Method and system to enable a fixed price purchase within a multi-unit online auction environment

• US 20060293994A1
• Filed: 06/28/2005
• Published: 12/28/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 06/28/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Original Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Inventors: Stuart, Erik Anderson
• Granted Patent: US 7,650,307 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/37
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/08 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange

Abstract

A method of allowing a seller in a multi-unit auction facility to offer buyers the option of buying an offering at a pre-auction seller determined price or using a regular auction process. In one embodiment, the option to buy at the pre-auction seller determined price remains throughout the auction as long as there are units of an item remaining that have not yet been bid on. In another embodiment, the duration of an option of purchasing an item at a pre-auction seller determined prices depends on a configurable threshold, the current auction price in relation to the threshold, and whether the unit has been bid on. In another embodiment, a participant in an auction is allowed to re-bid, but is not allowed to reduce the price in that re-bid, or the quantity in that re-bid, unless that participant is currently not winning any units. In yet another embodiment, purchases during an auction at the pre-auction determined price reduces the quantity of that bidder'"'"'s previous bid (if there is one), and reduces the quantity available for bid for any later bidders (but does not reduce the quantity of any other bidders who bid before the fixed-price purchase).

Claims

1. A method comprising:

presenting to a buyer a multi-unit auction; and

permitting said buyer to re-bid in said auction;

wherein said auction comprises a rule that prevents said buyer from reducing the price in said re-bid; and

wherein said auction comprises a rule that prevents said buyer from reducing the number of units in said re-bid.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said auction comprises a rule that permits said buyer to reduce the number of units in said re-bid when said buyer is not winning any units in said auction.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein said auction comprises a rule that prevents said buyer from reducing said number of units to less than one unit.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said auction is an online auction.

5. A method comprising:

presenting to a buyer in a multi-unit auction a fixed-price purchase process for purchase of one or more units in an offering; and

permitting said buyer to purchase one or more of said units at said fixed-price when said buyer has an outstanding bid on one or more of said units;

wherein the number of units in said outstanding bid is reduced by the number of units said buyer has purchased at said fixed price.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein said auction comprises a rule that prevents said outstanding bid from being reduced to less than zero.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising removing a bid from said auction when said number of units associated with said bid is reduced to zero.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein said auction comprises a rule that requires the price of said outstanding bid to remain the same after said buyer has purchased said units at said fixed-price.

9. The method of claim 5, wherein said auction comprises a rule that reduces the number of items available for bid by the number of items that have been purchased at said fixed-price.

10. The method of claim 5, wherein said auction comprises a rule that prevents the number of units in an outstanding bid from being reduced when said number of units in said outstanding bid is greater than the number of available units after a purchase at said fixed-price.

11. The method of claim 5, wherein said auction comprises an online auction.

12. A method comprising:

presenting to a buyer in a multi-unit auction a fixed-price purchase process for purchase of one or more units of an offering;

selecting a threshold; and

maintaining said one or more units available for fixed-price purchase if a current price after bid is less than said threshold or the number of bids for said one or more units is less than the total number of said one or more units.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein said threshold is in the range of 0 to 100 inclusive.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein said threshold is equal to 100, thereby maintaining the total number of said one or more units available for fixed-price purchase throughout the entirety of said auction.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein said threshold is equal to 0, thereby reducing the total number of said one or more units available for fixed-price purchase by the number of units bid for;

and

removing said fixed-price purchase process from said auction when said number of units available for fixed-price purchase is less than or equal to zero.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising displaying on a user interface the number of units available for fixed-price purchase.

17. The method of claim 12,

wherein said current price after bid is equal to or greater than said threshold as a percentage of said fixed-price;

and further comprising reducing said quantity available for fixed-price purchase on a one for one basis with said quantity of units bid on.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising removing said fixed-price purchase process from said auction when the quantity of units bid on is greater than or equal to the number of units in said auction.

19. The method of claim 12, wherein said selection of said threshold permits the selection of a type of fixed-price process from a group consisting of a temporary fixed-price process, a semi-persistent fixed-price process, and a persistent fixed-price process.

20. A method comprising:

presenting to a buyer in a multi-unit auction a fixed-price purchase process for purchase of one or more units of an offering; and

permitting said fixed-price purchase process to change among a temporary fixed-price purchase process, a permanent fixed-price purchase process, and a semi-permanent fixed-price purchase process.