and an expected customer travel time corresponding to the offer are forecasted for a registered customer. The registered customer is computed as a prospective customer. Using the optimal item exhaustion rate and the expected customer travel time, an offer time corresponding to the prospective customer and the offer is selected to allow the prospective customer to arrive at the physical location at a time consistent with the optimal exhaustion rate, the time being before the time limit and before a number of sold instances of the physical product exceeds the upper limit. The offer is transmitted at the offer time.