| 摘要 |
<p>An automated system (100) and method for the selection and procurement of products and services by at least one customer (10) from one or more of a plurality of merchants (20) over a general purpose computer network, such as the Internet. The method comprises the steps of: transmitting information about a plurality of products/services offered for sale by each of a plurality of merchants to a database (70); and organizing the transmitted information for each of the plurality of products/services into a hierarchical categorization in the database (70) based upon a predefined set of categories such that all of the transmitted information for each of the plurality of products/services offered for sale by each of the plurality of merchants (20) is organized in the databased (70) in a similar manner. Because of such hierarchical categorization of the database (70), a customer (10) can perform one search for a desired product/service from the tansmitted information for the plurality of merchants (20) and compare the tansmitted information from each of the plurality of merchants (20).</p> |
