System and method for matching an offer with a quote

• US 7,672,883 B2
• Filed: 04/23/2004
• Issued: 03/02/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 08/25/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Expedia Inc. (Expedia Group, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Expedia Inc. (Expedia Group, Inc.)
• Inventors: Bogdanovic, Maja, Hector, Clair, Widjaja, Sendi, Harford, Barnaby Merrick
• Primary Examiner(s): Trammell; James P
• Assistant Examiner(s): Merchant; Shahid R
• Application Number:
  US10/830,781
• Publication Number:
  US 20040210513A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,139 Days
• Field of Search: 705/35, 705/5, 705/6, 705/26, 705/27, 705/39
• US Class Current: 705/35
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/02 Reservations, e.g. for tickets, services or events
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/025 Coordination of plural reservations, e.g. plural trip segments, transportation combined with accommodation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/10 specially adapted for electronic funds transfer [EFT] systems; specially adapted for home banking systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0611 Request for offers or quotes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0613 Third-party assisted
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0625 Directed, with specific intent or strategy
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0635 Processing of requisition or of purchase orders
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/188 Electronic negotiation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching

Abstract

Described is a system and method that satisfies offers from customers with quotes from suppliers in a way that increases the likelihood of achieving an acceptable match. The system of the present invention is configured to receive from a customer an offer for a product. The system queries in parallel multiple suppliers for rate quotes on the desired product. Each of the suppliers is ranked according to the lowest rate quoted by each supplier. The supplier quoting the lowest rate is selected as the winner of the offer. The system may then evaluate any other rate quotes provided by the winning provider. The system may satisfy the customer'"'"'s offer with the winning provider at a higher rate (if one was provided) than the winning rate quoted, up to the customer'"'"'s offer (perhaps adjusted for a reasonable profit). In this way, even though the provider provides low rate quotes to win the offer, the provider may still realize a much higher rate for the goods or services by quoting additional, higher rate quotes as well.

Claims

1. A tangible computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions implemented by a computing system for matching an offer for a product, comprising:

receiving from a customer machine an offer representing a value that the customer is willing to exchange for a product;

receiving a plurality of responses from suppliers to provide the product to the customer, wherein at least one of the plurality of responses includes a rating provided in a respective response, the rating associated with the product; and

after receiving the plurality of responses;

ranking each supplier according to a lowest price quote in the plurality of responses;

selecting a supplier based on at least one of a lowest quote and a rating provided in association with the product, wherein the selected supplier response includes a first and a second price quote, the first price quote corresponding to a lowest price quote for the selected supplier; and

causing a matching of the offer with the selected supplier at the second price quote provided by the selected supplier.

2. The tangible computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein at least one response from the plurality of responses includes a quality rating associated with the product quoted by the supplier.

3. The tangible computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the offer from the customer includes a quality rating associated with the product quoted by the supplier corresponding to the response.

4. The tangible computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the product is associated with a characteristic having a rating, wherein the offer specifies an acceptable rating value, and wherein at least one of the plurality of responses includes a rating of the product being quoted by a corresponding supplier.

5. The tangible computer-readable storage medium of claim 4, wherein the product includes a travel service and the characteristic includes a quality of the travel service.

6. A computer-implemented method for matching an offer for a product with a supplier in a transaction, comprising:

receiving the offer from a customer computing device, the offer identifying a price and a minimum acceptable quality for the product;

calculating, by a computing system, a first value as a function of a desired profit from a proposed transaction, a fixed cost associated with the proposed transaction, and a desired profit associated with the proposed transaction;

obtaining a response, by the computing system, from a plurality of suppliers, each response comprising one or more price quotes for the product, and a rating for the quality of the product being quoted by the corresponding supplier;

identifying, by the computing system, those suppliers from the plurality of suppliers from which responses were obtained that responded with at least one quote below the first value;

ranking, by the computing system, suppliers based on the rating associated with the product being quoted by each identified supplier;

selecting, by the computing system, a supplier from the identified suppliers based on at least one of a lowest price quote and the ranked rating; and

causing, by the computing system, a matching of the offer with the selected supplier, the matching of the offer corresponding to a highest of the price quotes submitted by the selected supplier.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein the ranking further comprises ranking the quotes having higher ratings for the quality of the product at a higher level of preference.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 7, wherein the ranking suppliers based on the ratings associated with the product being quoted further comprises ranking the price quotes having a same rating for the quality of the product in descending order of preference according to the cost associated with each quote.

9. A computer system for matching offers with quotes, comprising:

a computing system, including;

a web server component configured to interface with a customer machine over a network connection and receive from a customer at the customer machine an offer for a product, the offer identifying a price for the product and a minimum quality rating for the product;

a travel server component configured to obtain a plurality of responses from suppliers in response to the offer from the customer;

a sorter component configured to rank the plurality of suppliers according to a lowest price quote provided by each of the plurality of suppliers and on the quality rating associated with the corresponding quote wherein at least one response from the plurality of responses includes a higher and a lower price quote and wherein at least one response from the plurality of responses includes a quality rating associated with the corresponding quote; and

wherein the computing system is configured to match the offer with a ranked supplier based on at least one of a lowest price and a quality rating and to cause a purchase of the product for the customer from the ranked supplier at a price corresponding to the higher price quote obtained from the most-preferentially ranked supplier tat satisfies the offer from the customer.

10. The computer system of claim 9, wherein the sorter component is further configured to rank the suppliers based first on the quality rating associated with the corresponding quote and second on the at least one price quote included in the supplier response.

11. The computer system of claim 9, wherein the electronic computing system is further configured to institute a negotiation for the purchase of the product from the ranked supplier at the higher price quote.

12. The computer system of claim 9, wherein the sorter component is further configured to calculate a threshold value, based on the offer, above which the computing system will not match the offer with a supplier.

13. The computer system of claim 12, wherein the sorter component is further configured to discard responses from the plurality of responses that do not provide at least one price quote below the threshold value.