Digimarc Devising Ways to Redirect Amazon Traffic to Brick-and-Mortar

Digimarc is working on methods of harnessing Amazon’s traffic in online retailing to redirect it to brick-and-mortar stores using concealed “steganographic” encoding on the screens of smartphones and desktop computers, said a U.S. patent application (20170221121) published Thursday at the Patent and Trademark Office. “The experience begins with the consumer going to an online retailer's website (e.g., Amazon) to search for a product,” said the application, which is unusual for its plain wording and for how it describes in explicit, 3,000-word detail a hypothetical shopping expedition involving a consumer named “Ryan.” The desktop application “automatically searches for the same product” using the application programming interfaces of brick-and-mortar retailers, said the patent, specifically naming “Walmart and/or Best Buy.” If matches and near-matches of the product are found, “the product name, model, price, and local availability at affiliate locations is shown,” it said. “With a mobile phone camera-scan of the product page, relevant information is transferred to the consumer's phone. From there, the consumer can interact with the options on the mobile phone to be directed to the nearby brick and mortar store of choice carrying that product at the price they want. Along the way, the retailer can present offers and additional product information directly to the consumer.” The application is designed to address the difficulty that "conventional" brick-and-mortar retailers have "competing against online retailers," it said: "The latter don't incur the costs of display space and customer service staff borne by the former. A further challenge has emerged with 'showrooming' -- a practice in which shoppers visit stores of conventional retailers to examine samples of physical products, but then make their purchases online." The application, filed Feb. 8, names four inventors from the Portland, Oregon, area, at least three of whom hold key positions at Digimarc, which is based in nearby Beaverton, Oregon: CEO Bruce Davis, Chief Technology Officer Tony Rodriguez and Senior Software Engineer Eoin Sinclair. Amazon and Digimarc representatives didn’t comment Thursday.