Patent ID: 7680698

Claim:
A method comprising: selecting, by a computer system, a merchant for a trail mode of a referral service from a plurality of merchants, in which the selected merchant did not request to be selected; enabling, by a processor of the computer system, the trial mode of the referral service for the selected merchant; receiving, by the computer system, an indication of a first order for at least one of a good and a service offered by the selected merchant from a remote device of a customer; forwarding, by the computer system, the indication of the first order to the selected merchant; receiving, by the computer system, an indication of receipt of a payment for the first order; determining, in response to receiving the indication of the payment, whether the trial mode for the merchant is enabled; and allocating, by the computer system, a part of the first payment for the first order to the selected merchant based on whether the trial mode is enabled.