Art sheets storage, display and retrieval systems

Abstract

A novel system for art sheets storage, display and retrieval in a retail store. It includes a tall shelf stand with several shelves. Located beneath the shelves is a motor-powered, computer-controlled multiple drawers stand for storing art sheets to be viewed and retrieved by shoppers. The shelves are covered by a rotatable small pictures panel displaying duplicated pictures, but at reduced sizes, of all art sheets stored in the multiple drawers stand. A shopper can walk down the store aisle to view these small pictures. Once a small picture of interest is spotted, the shopper can press a button in a keypad to request a “Single Picture Show” by opening the drawer showing the corresponding art sheet. After viewing the small pictures, an “All Picture Show”, “Group Picture Show” or “Special Group Picture Show” can also be requested by the shopper to open all drawers or a group of drawers, one drawer at a time, each being opened for a predetermined duration. A “Hold” button can be pushed to hold the currently opened drawer in the open position to give the shopper more time to examine the displayed art sheet and to take out one for purchase. The push of a “Resume” button will resume the All Picture Show, Group Picture Show, or the Special Group Picture Show. A computer program is disclosed for operating such a multiple drawers stand.

Description

CLAIM PRIORITY [0001] U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60 / 657,934, filed 2005, March 3 BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] This invention relates in general to art sheets storage, display, and retrieval, but also relates to the storage, display and retrieval of other art supplies including art frames and mat boards. [0003] A recent survey indicates that art sheets in US, either framed or unframed, were sold through art galleries (30%), department stores (27%), discount stores (25%), custom frame shops (24%), home products stores (20%), museum stores (13%), furniture stores (12%) and others (31%, total more than 100%). [0004] Art galleries / custom framing stores have long dominated the US wall sheet art market. In present day art galleries, most art sheets are each stored in a large soft vinyl transparent envelope. This envelope must be made large and thus heavy so all art sheets of various size will each fit in one such envelope. It is not an easy job to search through art shee...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0016] To further improve the art sheet display and retrieval it is proposed that all art sheets accessible to shoppers in a retail store be placed in one or more multiple drawers stands. A typical 4-ft or slightly higher drawers stand can have up to forty (40) drawers. Each drawer can hold up to fifty (50) identical art sheets unwrapped and without cardboard support. Once the art sheet of interest is identified by viewing the small picture panel, the shopper can then pull open the corresponding drawer to examine the art sheet itself. Once the drawer is open, the art sheet to be examined is laid flat fully exposed away from the shelf stand. The shopper can leisurely feel and touch the art sheet. If interested, the shopper can easily take one sheet out for purchase.

[0017] It is also desirable that this multiple drawers stand be motor-powered and electrically controlled and operated. Any drawer can be opened (Single Picture Show) by simply pushing a open / close switch for that drawer. This drawers stand, when coupled with the small picture panel display, will open up a new and efficient way for finding and obtaining an art sheet of interest to a shopper with minimum labor requirement.

[0018] It is also possible to further improve this motor-powered multiple drawer stand by adding a microcontroller with a computer program imbedded therein. A keypad with several buttons can also be made available to a shopper to initiate a Single Picture Show as well as three Multiple Picture Shows. An All Picture Show, Group Picture Show, or Special Group Picture Show can be requested by the shopper by pressing appropriate button(s) on the keypad to open all drawers or a group of drawers, one drawer at a time, each being opened for a pre-determined duration. A Hold button can be pushed to hold the currently opened drawer in the open position to give the shopper more time to examine the displayed art sheet and to take one out for purchase. The push of a Resume button will resume the requested Multiple Picture Show.

Problems solved by technology

It is not an easy job to search through art sheets in stock because the very action of flipping can be tiring by going through just 20 or 30 such envelopes.

Although the envelope turning may be less tiring than envelope flipping, very few stores keep more than 50-100 different art poster rolls, the upper limit of customer tolerance.

Although such art sheets are easier to flip because of its smaller sizes, still not many customers are willing to flip more than 50-100 sheets before their patience run out.

There is one more problem with the cardboard box art sheets storage and display.

This means that the customer may have to flip two or more identical art sheets before reaching to the next different art sheet.

The basic problem of going through large number of art sheets by flipping or turning through each art sheet or envelope without knowing beforehand what art sheet it will be encountered is a very inefficient method.

Since most art sheets encountered are probably not of interest to the searcher which will result in large wasted flipping effort.

Because of the tiring factor above described, most customers simply give up the search after just a few flipping actions.

But one main problem with these search methods is that one can not touch and feel the actual art sheet before buying it.

Once an art sheet is purchased, it will be custom framed at high cost.

But in reality, it may be difficult for a pre-framed art shopper to find one he truly likes in view of limited selection available to him.

The second reason is that if this store is not dedicated to the sale of pre-framed arts, the available store space set aside for displaying these arts would also be very limited.

It is not a easy job to hop all local stores to find one desired pre-framed art.

Out of frustration, many customers often settled on second best selection but regret on this decision six months later after the purchase.

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