Patent ID: 7974890

Claim:
A method of facilitating a sale of a product to a customer using a computer system and an inventory of a selling entity, the method comprising: providing a computer system which includes at least one back office computer and at least one remote computer; receiving information into the computer system regarding a customer's needs and desired option selections related to one or more of products of the selling entity; receiving a value input associated with each desired option selection into the computer system ranking the importance of each of the desired option selections; defining a configured product satisfying the customer's needs and the desired option selections using one or more solvers containing logic rules constraining selection of available product options; and identifying from the inventory of the selling entity one or more available products that most closely match the configured product having the desired option selections of the customer based on the value input associated with the desired option selections, wherein the at least one remote computer is in communication with the at least one back office computer.