Patent ID: 7130815

Claim:
A computer implemented method of performing electronic commerce, said computer implemented method comprising: listing a set of available products to a set of consumers via a Web page of a Web server for online auction; accepting a request for a specific product from a particular consumer via the Web page over a network; accepting a reserve price for said specific product from said particular consumer, said reserve price comprising a price acceptable to said particular consumer; distributing said request for said specific product and said reserve price to a set of sellers over the network; accepting at most one offer from each said seller in said set of sellers, each said offer comprising an offer price specifying a price at which an associated seller will sell said specific product, said accepting occurring for a predetermined time period or until an offer having an offer price less than or equal to said reserve price is received; if there is only one offer having an offer price less than or equal to the reserve price, consummating, without intervention from the consumer, a transaction with said offer having an offer price less than or equal to said reserve price if said offer having an offer price less than or equal to the reserve price is received; if there are multiple offers having an offer price less than to the reserve price presenting to the consumer the multiple offers sorted in a predetermined order to allow the consumer to select one offer from the multiple offers; consummating a transaction with an offer selected by the consumer if the consumer selects from the multiple offers; and consummating a transaction with an offer having a lowest price from the multiple offers if the consumer does not select from the multiple offers.