System for enhancing buyers performance in electronic commerce
First Claim
1. A system for enhancing price discovery of products available in electronic commerce, wherein said system comprises:
- one or more automated surveyors for surveying a plurality of;
posted prices, bid prices, posted quotes, quoted prices, and auctions;
an anonymous buyer profile, said anonymous buyer profile used multiple times to develop historical usage thereof, said historical usage representing a sophisticated buyer and included within at least one of said one or more automated surveyors, said sophisticated buyer used as the buyer by said automated surveyors, andwherein use of said anonymous buyer profile increases the probability of discovering the best prices in an electronic commerce environment which includes electronic price discrimination.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A system and method enhance a buyer'"'"'s performance by gathering information, presenting to sellers sophisticated buyers who do not pay more than the minimum and indicating to sellers when they are competitive, influencing them to lower prices. The system operates through a web site and creates a major web portal where a consumer obtains advice about prices of just about anything and initiates transactions using various services provided by the system. Fictitious user names are generated and used by the system to work with different sellers to generate and store specific quotes. This information is later used to purchase goods on behalf of buyers who do not want to reveal their identities. I addition, the system can also uncover hidden fee structures associated with sellers and businesses.
39 Citations
22 Claims
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1. A system for enhancing price discovery of products available in electronic commerce, wherein said system comprises:
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one or more automated surveyors for surveying a plurality of;
posted prices, bid prices, posted quotes, quoted prices, and auctions;an anonymous buyer profile, said anonymous buyer profile used multiple times to develop historical usage thereof, said historical usage representing a sophisticated buyer and included within at least one of said one or more automated surveyors, said sophisticated buyer used as the buyer by said automated surveyors, and wherein use of said anonymous buyer profile increases the probability of discovering the best prices in an electronic commerce environment which includes electronic price discrimination. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A method for enhancing buyers performance in electronic commerce, wherein said method comprises:
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electronically presenting information to sellers located across a network about sophisticated buyers who are not willing to pay more than a minimum price, said sophisticated buyers developed by historical use of anonymous buyer profiles; using said sophisticated buyers to electronically gather information about prices on a network, and indicating to sellers when they are competitive, and influencing them to lower prices. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. A method for enhancing buyers performance in electronic commerce comprising:
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surveying quoted prices located across a network, comprising the steps of; generating fictitious user names; requesting price quotes using said fictitious name(s); building reputation of said fictitious name(s) as sophisticated buyer(s); continuously scanning commercial sites on a network using said sophisticated buyers to retrieve product price information, including at least quotes; generating statistical distribution of said quotes, and comparing a quote a known buyer receives to what has been observed in the system by the sophisticated buyer. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20)
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21. An article of manufacture comprising a computer user medium having computer readable program code embodied therein when executed by the computer which enhances buyers performance in electronic commerce, said system comprising:
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computer readable code comprising one or more automated surveyors for surveying any of;
posted prices, bid prices, posted quotes, quoted prices, and auctions;computer readable code comprising an anonymous buyer profile used multiple times to develop historical usage thereof, said historical usage representing a sophisticated buyer and included within at least one of said one or more automated surveyors, said sophisticated buyer used as the buyer by said automated surveyors, and wherein use of said anonymous buyer profile increases the probability of discovering the best prices in an electronic commerce environment which includes electronic price discrimination. - View Dependent Claims (22)
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Specification