| 摘要 |
The present invention provides a reverse auction system for procuring goods and services. A customer business provides details concerning its needs by means of a detailed questionnaire. An invitation to bid is then sent to potential sellers. The invention rates bidders according to quality and risk based on historical data of customer service. The bidding occurs over a specified number of rounds. Bidding is semi-blind, wherein bidders can view the bids, bid evaluations, and bid ranking for each preceding round, but not the current round. Bidding may be done manually or through an automate proxy system. Bidders are identified only by their respective quality and risk ratings. After each round, bidders are ranked according to a three-factor evaluation that combines bid price, quality rating, and risk rating and compares them to the supplied customer information. Though the customer is shown the actual bid prices, the ordinal ranking of bidders may differ from the cardinal order of bid prices according to quality and risk factors.
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