| abstract |
A system for an integrated multi-vendor customer loyalty and personalized marketing program and a method for its use are disclosed. The system comprises at least one database server operably connected to a plurality of external vendor servers and a plurality of devices at many disparate points of sale, whereby sales transactions are processed and communicated to the system's on-line transaction processing database, reward and eligibility determinations are made, consumers are credited immediately for various factors relating to the sales transactions by each participating vendor (i.e., merchant or CPG) involved in the transaction, and separate credit balances are maintained in vendor-specific subaccounts for that particular consumer. The method involves the creation of a single, centralized consumer account to which the system automatically allocates and applies credits to individual vendor-specific subaccounts by dividing and segregating the credits for any given sales transaction. |