REPUTATION IN ON-LINE CONSUMER MARKETS
First Claim
1. A computer-implemented process for providing a potential buyer of a product or service from a seller in an on-line consumer market a monetary sales limit associated with the seller, comprising using a computer to perform the following process actions:
- assigning a weight to each completed transaction between the seller and each buyer previously purchasing a product or service from the seller, said weight comprising at least a portion of an overhead expense incurred by the seller from the transaction if the previous buyer was satisfied with the purchase based on positive feedback from the previous buyer associated with the transaction, and comprising the negative of the amount paid by the previous buyer if that buyer was not satisfied with the purchase;
summing all the assigned transaction weights associated with the seller and adding an amount of a reimbursement fund provided by the seller, to compute said monetary sales limit for the seller;
providing the monetary sales limit computed for the seller to the potential buyer, said monetary sales limit being usable by the potential buyer in assessing a risk of dissatisfaction with the purchase of a product or service from the seller in view of a price the buyer wants to pay for the product or service.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Seller'"'"'s reputation quantification technique embodiments are presented that quantify in monetary terms a risk of dissatisfaction to a potential buyer of a product or service from a seller in an on-line consumer market. Generally, this involves computing the monetary sales limit for the seller. This monetary sales limit represents an amount, which if a sum of the current prices of all the products and services currently offered by the seller is equal to or less than the amount, there would not be a significant risk to the buyer of being dissatisfied with the product or service. Given this, a risk of a potential buyer'"'"'s dissatisfaction with a product or service purchased from the seller in view of a price the buyer wants to pay is assessed. The assessed risk is then provided to the potential buyer in the form of one or more risk indicators.
32 Citations
20 Claims
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1. A computer-implemented process for providing a potential buyer of a product or service from a seller in an on-line consumer market a monetary sales limit associated with the seller, comprising using a computer to perform the following process actions:
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assigning a weight to each completed transaction between the seller and each buyer previously purchasing a product or service from the seller, said weight comprising at least a portion of an overhead expense incurred by the seller from the transaction if the previous buyer was satisfied with the purchase based on positive feedback from the previous buyer associated with the transaction, and comprising the negative of the amount paid by the previous buyer if that buyer was not satisfied with the purchase; summing all the assigned transaction weights associated with the seller and adding an amount of a reimbursement fund provided by the seller, to compute said monetary sales limit for the seller; providing the monetary sales limit computed for the seller to the potential buyer, said monetary sales limit being usable by the potential buyer in assessing a risk of dissatisfaction with the purchase of a product or service from the seller in view of a price the buyer wants to pay for the product or service. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
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12. A computer-implemented process for quantifying in monetary terms a risk of dissatisfaction to a potential buyer of a product or service from a seller in an on-line consumer market, comprising using a computer to perform the following process actions:
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computing a monetary sales limit for the seller, said monetary sales limit representing a monetary amount which if a sum of the current prices of all the products and services currently offered by the seller in the on-line consumer market is equal to or less than the monetary amount, there is not a significant risk to the buyer of being dissatisfied with the product or service; assessing a risk of dissatisfaction to the buyer with a product or service purchased from the seller in the on-line consumer market in view of a price the buyer wants to pay for the product or service based in part on the monetary sales limit; and providing one or more indicators of said assessed risk of dissatisfaction to the potential buyer. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
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19. A computer-implemented process for providing a potential buyer of a product or service from a seller in an on-line consumer market a monetary sales limit associated with the seller, comprising using a computer to perform the following process actions:
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computing a sales limit component for the seller for each completed transaction between the seller and all previous participants in the on-line consumer market to whom the seller either previously purchased a product or service from or sold a product or service to, said computation comprising for each completed transaction, identifying the previous participant in the transaction under consideration, computing a sum of the current prices of all the products and services currently offered by the identified previous participant, computing a lower bound sales limit for the identified previous participant, said lower bound sales limit representing the sum of, for all transactions in the on-line consumer market except the one under consideration in which the identified previous participant was a party to and an agreement was made among the parties involved in the transaction to share a sales limit component associated with the transaction, the lesser of one-half of an overhead expense associated the transaction, and a currently available portion of the overhead expense associated with the transaction if the buyer in the transaction was satisfied with the purchase based on positive feedback from the buyer, and the negative of the amount paid by the buyer associated with the transaction if that buyer was not satisfied with the purchase, designating the seller'"'"'s sales limit component for the transaction under consideration to be the overhead expense associated the transaction under consideration if the identified previous participant'"'"'s current prices sum less the lower bound sales limit, is less than or equal to zero, and if an agreement was made among the parties involved in the transaction to share a sales limit component associated with the transaction and the buyer in the transaction was satisfied with the purchase based on positive feedback from the buyer, designating the seller'"'"'s sales limit component for the transaction under consideration to be one-half the overhead expense associated the transaction under consideration if the identified previous participant'"'"'s current prices sum less the lower bound sales limit, is greater than or equal to one-half the overhead expense associated the transaction under consideration, and if an agreement was made among the parties involved in the transaction to share a sales limit component associated with the transaction and the buyer in the transaction was satisfied with the purchase based on positive feedback from the buyer, designating the seller'"'"'s sales limit component for the transaction under consideration to be one-half the overhead expense associated the transaction under consideration minus the identified previous participant'"'"'s current prices sum less the lower bound sales limit, if the identified previous participant'"'"'s current prices sum less the lower bound sales limit is greater than zero and less than one-half the overhead expense associated the transaction under consideration, and if an agreement was made among the parties involved in the transaction to share a sales limit component associated with the transaction and the buyer in the transaction was satisfied with the purchase based on positive feedback from the buyer, designating the seller'"'"'s sales limit component for the transaction under consideration to be the overhead expense associated the transaction under consideration if no agreement was made among the parties involved in the transaction to share a sales limit component associated with the transaction, the seller for which the sales limit component is being computed was the seller in the transaction under consideration and the buyer in the transaction was satisfied with the purchase based on positive feedback from the buyer, and designating the seller'"'"'s sales limit component for the transaction under consideration to be the negative of the amount paid by the buyer in the transaction if the seller for which the sales limit component is being computed was the seller in the transaction under consideration and the buyer was not satisfied with the purchase; summing all the seller'"'"'s computed sales limit components and adding the amount of a reimbursement fund provided by the seller, to compute an unadjusted monetary sales limit for the seller; whenever a sum of the current prices of all the products and services currently offered by the seller in the on-line consumer market is greater than the seller'"'"'s computed unadjusted monetary sales limit, adjusting the seller'"'"'s unadjusted monetary sales limit by adding unused monetary sales limit amounts currently available from previous participants in the on-line consumer market to whom the seller either previously purchased a product or service from or sold a product or service to and with whom the seller has an agreement to share a sales limit component associated with the purchase or sale, until the seller'"'"'s current prices sum is less than or equal to the seller'"'"'s adjusted monetary sales limit or all said currently available unused monetary sales limit amounts are exhausted, and designating the adjusted monetary sales limit to be the seller'"'"'s finalized monetary sales limit; whenever the sum of the current prices of all the products and services currently offered by the seller in the on-line consumer market is less than or equal to the seller'"'"'s computed unadjusted monetary sales limit, designating the unadjusted monetary sales limit to be the seller'"'"'s finalized monetary sales limit; providing the finalized monetary sales limit computed for the seller to the potential buyer, said monetary sales limit being usable by the potential buyer in assessing a risk of dissatisfaction with the purchase of a product or service from the seller in view of a price the buyer wants to pay for the product or service. - View Dependent Claims (20)
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Specification