ONLINE BIDDING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

摘要

There is described an online bid management system where a consumer may post a receipt for a purchase or an intent to purchase a product or service and receive bids for equivalents to the original product or service from a series of merchants. The system acts as a filter between the consumers and the merchants. The posted receipts are initially filtered for the merchants such that only merchants that offer equivalents to the original product or service are provided with any given posted receipt. Similarly, the bids received by the merchants in response to a given original product or service are also filtered for the consumer such that only offers that are truly a “better offer” are presented to the consumer. The information is therefore processed in both directions, and is streamlined for the needs of both the merchants and the consumers.

主权项

1. A computer-implemented method for managing competing bids from multiple merchants for an original purchase, the method comprising executing program code by a processor for:
receiving information in electronic form regarding the original product or service, the information comprising matter specific properties associated with the original product or service; filtering the multiple merchants in accordance with the matter specific properties to identify potential merchants suitable for providing a competing bid to the original product or service; transmitting a communication to selected merchants to advise that the original product or service is open for bidding; receiving bids from the selected merchants for the original product or service; filtering the bids from the selected merchants in accordance with a set of predetermined criteria; and transmitting to a consumer only accepted bids for consideration.