Patent ID: 7774234

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for selecting a preferred seller from a group of independent sellers in a multiple seller environment, each seller of the group of sellers offering a good for sale that is fungible or quasi-fungible with respect to the goods of the other sellers of the group of sellers, the method comprising: receiving, at a computer, an expression of a buyer's interest in purchasing the good; searching, by computer in an automated fashion, a database to identify goods for sale having certain buyer-searchable characteristics, the identified goods collectively being offered for sale by the group of sellers, each seller of the group of sellers having listed its good for sale within the multiple seller environment; establishing at least one criterion for selecting a seller from the group of sellers, a first criterion of the at least one criterion being that the seller offer a second good that the buyer has previously expressed an interest in buying; identifying, by computer in an automated fashion, a first seller of the group of sellers; identifying, by computer in an automated fashion, a second seller of the group of sellers; determining, by computer in an automated fashion, a rating of the first seller for satisfying the first criterion; determining, by computer in an automated fashion, a rating of the second seller for satisfying the first criterion; and selecting, by computer in an automated fashion, a preferred seller as a function of the ratings, the preferred seller being selected in an automated manner from among the first and second sellers, the preferred seller being selected as the respective seller having a best respective rating for satisfying the first criterion; wherein the identifying, determining and selecting steps are performed after the searching step, and wherein the at least one criterion comprises multiple criteria, each of the multiple criteria having a specified relative importance to be used in determining the ratings; and facilitating sale of the good from the preferred seller to the buyer.