A method to provide directions to customers requesting information about
the location of products in a store that brings the customer into the
vicinity of other products in which the customer may have an interest to
purchase receives customer identification data and product selection
data, determines customer interest data from the customer identification
data, and generates a customer path to a location corresponding to the
product selection data that includes a location corresponding to the
customer interest data. A customer following the generated path comes
into the vicinity of one or more products in which the customer may have
an interest to purchase. A customer may enter the identification data
through a keypad or through a scanning device that reads a customer
token. Preferably, the customer token may be a smart card or a card
bearing a magnetic stripe. A keypad or touch screen may be used to
provide product selection data. The location of a selected product and
the location of the kiosk where the data was entered define an endpoint
and a starting point for the customer's path, respectively. The customer
identification data may be used to query a database for the customer's
purchase history at the store or to ascertain demographic data. These
data may be used to identify products that the customer may be interested
in purchasing. The locations of these products are used to define a
customer's path to the selected product. The display of this path is made
without reference to the portions of the store containing other products
not corresponding to the customer's interests. A system to implement the
method is also disclosed.