Patent ID: 8306870

Claim:
A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having embodied thereon instructions executable by a processor to perform a method for order aggregation and merchant ranking, the method comprising: receiving a deal provided by a merchant of a product or service, wherein the deal includes a discounted price that becomes valid only when a predetermined number of buyers purchase or indicate a desire to purchase the deal; posting the deal and terms and conditions associated with the deal to a publically accessible web site, acceptance of the terms and conditions being a condition of purchasing the deal; receiving orders for the product or service from registered prospective customers who have provided a verified method of payment in connection with an associated order for the product or service; aggregating the orders from confirmed customers until a specified end time, wherein the confirmed customers are a subset of the registered prospective customers having provided both a verified method of payment and an interest to purchase the deal; presenting a lower discounted price for the same deal to at least one registered buyer by way of a private account; comparing a current order volume to the minimum order volume to determine that the deal has become valid; accepting the orders for the product or service received from the confirmed customers at the two or more discounted prices; and presenting a ranking associated with the merchant for the product or service.