Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7904346B2/en
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 00:36:40+00:00

Document:
An auction method includes an auction price-setting process and a fixed price process for purchasing a seller's offering to a buyer. The seller may adjust a seller fixed-price offer during the auction price-setting process.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/437,183, filed Dec. 31, 2002 and U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/494,400 filed Aug. 11, 2003, which are incorporated herein by reference.
The present invention relates generally to the field of commerce automation and, more specifically, to the facilitation of price negotiations between a buyer and a seller by a network-based commerce system.
Adjusting a seller fixed-price offer in a network-based auction system is described. According to one aspect of the present invention there is provided an auction method to present an auction purchase process and a fixed price purchase process for purchasing a seller's offering to a buyer where the seller may adjust a seller fixed-price offer during the auction.
FIGS. 5A and 5B are flow charts illustrating an exemplary method of displaying user interfaces for and operating a commerce system with an auction price-setting process and optionally a fixed price-setting process.
FIG. 6D depicts a flow chart illustrating a method, according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, to adjust a reserve price and/or a seller-fixed -price offer for a listing based on a buyer request.
Adjustment of a fixed price offer and/or a reserve price in a network-based commerce system is disclosed. In the following description, for purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. It will be evident, however, to one skilled in the art that the present invention may be practiced without these specific details.
At block 760, the seller indicates a desire to publish a predefined fixed-price offer for an item listed for auction when a specific criterion has been met. The seller fixed-price offer may be made available, or alternatively the seller fixed-price offer may be published, once the actual or proxy bids have reached a certain value. Accordingly, the seller fix-price offer is not published until this point. Again, notification would be utilized to advise buyers or watchers that the seller fix-price offer auction had been activated, or that the seller fix-price offer had been published. For example, the specific criteria may be not to display the seller fixed-price offer until a specific time has lapse on the auction.
At block 763, the commerce system 10 receives the indication from the buyer not to display the fixed-price offer until the criteria has been met. At block 767, a determination is made whether the criteria has been met. If the criteria has been met, then control passes to block 770. If the criteria is not met, control passes to block 733. At block 770, the commerce system 10 publishes the fixed-price offer related of the listing describing an item during auctioned.
an auction price-setting process executed from the memory by the processor during an auction to cause the processor to lower a reserve price associated with a listing of an item to a seller-adjusted reserve price, and to lower a proxy bid of a buyer to a predetermined amount below the seller-adjusted reserve price when the proxy bid is higher than the seller-adjusted reserve price.
2. The network-based commerce system of claim 1, wherein the auction price-setting process further causes the processor to automatically notify a seller of the item when a high proxy bid is within a predetermined percentage range of the seller-adjusted reserve price.
3. The network-based commerce system of claim 1, wherein the auction price-setting process further causes the processor to automatically notify a seller of the item when a high proxy bid is within a predetermined value range of the reserve price.
with a network-based auction price-setting process, lowering a predefined reserve price associated with a listing of an item to a seller-adjusted reserve price during a network-based auction for the item price setting process; and lowering a proxy bid of a buyer to a predetermined amount below the seller-adjusted reserve price when the proxy bid is higher than the seller-adjusted reserve price.
5. The machine-readable medium of claim 4, including automatically notifying a seller of the item when a high proxy bid is within a predetermined percentage range of the seller-adjusted reserve price.
6. The machine-readable medium of claim 4, including automatically notifying a seller of the item when a high proxy bid is within a predetermined value range of the reserve price.
lowering a proxy bid of a buyer to a predetermined amount below the seller-adjusted reserve price when the proxy bid is higher than the seller-adjusted reserve price.
8. The method of claim 7, including automatically notifying a seller of the item when a high proxy bid is within a predetermined percentage range of the seller -adjusted reserve price.
9. The method of claim 7, including automatically notifying a seller of the item when a high proxy bid is within a predetermined value range of the reserve price.
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