Online marketplace with seller financing

• US 10,387,950 B2
• Filed: 07/17/2015
• Issued: 08/20/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 07/18/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Mark V. Dziuk
• Original Assignee: Mark V. Dziuk
• Inventors: Dziuk, Mark V.
• Primary Examiner(s): Poinvil, Frantzy
• Application Number:
  US15/326,918
• Publication Number:
  US 20170213282A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,495 Days
• Field of Search: 705 3- 44
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0609 Buyer or seller confidence or verification
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0613 Third-party assisted
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0619 Neutral agent
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/03 Credit; Loans; Processing thereof

Abstract

An online marketplace system generates an online marketplace for seller-financed transactions. The system includes a plurality of listings of transaction offerings that are available. The transaction offerings are listed by a plurality of users and are from a plurality of different categories of products and services. The transaction offerings include a plurality of transaction terms, including payment and seller-financing terms. A transaction engine facilitates the negotiation of transaction terms between users and the formation of agreement between users. Transaction coins are awarded during the successful performance of a transaction according to the agreed upon transaction terms. A reputation engine generates trust profiles and trust scores for users. The trust profiles and trust scores are used by parties to evaluate the trustworthiness of the other party. A user interface engine generates a user interface that includes listings from users and trust scores of those users.

Claims

1. A method of facilitating online transactions involving seller financing in an online marketplace, the method comprising:

generating and storing, with a reputation engine, trust profiles for buyer users and seller users, the trust profiles configured to allow both buyer users and seller users to evaluate trustworthiness of each other prior to entering into online transactions involving seller financing;

receiving, at a listing engine, descriptions of a plurality of transaction offerings from a plurality of seller users of the online marketplace, wherein the transaction offerings are available for purchase from the seller users over time for at least two payments;

generating a plurality of listings using at least one computing device, each of the listings including one of the descriptions of the plurality of transactions offerings, wherein the plurality of listings are associated with transaction offerings across a plurality of different transaction offering categories; and

facilitating, with a transaction engine, negotiation of binding contracts between the buyer users and the seller users for the transfer of the transaction offerings from the seller users to the buyer users, wherein the binding contracts define payment terms, and wherein the payment terms include prices and seller-financing terms including at least two payments made by the buyer users to the seller users over a period of time,

wherein facilitating the negotiation includes, with a communication engine;

transmitting a seller user profile to a buyer user computing device of a buyer user upon receiving an indication that the buyer user wants to respond to the transaction offering of a seller user;

receiving an offer for the transaction offering from the buyer user;

transmitting the offer to the seller user computing device of a seller user via an offer message; and

transmitting a profile of the buyer user to the seller user computing device responsive to the seller user following a link in the offer message, wherein the profile is transmitted separately from the offer message.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the seller-financing terms involve third-party financing, wherein upon completion of the transaction the seller users obtain a full one-time payment and a third party receives the at least two payments from the buyer users over time.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the seller-financing terms involve third-party financing, wherein at least one third party makes the at least two payments to the seller users on behalf of the buyer users, and wherein the buyer users repay the at least one third party according to third-party financing terms different from the payment terms.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the trust profiles include:

reputation data including;

reputational factors, including;

at least one rating of at least one of the user'"'"'s prior transactions, from another user;

historical data about the user'"'"'s conformance to terms of the user'"'"'s prior transactions; and

information about a verification level of the user;

a trust score computed based on at least some of the reputational factors, including a number of the user'"'"'s prior transactions; and

a transaction coins element representing a quantity of transaction coins that have been earned by the user.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising, with a reputation engine:

receiving ratings of transactions from the buyer users and the seller users; and

updating the trust profiles based at least in part on the ratings.

6. The method of claim 4, further comprising, with a user interface engine:

presenting at least some of the plurality of listings to buyer users, wherein presenting a listing of the plurality of listings to a buyer user of the buyer users comprises presenting the proposed seller-financing terms, including price, payment amount, payment frequency, and number of payments, and further including an amortization schedule.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising, with the communication engine:

communicating contact information between a buyer user and a seller user only after a binding contract has been formed.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising, with a payment engine:

receiving a hold payment from a buyer user before receiving an offer to enter into a transaction, and placing a listing on hold for a hold period.

9. The method of claim 4, wherein the trust score is based on a transaction-related score, an average rating, and a verification level score.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the transaction-related score is a transaction coin score, wherein the transaction coin score is computed based on a number of transactions that are completed in conformance with the seller-financing terms and a number of transactions that are not completed in conformance with the seller-financing terms.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising, with a payment engine:

holding a payment received from at least one of the buyer users until an occurrence of at least one of the following;

the at least one of the buyer users acknowledging satisfactory delivery of the transaction offering by the seller and a predetermined time period elapsing; and

after the occurrence, transmitting the payment to at least one of the seller users.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein at least some of the seller users are also some of the buyer users, and wherein at least some of the buyer users are some of the seller users.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

notifying, with the communication engine, the buyer users and the seller users that an agreement has been reached;

with a payment engine;

confirming receipt of first payments from the buyer users according to the payment terms;

monitoring conformance of the seller users to the seller-financing terms;

monitoring conformance of the buyer users to the payment terms over the periods of time; and

updating, with a reputation engine, reputation data within the trust profiles based at least in part on the conformance of the seller users and the buyer users.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising, with a payment engine:

generating reminders of upcoming payments;

alerting the buyer users when payments are past due; and

imposing penalties on the buyer users for defaults.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising, with an insurance engine:

applying transaction insurance for defaults to cause insurance payments to be made from at least one insurer to the seller users.

16. A system for facilitating transactions comprising:

at least one processing device; and

at least one computer readable storage device storing data instructions that, when executed by the at least one processing device, cause the at least one processing device to generate an online marketplace for seller-financed transactions, the online marketplace comprising;

a communication engine; and

a transaction engine configured to;

receive a transaction offering from an external location; and

interact with a buyer user and seller user to define payment terms for the transaction offering, wherein the payment terms include prices and seller-financing terms including at least two payments made by the buyer user to the seller user over a period of time; and

a payment engine configured to monitor compliance with the payment terms including receipt of payments over time from the buyer user,

wherein interacting with the buyer user and the seller user to define payment terms for the transaction offering includes, with the communication engine;

transmitting a seller user profile of the seller user to a buyer user computing device of the buyer user upon receiving an indication that the buyer user wants to respond to the transaction offering of the seller user;

receiving an offer for the transaction offering from the buyer user;

transmitting the offer to a seller user computing device of the seller user via an offer message; and

transmitting a profile of the buyer user to the seller user computing device responsive to the seller user following a link in the offer message, wherein the profile is transmitted separately from the offer message.

17. The system of claim 16, further comprising a reputation engine configured to generate and store trust profiles for users of the online marketplace, the trust profiles configured to allow both buyer users and seller users to evaluate trustworthiness of each other prior to entering into seller-financed transactions.

18. A method of facilitating online transactions involving seller financing, the method comprising:

receiving, at a listing engine and from an external location, a transaction offering being offered by a seller user; and

facilitating, with a transaction engine, negotiation of a binding contract between a buyer user and the seller user for the transfer of the transaction offerings from the seller user to the buyer user, wherein the binding contract defines payment terms, and wherein the payment terms include prices and seller-financing terms including at least two payments made by the buyer user to the seller user over a period of time,

wherein facilitating the negotiation includes, with a communication engine;

transmitting a seller user profile to a computing device of the buyer user upon receiving an indication that the buyer user wants to respond to the transaction offering of the seller user;

receiving an offer for the transaction offering from the buyer user;

transmitting the offer to a seller user computing device of the seller user via an offer message; and

transmitting a profile of the buyer user to the seller user computing device responsive to the seller user following a link in the offer message, wherein the profile is transmitted separately from the offer message.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising:

transmitting, with the communication engine, a confirmation of the binding contract to the external location.

20. The method of claim 18, further comprising, with a reputation engine:

generating and storing trust profiles for buyer users and seller users, the trust profiles configured to allow both buyer users and seller users to evaluate trustworthiness of each other prior to entering into online transactions involving seller financing.