Patent ID: 8301515

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for evaluating product substitutions along multiple criteria in response to a sales opportunity, comprising: determining a customer propensity to estimate attractiveness of a substitute product to a customer based on one or more first attributes; determining a seller propensity to estimate attractiveness to a seller of selling the substitute product based on one or more second attributes; and combining, by a processor, the customer propensity and the seller propensity to find a plurality of substitute products, the customer propensity determined as a combination of at least: a value representing a price difference between an initial customer choice and a substitute product, a penalty value that penalizes a choice of a component that has a lower quality than that chosen by the customer in a same commodity group, and a penalty value that penalizes choosing a component in the substitute product that is not in the customer's initial choice and that penalizes a component in the customer's initial choice that is absent in the substitute.