Patent ID: 8620749

Claim:
An apparatus, comprising: a storage element operable to store: product information for a plurality of products offered for sale by a plurality of sellers, the product information including, for each product, a product price and a product description; buyer information for a plurality of buyers of the products offered for sale, the buyer information including, for each buyer, a buyer identifier identifying the buyer, contact information indicating information for contacting the buyer, and billing information for the buyer; and seller information for the sellers, the seller information including, for each seller, a seller identifier identifying the seller, contact information indicating information for contacting the seller, and billing information for the seller; and a processor operable to: acquire information about a user of an end user computing device; determine a likelihood that the user is in possession or control of one of the plurality of products offered for sale by the sellers; identify the user from the buyers and the sellers when the user accesses a third party web site hosted by a server; in response to identifying the user, generate an offer for a sale or purchase of at least one of the products offered for sale using at least some of the acquired information about the user and the product information stored in the storage element, the offer being customized for the user, wherein generate the offer for a sale or purchase of at least one of the products offered for sale includes generate, based on the likelihood that the user is in possession or control of one or more of the products offered for sale by the sellers, an offer that solicits the user to sell the product that they are in possession or control of; and communicate the customized offer to the user.