| 摘要 |
<p>The present invention relates to an online auction system for controlling a plurality of auctions in which bidders must pay to make a bid. An auction is won by a bidder if a predetermined number of bids were received in a predetermined bid accumulation period during the auction. The auction may be an all pay auction in which bidders must pay for bids. If the predetermined number of bids is (1) then that bidder is the winner, otherwise if the number is greater than (1) a winner may be randomly selected or there may be multiple winners. The auctions may be divided into sets of identical auctions and bidders may be allocated to different auctions in a set of auctions. Bidders may be reallocated to different equivalent auctions in the set of auctions as bids are received or at the end of the predetermined period. A reporting period may follow the end of the predetermined bid accumulation period. Bidders could participate in multiple auctions for monetary amounts in which case the auctions may be a form of entertainment. In another aspect a sale price update function may be used to determine the sale price. In this case the seller determines the sequence of offered sale prices rather than the bidders. This allows the sale price to be decreased as bids are received, or allows the seller to control the trend of the offered prices. In all pay auctions bidders additional revenue can be generated from bids thus allowing the offered sale price to be much lower than a retail price.</p> |
