RETRIEVING METHOD FOR COMMODITY INFORMATION

PURPOSE:To enable a user to quickly and surely retrieve his/her desired ones out of many groups of commodities by using the free key codes in addition to the commodity codes and the attribute key codes for designation of the preference of the user. CONSTITUTION:The commodity codes, the attribute key codes and the free key codes are allocated to the commodities forming the commodity groups to be retrieved. Then the preference of a user is designated by said commodity code, attribute key code and free key code. Thus the commodity groups corresponding to the designated commodity code and atribute key code are further specified by the free key code. The commodity information like the picture data on the retrieved commodity groups, etc., are sent to the user slave station from a master station based on a request of the user slave station and displayed on a display device like a CRT, etc. Thus the user can select his/her preferable commodities by reference to the displayed pictures of commodities. In such a constitution, the user can retrieve quickly and surely the preferable commodities out of many groups of commodities.