Patent ID: 7072860

Claim:
An electronic shopping mall that includes one or more virtual shops and is provided on a communication network to offer and sell products or services to a customer in response to an access provided by the customer via the communication network, comprising: a shopping mall server that manages the electronic shopping mall and a shop server that manages the one or more of the virtual shops in the electronic shopping mall; and wherein the shopping mall server comprises: primary offering means for, in response to a request provided by the customer, offering a product or a service that the customer desires to purchase after being selected by the customer from the products or the services handled by the one or more of the virtual shops in the electronic shopping mall together with a price of the product or the service that the customer desires to purchase; primary-discount means for, in response to an initial discount request provided by the customer, providing a reply on a discount to be borne by the electronic shopping mall to the customer; and secondary-discount negotiation means for, in response to a further discount over the discount to be borne by the electronic shopping mall requested by the customer, carrying out a negotiation with the shop server for a discount to be borne by the one or more of the virtual shops managed by the shop server, and providing a result of the negotiation to the customer, wherein the shop server comprises secondary-discount means for, in response to a discount request provided by the shopping mall server, providing a reply on the discount to be borne by the one or more of the virtual shops managed by the shop server to the shopping mall server.