Method and system to adjust a seller fixed price offer

• US 7,904,346 B2
• Filed: 12/30/2003
• Issued: 03/08/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 12/31/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Original Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Inventors: Grove, Brian Alan, Grove, Steve, Edson, Zak James, Sandler, Andrew Leigh
• Primary Examiner(s): Garg; Yogesh C
• Application Number:
  US10/750,052
• Publication Number:
  US 20050015308A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,625 Days
• Field of Search: 705/26, 705/27, 705/37, 705/36.R, 705/35
• US Class Current: 705/26.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/08 Auctions
• 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

Abstract

An auction method includes an auction price-setting process and a fixed price process for purchasing a seller'"'"'s offering to a buyer. The seller may adjust a seller fixed-price offer during the auction price-setting process.

Claims

1. A network-based commerce system including:

a processor coupled to a memory through a bus; and

an auction price-setting process executed from the memory by the processor during an auction to cause the processor to lower a reserve price associated with a listing of an item to a seller-adjusted reserve price, and to lower a proxy bid of a buyer to a predetermined amount below the seller-adjusted reserve price when the proxy bid is higher than the seller-adjusted reserve price.

2. The network-based commerce system of claim 1, wherein the auction price-setting process further causes the processor to automatically notify a seller of the item when a high proxy bid is within a predetermined percentage range of the seller-adjusted reserve price.

3. The network-based commerce system of claim 1, wherein the auction price-setting process further causes the processor to automatically notify a seller of the item when a high proxy bid is within a predetermined value range of the reserve price.

4. A non-transitory machine-readable medium having instructions to cause a machine to perform a method to facilitate operation of a network-based commerce system, the method including:

with a network-based auction price-setting process, lowering a predefined reserve price associated with a listing of an item to a seller-adjusted reserve price during a network-based auction for the item price setting process; and

lowering a proxy bid of a buyer to a predetermined amount below the seller-adjusted reserve price when the proxy bid is higher than the seller-adjusted reserve price.

5. The machine-readable medium of claim 4, including automatically notifying a seller of the item when a high proxy bid is within a predetermined percentage range of the seller-adjusted reserve price.

6. The machine-readable medium of claim 4, including automatically notifying a seller of the item when a high proxy bid is within a predetermined value range of the reserve price.

7. A method to facilitate operation of a network-based commerce system, the method including:

with a network-based auction price-setting process executed from a memory by a processor, lowering a predefined reserve price associated with a listing of an item to a seller-adjusted reserve price during a network- based auction for the item price setting process; and

lowering a proxy bid of a buyer to a predetermined amount below the seller-adjusted reserve price when the proxy bid is higher than the seller-adjusted reserve price.

8. The method of claim 7, including automatically notifying a seller of the item when a high proxy bid is within a predetermined percentage range of the seller -adjusted reserve price.

9. The method of claim 7, including automatically notifying a seller of the item when a high proxy bid is within a predetermined value range of the reserve price.