| 摘要 |
The present invention includes a system (10) for operating a reverse auction on a communications network. The system (10) includes a host server (12) that hosts a web site and electronically communicates with the network. The system (10) has an open back end that is accessible by multiple sellers. The system (10) displays offers to buy and enables sellers to post offer-responses in response to the offers to buy. The offers to buy and the offer-responses are published to the network to facilitate open competition between sellers. The system (10) includes features that preserve user anonymity, namely the provision of an email server (16) that anonymously forwards email between buyers and sellers. The system (10) also includes a negotiation room server (72) having on-line chat capability to enable anonymous posting of queries and query responses to the web site. |
