Project Name: Coupout = Coupon Out Class: CS790Z Graduate Seminar on Software Engineering (2010) Team: Dianne Guevarra, Qiping Yan Website: www.RenoDiner.com/Coupout Implementation: MySQL, PHP, Perl, iWeb Description: Coupons are a tested and proven marketing strategy for any types of business for that matter. They attract new customers because people are constantly looking for ways to save, especially in today's economy. But offering coupons is expensive due to their low redemption rate. In 2008, there were more than 317 billion coupons distributed but only 2.6 billion, or less than 1% were redeemed. To tackle this problem, we developed Coupout, a simple, user-friendly and powerful coupon management system. Our main goal is to make coupon search and redemption more convenient for mobile users. And, thereby, help restaurants advertise to the large and growing mobile user base.
This is a web project specifically designed for iPhone. It was implemented with the iWeb framework. This project will be transformed into a full scale commercial mobile restaurant coupon system.
How coupout works
Coupout consists of two major components. The first is an interface for Internet web browsers and is intended for restaurant owners. The second component is a mobile application for smartphones. This is for consumers to locate a restaurant's coupons in the user's location. The owner's platform is a subscription based website. After a restaurant owner signs up, he can log in to the system to manage his restaurant and coupon campaign. The tasks an owner can do with the management system include update restaurant information, change business hours, change menu items, set up daily specials, upload photos, issue coupons, modify or terminate coupons, and monitor cam- paign performance. The consumer's component is implemented for mobile devices, like smartphones. Functions include login, registration, searching coupons based on a user's current GPS obtained from the device's GPS receiver, searching coupons by zip code, browse coupons by state, city, zip code and cuisine. Back end functions will include tracking coupons usage.
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