ANONYMIZING BUYER IDENTITY DURING COMPREHENSIVE PRODUCT EVALUATIONS AND VENDOR RESEARCH

摘要

Some embodiments include a system for maintaining anonymity of a buyer during a process of performing vendor research for a buying project. The system includes a proxy environment to anonymously represent the buyer during the vendor research process. The proxy environment is configurable for the buyer to create an RFI associated with the buying project or for the vendor to invite a buyer to communicate with them anonymously. The system includes a vendor invitation manager that invites the vendors to participate in the buying project and interact with the buyer in a way that maintains buyer anonymity via the proxy environment. In some embodiments, the system includes a query manager that generates a set of queries that the buyer requests vendors to respond to. Vendors can respond to or ignore the set of queries.

主权项

1. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing a program which when executed by at least one processing unit of a computing device creates a virtual proxy environment associated with a buying project of a buyer entity, said program comprising sets of instructions for:
receiving a set of information from a buyer for registering a buyer profile; creating a buyer profile based on the set of information received for registering the buyer; generating a proxy environment for facilitating interaction between the buyer and one or more vendors, wherein the set of information in the buyer profile is not disclosed to the vendors in the proxy environment; receiving a set of vendor acceptances to a set of vendor invitations to participate in the buying project in the proxy environment, wherein each vendor acceptance associates the vendor with the proxy environment without revealing the set of information in the buyer profile; generating a set of queries based on a set of informational requests of the buyer, said queries provided to the associated vendors in the proxy environment; and receiving a set of vendor responses to the set of queries in the proxy environment, said vendor responses provided to the buyer for review in making a buying decision for the buying project.