Merchants conduct transactions with customers for various types of goods and services at physical establishments or locations of the merchants. These merchants often attempt to maintain certain levels of inventory at each of their locations so that the merchants are able to provide items (e.g., goods or services) to a customer. For instance, a merchant may order additional inventory from a vendor for an item when the merchant notices that the inventory is getting relatively low. However, keeping track of inventory is complicated and difficult, and often times merchants have insufficient amounts of inventory for an item, or too much inventory for an item. Insufficient inventory potentially results in lost sales, while maintaining large inventory is expensive and may prevent the merchant from making other business purchases, such as new equipment, marketing materials, rental space, and so on.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds