WO2015168756A1

WO2015168756A1 - Electronic commercial mediation based on buying intentions

Info

Publication number: WO2015168756A1
Application number: PCT/BR2014/000144
Authority: WO
Inventors: Cristiano SILVEIRA FREIXO
Original assignee: Silveira Freixo Cristiano
Priority date: 2014-05-07
Filing date: 2014-05-07
Publication date: 2015-11-12

Abstract

A method and system to facilitate the contact between buyers and sellers where potential buyers register buying intentions of items represented by keywords in an electronic database accessed by sellers that retrieve buying intentions by keywords search and decide to contact buying intentions owners proposing products or services fitting their respective buying intentions. Embodiments comprise different means to register or edit buying intentions, customize notifications, process and display information to support sellers' decision to accept buying intentions and to evaluate the impact of buying intentions over the selling price published in the market in order to improve sales revenue.

Description

TITLE: Electronic Commercial Mediation Based on Buying Intentions

Cristiano SILVEIRA FREIXO, Brazilian

Rua Cel Moreira Cesar, 282, Bloco 1, 303, Icarai, Niteroi, CEP 24230063, Brazil

DESCRIPTION

1. TECHNICAL FIELD

This invention relates to electronic commerce in general. More specifically, this invention relates to a method and apparatus for commercial mediation based on the electronic registration, retrieval and processing of buyers data.

2. BACKGROUND ART

Commercial relations between sellers and buyers are traditionally initiated by the exposure or publication, using a means of communication or not, of selling intentions or sales offers. Inherent drawbacks of the public exposure of items for sale are the effort spent by sellers to expose or advertise their items and to define selling prices to publish in order to maximize the resulting revenue. By the other side, buyers spend time and effort to search for sellers and to select the best sales offers among a set of offers published in the market. Some further issues outcome from the public exposure of selling intentions:

(i) at a given time and for a given item, sellers are constrained to publish the same price for all buyers; and

(ii) sellers are not aware of the willingness to pay of individual customers. The present art proposes partial solutions to above problems mostly based on market segmentation and demand forecasting, but these methods are essentially restrained to the paradigm of exposure or publication of selling intentions. Alternatively, the exposure or publication of buying intentions or offers to buy represents an alternative means to overcome foresaid problems but it has found very restricted use and definitely no success in cases where the population of buyers is considerably bigger than the population of sellers of a given item, because:

a. The prospection of buying intentions requires a considerable effort from sellers since customers are searched in the market and contacted individually.

b. Getting the attention of sellers by the publication of a buying intention requires a time and cost effort that an individual buyer may decide not to afford if the potential cost savings or his/her willingness to acquire the item are not high enough.

Buying groups offer partial solutions to above limitations; however they still impose different constraints to buyers according to their implementation, such as engaging to execute the purchase, pay the same price as the other members of the group, execute the purchase at the same time as the rest of the group and/or manage featured item customizations.

3. DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION

The object of this invention is a method and system enabling buying intentions registration, organization and retrieval, user notification and buying intentions information processing, used to intermediate the contact between potential buyers and sellers.

Embodiments of present invention allow capturing, handling, retrieving and processing information of buying intentions in order to reduce the effort spent by both buyers and sellers to initiate a commercial transaction. The preferred embodiment uses an electronic database connected to a server and a network of user terminals, a processing capability to execute search queries, create and edit registered data, process buying intentions and sales information, a graphical user interface and a means of communication to send notifications.

During the operation of the system:

1) At any time, identified users operating as buyers register their buying intentions composed of an item to buy and complementary data. In its preferred embodiment, the item to buy is represented by a set of keywords and complementary data is composed of a price value, currency, one or more dates of application and/or quantity.

2) At any time, any user may search for buying intentions using keywords corresponding to the items they intend to buy or sell. Buying intentions are displayed together if they are associated to the same set of keywords.

3) At any time, users operating as sellers may select a subset of buying intentions and send to respective buyers a sales proposal message with detailed description of the item(s) for sale, purchase conditions, contact information and the means to execute the purchase, whenever applicable.

4) The owners of respective buying intentions receive a notification from the system with the sales proposal and decide to proceed or not with the purchase execution.

The means of purchase execution is out of scope of this invention. The system erases buying intentions from the database according to predefined erasing or expiration criteria. The decision to contact owners of buying intentions can be made by any seller, at any time. Embodiments of this invention further comprise the display of information to support sellers' decision to accept buying intentions and/or to evaluate the impact of buying intentions in present selling price published in market. This method offers a general buying intention publication solution applicable to any sort of item, facilitating sellers' prospection of potential buyers and requiring from buyers virtually no effort to get the attention of sellers, compared to a priori art, since individual buying intentions are combined together using respective set of keywords.

4. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an exemplary computer environment representing the preferred physical embodiment of this invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary functional architecture of system components to mediate commercial relations using buying intentions.

FIG. 3A and FIG. 3B illustrate an exemplary processing flow of the system shown in FIG 2.

FIG. 4A and FIG. 4B illustrate two exemplary user interfaces listing buying intentions registered in the database. FIG 4A illustrates the search results and FIG 4B illustrates the buying intentions associated to an exemplary set of keywords.

FIG. 5 is the block diagram of FIG 2 further comprising the Modules for Sellers Decision

Support.

FIG. 6 illustrates one exemplary input/output interface for advising sellers about buying intentions acceptance and updates in open market selling price.

FIG. 7 depicts a macro representation of the scope of present invention.

5. MODES OF CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

The preferred embodiment of this invention is described in the general context of computer code or machine-usable instructions, including computer-executable instructions such as program components, being executed by a general purpose computer or other computing machine, including general purpose input/output devices and networks. Other possible embodiments could be described by non-programmable and/or programmable dedicated devices arranged to enable the execution of the method of commercial mediation using buying intentions without departing from the scope of this invention.

Generally, program components including routines, programs, objects, data structures, and the like, refer to code that performs particular tasks to process particular data types. Embodiments of this invention may be practiced in a variety of computing machines configurations, including handheld devices, consumer electronics, general purpose computers, specialty computing devices, etc. Embodiments of this invention may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices and/or data is stored in remote devices that are linked through a communication network.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an exemplary computer environment 100 representing one possible embodiment of this invention. The computer 112 and the computer environment 100 are described for illustration purposes and represent merely an example of the types of computers or computer networks with which the embodiments of the present invention may be practiced.

The computer 112 includes the system bus 120 coupling the processor 118, the memory 116, the data storage 114, the I/O interface 122 and the communication interface 124. Distinction is not made between "workstations", "servers", "laptops", "handheld devices", "personal data assistant", "mobile phone", etc., as all are contemplated within the scope of FIG.l and reference to "computer" or "computing machine".

It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art the processes of the embodiments are resident as processing instructions stored in the memory 116 which are read and executed by the processor 118. The processor 118 reads, manipulates and then stores data in the memory 116, in the data storage 114, transfer data by an output interface 122 or via the communication interface 124. The system bus 120 can be any of several types of bus structure including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of a variety of conventional bus architectures such as PCI, VESA, ISA, to name a few. The memory 116 includes read- only memory and random access memory. The data storage 114 can be internal or external relative to the computer 112 or be coupled to the computer by the communication interface 124. The data storage 114 can include different machine-readable storage medium, including magnetic, optical or any other hardware medium allowing data storage. Examples include magnetic disks or tapes, optical disks such as CD or DVD, flash memories, or the like. It should be appreciated by those skilled in the art that any type of media which is readable by a computer can be used in the exemplary computer environment 112, and further that, any such media can contain computer executable instructions for performing the methods of the embodiments.

A user can perform actions, such as entering buying intentions data, launching a search over the database using item keywords, enter details about a sales proposal, and read information from the computer, such as a list of buying intentions associated to a set of keywords, etc., using different input/output devices 126. Examples of input devices include a keyboard, mouse, track ball, touch screen, microphone, joystick, scanner, video or photo camera, or the like. Examples of output devices include video monitor or screen, speakers, printers, or the like. Input/output devices are coupled by an input/output interface 122 to the system bus 120. The input/output interface 122 represents any physical connection, such as serial or parallel ports or universal serial bus, or any hardware or software used to adapt or interpret input/output data generated or read by input/output devices. Input/output devices may be connected to the computer input/output interface using a wired connection or by any wireless communication means. The communication interface 124 can be internal or external relative to the computer 112 and works to facilitate the communication between computers 112, 132 by means of a communication network 128. A remote computer 132 represents any computer coupled to the communication network 128 by a wired or wireless connection and typically includes many or all of the elements described relative to the computer 112. The communication network 128 can include a local area network and a wide area network. When used in a wide area network, for example, the communication interface 124 typically includes a modem or has other means for establishing communications over the wide area network, such as the internet.

In one possible embodiment, the computer 112 works as a server computer, answering requests and providing data content to remote computers 132 working as clients. User 130 may be the administrator of the system, responsible for setting different system parameters including the criteria to erase buying intentions from the database. In this arrangement, user 134 may operate as a buyer and use a client computer to create or edit a buying intention, while user 136 may operate as a seller and use a client computer to select a set of buying intentions to send a sales proposal, for example.

Turning to FIG. 2 of the drawings, there is shown a block diagram 200 generally representing an exemplary functional architecture of the system components, implemented as a set computer instructions, and used to execute the method of commercial mediation using buying intentions proposed in this invention. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the functionality implemented within the blocks illustrated in the diagram may be implemented as separate components or the functionality of several or all of the blocks may be implemented within a single component. For example, the functionality of the user data manager 216 may be implemented in the same component as the buying intention registration manager 220. Moreover, the functionality implemented within the blocks illustrated in the diagram may be executed on a single computer or distributed across a plurality of computers for execution. The data input/output manager 210 provides data contextualization to users 212 or administrator 212 represented together in FIG. 2 for simplicity, facilitating the dialogue of users with other system components. Data input/output manager may use graphical elements in a Graphical User Interface (GUI) to represent elements such as input fields, buttons, menus, lists, etc. to contextualize data displayed to users 212 or administrator 212.

Each buying intention is associated to one or more keywords. A set of buying intentions is retrieved by the search manager 218 whenever a search query is launched by a user 212. This set of buying intentions is generated by matching the keyword(s) associated to buying intentions registered in the database 226 to those used to launch the search, according to query operator used. Examples of possible query operators are Boolean Operators AND, OR, to name a few possibilities. Furthermore, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the search may be indexed to facilitate information retrieval in the database 226. The search manager 218 may generate search results displayed by the data input/output manager 210 as illustrated in FIG 4A. Buying intentions are grouped together when associated to the same set of keywords combination, this is illustrated in FIG 4B. In one possible embodiment, the visualization of buying intentions may be restricted to some users with special privileges of data access.

The buying intention registration manager 220, the data input/output manager 210, user data manager 216 and, alternatively, the search manager 218 implement together different means to capture and register data associated to a new buy intention. Some of these means are described hereafter:

(1) Direct Registration of a New Buying Intention: the user 212 accesses a graphical interface dedicated to the registration of new buying intentions and enters the keywords representing the item to buy and any optional complementary data: the price he/she intends to pay, quantity and/or date(s) of application may also be registered. If user 212 is still not identified by the user data manager 216, an identification means is proposed by the data input/output manager 210. The buying intention registration manager 220 receives buying intention data from the data input/output manager 210 and registers the new buying intention in the buying intention database 226. Each buying intention is linked to a user identification data which is also registered in the User Data 224.

(2) Registration of a New Buying Intention Using an Item Code: alternatively, buying intentions can use an item code to represent the item to buy instead of keywords. In another case, the keywords used for registration of a new buying intention can be recovered from a database using an item code, such as a bar code, for example. This code may be directly entered by the user or recovered from an automatic code reader, such as a bar code reader. In this case, the data input/output manager 210 may comprise also instructions for code reading, by digital image interpretation, for example.

(3) Registration of a New Buying Intention Reusing Keywords used for Searching Registered Buying Intentions: the user 212 launches a search in a database to retrieve registered buying intentions using one or more keywords which are handled by the search manager 218. Optionally, other data such as price and/or dates may also be included as search criteria. In this case, the search data is reused by the buying intentions registration manager 220, for the registration of a new buying intention and offered by the data input/output manager 210 to user 212 to be associated to further buying intention data, if any, and be saved into the database. If user is still not identified, an identification means is proposed before buying intention registration. (4) Registration of a New Buying Intention Reusing Keywords used by a Web Search Engine: the user 212 launches a search of web content using a web search engine, not represented in FIG. 2 for simplicity. The search engine executes the query and displays the web content results matching the keywords entered by the user. In one embodiment of present invention, the data input/output manager 210 reads or receives the search keywords used for the web search and offers the possibility for the user 212 to register a new buying intention by associating, for example, the price he/she intends to pay for the item represented by the keywords. If user is still not identified, an identification means is proposed. Once the registration of the new buying intention is commanded by user 212, the data input/output manager 210 communicates the buying intention data together with user data respectively to the buying intention registration manager 220 and to user data manager 216 to be saved into database 230. Optionally, a different currency, quantity and/or date(s) can be also registered by the user. In one embodiment of the present invention, the functions of registering buying intentions and performing web searches are performed by the same entity or system. In another embodiment, the registration of buying intentions is offered to owners/administrators of third party web search engines as a feature to be installed in the form of a plug-in module.

(5) Registration of a New Buying Intention from the Visualization of an Item: when a user visualizes one or more items in a webpage or in an electronic mail, one embodiment of present invention allows the user to register a new buying intention by associating, for example, the price he/she wants to pay for the item visualized. In this embodiment, the data input/output manager 210 reads or receives the set of keywords representing the item under visualization. Buying intention keywords may be identified by meta-tags predefined by the webpage administrator or reused from the item title, for example. Optionally, a different currency, quantity and/or date(s) can be also registered by the user. If the user is still not identified, an identification means is proposed before buying intention registration. In one embodiment of the present invention, the functions of registering buying intentions and managing the content of the webpage or email displaying the item(s) are performed by the same entity, person or system. In another embodiment, the registration of a new buying intention is offered to owners/administrators of third party websites as a feature to be installed in the form of a plug-in module. (6) Registration of a New Buying Intention using a Web Browser Feature: In one embodiment of the present invention, the data input/output manager 210 is implemented by a set of computer instruction executed by a web browser in the form or a browser plug-in running in a remote computer 132. During web navigation, the web browser parses the web pages under visualization and uses web pages meta-tags for pre-filling the keywords representing an item. Alternatively, the user may enter keywords and price directly in a specific interface offered by the web browser plug-in. Using this embodiment, user has the possibility to register a buying intention concerning any item searched or visualized in his/her web browser, even if the webpage itself does not offer this feature. Optionally, a different currency, quantity and/or date(s) can be also registered by the user. If the user is still not identified, an identification means is proposed before buying intention registration.

The notification manager 214 implements different means to notify users 212 and/or administrator 212 about events triggered by the execution of steps described in this invention. As per this specification, any embodiment of the present invention notifies the owners of buying intention about new sales proposals messages associated to their respective buying intentions. However, according to its embodiment, the communication of notifications can be further executed by events triggered by other users, according to specific notification criteria customized by the notification receiver. Examples of events are :

A. Registration or edition of buying intentions; and/or

B. Communications sent to other users with sales proposals messages; and/or

C. New user data registration.

The notification manager 214 may send messages using a messaging system, such as SMS, email, instant messaging, etc. or use a dedicated graphical interface displaying data about events occurrences. For instance, a possible customization of the notification manager 214 may use a set of keywords and a price threshold. In this case, according to the notification logics customized by the user, the notification manager would notify a user about new buying intentions matching the customized keywords whose values are above the customized price threshold. Receiving notifications about buying intentions, communications of new sales proposals or new user data may provide useful information, for example for sellers to react to the concurrency. The notification manager 214 may also calculate and provide statistics and time series evolutions of such events.

The user data manager 216 identifies users and manages any user account data, including personal data or customization data. Personal data may include, but is not limited to, messaging configurations such as email address or mobile phone, personal characteristics such as name, gender, age, city, country, etc. Some further data may be also associated to a user account in order to increase the trust other users might attribute to their buying intentions or sales proposals messages. Examples include donations made by user, attributes calculated by the system such as number of buying intentions created, edited or deleted in last month, ratings derived from feedback of other users, or the like. The user data manager 216 may also process rules for automatic actions customized by users, such as the automatic updating of buying intention prices or the automatic communication of sales messages to owners of buying intentions associated to a predefined set of keywords, if their prices are higher than a predefined level.

The database 230 is composed of three main data sets. User data 224 contains a record of each user of the system, operating as potential buyers or sellers. Users may be linked to buying intentions recorded in buying intentions data 226. In the preferred embodiment of this invention, each buying intention must be associated to one user. Buying intentions can be edited or erased by their respective owners whenever they want. If not erased by the respective owner, buying intentions are set inactive or erased according to customized administrator logics, such as, for example, if the number of days since creation or last edition is higher than a predefined number of days. Parameters are customized by the administrator 212 using the administration manager 222 and respective data is stored in the administrator settings data 228. In alternative embodiments of this invention, one buying intention can be associated to more than one user. In this case, a sales message is sent to all users associated to a selected buying intention and the buying intention expiration criteria can be customized by administrator, for example, based on the number of days since last user joined the buying intention.

An exemplary processing flow of the system shown in FIG. 2 is described by FIG. 3A and FIG. 3B which depict together a flow chart diagram of the method steps of the preferred embodiment of this invention executing one possible sequence of activities. In the flow chart 300, two types of users operating either as a buyer or seller interact with the present invention, generically named as "system", comprising all elements of FIG.2 and embodied, for example, in a server computer 112 connected to the internet. Even if both users are represented in the same flow chart, their respective interactions with the system are independent from each other and no synchronization is required. At first, users perform a member registration or log in the system using a unique identification data 310, 314. Data is entered using an input/output device 126 and a computer operating as a client terminal 132, such as a mobile phone or a personal computer, as depicted in FIG. 1. The system reads the input user data and identifies the user 312. This task is executed by the user data manager 216. The user identification 312 is showed in this flowchart as a first step, but it can be left to be performed downstream the process. Both users operating as potential buyers or sellers launch a search in the buying intentions database 226. Buyers enter the keywords representing the item to buy 316 while sellers enter the keywords representing the item they intend to sell 320. At the system level, both requests are processed in the same manner and the search manager 218 executes a search query 318 in the buying intentions database 226. The search manager responds to this request with the set of buying intentions matching the keywords 322 according to predefined logical operators, for example using the logical operator OR. Alternatively, the selection of different logical operators can be offered to users as options to be selected before launching a search. Buying intentions matching the search query may be organized and displayed in subgroups of buying intentions with exactly the same keywords, as illustrated in FIG. 4A. After the search, if the buyer finds out one keywords combination fitting the item he/she intends to buy 324, then he/she may enter complementary buying intention data to register a new buying intention using the respective keywords combination 326. This step can be performed by using the interface shown in FIG 4B 434, for instance. Complementary buying intention data are options offered to users according to the embodiment of this invention. In the preferred embodiment, the price is entered by user in steps 326 and 330. The system registers the new buying intention which is associated to others buying intentions having the same keywords combination 328. If user finds no item among the search results fitting the item to buy, so he/she may decide to create a new buying intention reusing the searched keywords as a new set of keywords 330. In this case, user enters the buying intention complementary data which is associated to the keywords used for the search and this information is registered in the database under the new keywords combination 332. Users may associate buying intentions to many different keywords combinations representing items they intend to buy. So, users may create buying intentions associated to already existing keyword combinations 326 and/or create a buy intention with a totally new keyword combination 330. When a new buying intention is created or edited, the notification manager 214 may notify other users about this new event, according to their respective customization criteria 334. By the other side, if the user operates as a seller and finds out at least one keywords combination fitting the item he/she intends to sell 326, then he/she accesses the buying intention(s) associated to the respective keywords combination and evaluate each buying intention data to select corresponding buying intentions to be accepted (i.e. to send a sale proposal message) 338, if any. The system receives each selection and adds the buying intention to a contact list 336. This task is jointly executed, for example, by the input/output manager 210 that reads user selections and the user data manager 216 that recovers user contact data corresponding to respective buying intentions owners. The seller enters the sales proposal message 342 describing the item for sale, such as color, model, age, quantity of items available, pictures, hyperlinks, etc, means of purchase, such as a promotional code, possible payment means, such as cash, credit card, etc., contractual conditions, such as warranties, reimbursement conditions, etc., and/or any other information he/she considers as important and applicable for the commercial transaction. After user authorization, the system sends the sales proposal to respective owners of selected buying intentions 340. These users will be communicated by the notification manager 214 about their buying intention acceptance and receive the sales message created by the seller in step 342. Different means of notification may be used, such as a dedicated graphical interface, SMS, email, instant messages, phone call, etc. The notification manager 214 may also notify other users about the new acceptance, according to respective customization criteria 344. Any user, at any time can access the system to customize their respective notification criteria 346, 350. Logical operators may be offered to combine different notification criteria. Notifications may be customized using any buying intention data: keywords, values, currency, dates, quantity, or user data, such as country, age, etc. After customization setup, the system saves the notification customization 348 in the user database 224. Finally, buying intentions may have one or more expiration/deletion criteria, if not manually deleted by respective owners. Different logics can be used by the system administrator to make buying intentions invalid, inactive, invisible to search queries or erased from database 352. To list some possible criteria, administrator may use the number of days since creation or last update, number of acceptances received and/or the respective owner data in the form of a user status, user rating or the like. These criteria are verified by periodically parsing the database and updating buying intentions validity status, for example. The verification of these criteria is performed by the administration manager 222.

FIG. 4A depicts a possible example of graphical representation or a screenshot 400 of the search results 322. In this illustration, the keywords entered by the user for the search appear in the top 410 and buying intentions matching the search query are displayed organized by subgroups of buying intentions with exactly the same keyword combinations 414. These subgroups of buying intentions may be ranked according to different options 412, such as the number of buying intentions inside each subgroup, etc. The number of buying intentions inside each subgroup may be also displayed together with the associated keywords combination 416. FIG. 4B depicts a possible example of graphical representation or screenshot of one subgroup of buying intentions 418 with an interface dedicated to create a new buying intention for the same item 434. In this illustration, the common set of keywords defining the item appears in the top of the list of buying intentions 420 and each individual buying intention is composed of four different groups of information: user account data 422, or user data, represents possible user-related information. Examples include user rating, number of buying intentions created or edited by user in last week, 'user since' date, etc. Optionally, any buying intention-related information may also be used, such as number of times it was accepted, for example. The field 422 aims at displaying any information about the user or about the buying intention itself considered as relevant for buying intention selection. A buying intention may be associated to one or more dates 424, a value 426 and currency 428. Item quantity is not represented in this example, but can also be used in buying intention complementary data. In the example illustrated, the user-1 intends to buy a round ticket departing from Paris to New York at first class, leaving on the 22/07/2012 and returning on the 21/08/2012 for a price equal or less than 1.000 USD. User-2 is looking for a one-way ticket and User-3 registered that dates are not applicable or not a concern, so he/she is prone to accept any first-class ticket departing from Paris to New York, one-way or round trip, if the price is not higher than 500 USD. All this information is made available to any user and potential sellers may use them to help in their choice of buying intention(s) to accept. This selection is performed in user interface area 430 by a selection means, such as a hyperlink 432 or a selection box. The user interface area 434 is dedicated to the registration of a new buying intention by entering a price value 436, a currency 438, one or more dates if considered as applicable, 440 and registering this data 442 together with the displayed set of keywords 420 into the database.

Embodiments of this invention enable buyers to communicate their buying intentions to sellers which in turn have the choice to search and contact buyers using a common platform and method which are applicable to any sort of items spending low efforts. It empowers buyers with a means to propose lower prices compared to those published in the open market and it enables sellers to better manage their revenue by reaching price-sensitive buyers at any time in a planned manner. Different embodiments of this invention provide different levels of support to sellers' decision to send sales proposals about an item for sale and manage their revenue.

In one embodiment of this invention, the risk of a potential buyer not proceeding with the purchase after receiving a sales proposal corresponding to his buying intention is estimated by the system embodying this invention and displayed in the user interface as part of User Data 422 in the form of a user rating. This risk is estimated by processing risk-related data stored in the database. For instance, risk-related data may include:

i. users profile data (age, gender, city, ...);

ii. history of buying intentions created, edited, renewed and/or expired;

iii. history of sales proposals received;

iv. feedbacks provided by sellers about purchases executed.

In this embodiment, user feedbacks are managed by the data input/output manager 210, by the notification manager 214, for example, by sending an email to sellers to collect their feedback some days after a sales proposal is sent to potential buyers, and by the user data manager 216, for example, by saving and retrieving these feedbacks from the database. FIG. 5 depicts the Main Block Diagram 200 integrated with the add-on Modules for Sellers Decision Support 500, consisting in a Module for Risk Estimation 510 and a Module for Advice Generation 520. The Module for Risk Estimation 510 may implement different methods to estimate the risk of a potential buyer not proceeding with the purchase after receiving a sales proposal. Examples of methods may include heuristic rule-based models built by human expertise using past experience, such as:

"IF the user updated the buying intention price value in last 24 hours THEN the risk of not proceeding with the purchase after receiving a sales proposal fitting his buying intention is less than 5% Different methods can be implemented in the Module for Risk Estimation 510 and these methods can be updated or changed without departing from the scope of present invention.

In another embodiment of this invention, the commercial mediation based on buying intentions further comprises the generation of advices for sellers about buying intentions to accept and updates on selling price published in the open market. These sales advices are generated by processing advice-related data stored in the database together with data provided by sellers. For instance, the advice-related data may include:

1. the number of registered buying intentions fitting the item for sale and their respective buying prices;

2. the estimated risk of a buyer not proceeding with the purchase after receiving a sales proposal corresponding to his buying intention;

Data provided by sellers may include:

1. the present selling price published for the item in the open market;

2. the number of remaining items for sale and remaining sales time;

3. the number of transactions and total revenue accumulated by purchases executed out of sales proposals sent to buying intention owners. The generation of advices about updates in the published selling price is based on the principle that sellers may profit from the known price-sensitive demand offered by registered buying intentions and increase the selling price published in open market to make higher revenues out of a demand which is a priori less sensitive to higher prices.

FIG. 6 depicts a possible example of graphical representation or a screenshot of the Sales Advice Generation Interface 600 with its Input Area 610 and Output Area 620. The Input Area 610 works to collect user data corresponding to sales status experienced by the seller. In this area, the seller enters one or more keywords combinations representing the item for sale 611. These keywords are used to retrieve buying intentions from the database. Alternatively, different filtering criteria (not represented in the Input Area 610, for simplicity) can also be used, for example and option to "consider only buying intentions updated in last 48 hours ". In this exemplary interface, the seller enters the present selling price that is published in the open market with its respective currency 612 whenever this price is updated. Further, the seller enters the number of remaining items for sale 613, the number of purchases executed by contacting buying intention owners 614 and the revenue accumulated from these sales 615. Different combinations of input fields can be used to represent the present sales status. By the other side, the Output Area 620 works to provide the advices generated: the reference numbers of buying intentions advised to be immediately selected and contacted 622 and the advised new selling price to be published in open market 623, as well as any contextual information, such as the number of buying intentions retrieved in database 621 and the total revenue evolution 624, to provide a few examples. The set of commands associated to the button "Update Now!" 625 works to save the input data, retrieve buying intentions from database, re-generate sales advices and refresh data displayed in the Output Area 620.

To illustrate this principle by an example, one may suppose the item is represented by the keywords: "Ticket U2 Concert London 25 Oct 2014" with 536 buying intentions registered in the database for this item and the concert manager is selling tickets in the concert's official website for 120 pounds. The concert manager provides tickets selling data to the system embodying the present invention using the Input Area 610 which is managed by the Data Input/Output Manager 210 and used by the Module for Advice Generation 520 to define advices about buying intentions to be contacted and updates on published selling price. Notification Manager 214 can send these advices by email and/or this information can be output in a dedicated interface 620 to the seller. In this illustrative example, once the concert manager clicks on button "Update Now!" he is advised to accept 6 buying intentions registered in the database and update the published selling price to 121 pounds. The Module for Advise Generation 520 may implement different methods to generate advices about buying intentions to accept and about updates on published selling price. Examples of methods may include heuristic rule-based models built by human expertise using past experience, such as:

"IF the number of buying intentions with buying prices between 70% and 100% of the published selling price IS HIGHER THAN 20% of the number of remaining items for sale

AND the number of buying intentions with buying prices between 95% and 98% of the published selling price IS HIGHER THAN 5% of the number of remaining items for sale

THEN advise the acceptance of buying intentions with price values between 95% and 98% the published selling price, with the number of acceptances messages to be sent limited to 7% of number of remaining items for sale

AND increase the selling price published in open market in 2%".

Different methods can be implemented in the Module for Advice Generation 520 and these methods can be updated or changed without departing from the scope of present invention. Finally, FIG. 7 brings an overview of the general scope of the present invention by a block diagram 700 representing possible users and their relation with this invention. Users operating as buyers 710 may adopt different means to register or edit buying intentions 712 used in different situations, such as while visualizing the description of an item in a website listing sports articles for sale, while selecting a flight ticket to buy in an airline website or by taking a picture with his mobile phone of a bar code while handling a product in a store, to give a few examples. In turn, users operating as sellers 716 may access the registered buying intentions by different means 714, with special privileges or not. These means may consist of a dedicated interface directly listing the buying intentions or by the intermediation of any computer implemented modules using buying intentions information to advise sellers about buying intentions to accept and about updates in selling price published in the market. Special privileges may consist of rights to access a set of buying intentions that are not visible to other users or that will be visible after a certain time delay. The core processing 718 manipulates input/output information from/to these three groups of users. Finally, users operating as buyers or sellers 722 may customize alerting criteria to be notified by the present invention using different communication means 720, such as SMS, specific mobile phone applications, instant messaging, email, a dedicated interface, etc. These notifications may be in the form of statistics or time series updates. As an example, a train company may be alerted when a new buying intention with the keywords "Paris Toulouse", with associated date equal to "22/12/2012" and above "35 Euros" is registered in the system. Customization criteria could also comprise automatic acceptance of buying intentions and communication of acceptance messages.

The use of categories for buying intentions classification, such as 'hotels', 'flight tickets', 'electronics', etc., in order to facilitate information organization and retrieval, currency conversion, geo-localization of buying intentions, automatic keywords translations, data communication with other system by an application protocol interface, among other additional features, may also be introduced in possible embodiments without departing from the scope of this invention.

6. INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY

Embodiments of the present invention enable price-sensitive buyers to propose lower prices than those published in the open market, empowering buyers if they can afford the risk of not executing the commercial transaction, which is the case if the price proposed in a buying intention is not accepted by any seller. This is recommended to items buyers do not have an immediate need or immediate intention to pay the price published in the open market. By the other side, sellers have the possibility to better manage their revenue by accepting buyer's offers according to their sales strategy. Embodiments of this invention offer to sellers a means to propose different prices to different customers without drifting the present demand on their items, which is typically the case of discounts on published prices. By a revenue management perspective, the present invention offers the possibility to profit from the known price- sensitive demand offered by registered buying intentions and increase the selling price published in open market to make higher revenues out of a demand which is a priori less sensitive to higher prices.

The electronic mediation method and system proposed by the present invention is ideally applicable, but not limited, to the commerce of products or services whose value is highly time-dependent, such as transportation tickets, hotel rooms or rentals. The present invention is also ideally applicable, but still not limited, to the commerce of items with very low marginal cost compared to the total cost, such as the cost of a new phone user in a communication network.

Claims

CLAIMS 560 What is claimed is:

(1) A computer-implemented method to intermediate the contact between potential buyers and sellers, where, at any time, identified users operating as buyers register their respective buying intentions which can be retrieved by users operating as sellers at any time, characterized in that: (i) the data of a registered buying intention comprises user

565 identification data and a set of keywords representing the item to buy; (ii) the data retrieval of registered buying intentions is performed using search keywords in database queries; (iii) retrieved buying intentions are displayed together if they refer to the same item to buy; (iv) a user operating as seller selects one or more buying intentions; (v) a sales message is sent to respective users that registered the selected buying intentions.

570

(2) The method of claim 1, wherein the data of a registered buying intention comprises a set of keywords representing the item to buy and identification data of users intending to buy the same item.

575

(3) The method of claim 1 or claim 2, wherein retrieved buying intentions are displayed together if they refer to items to buy with one or more keywords in common or one or more keywords with same meaning.

(4) The method of claim 1 or claim 2, wherein the data of a registered buying intention 580 comprises an item code representing the item to buy.

(5) The method of any of claims 1 to 3, wherein the registration of new buying intentions comprises the use of predefined item categories.

(6) The method of any of claims 1 to 5, further comprising: (i) item price; (ii) one or more dates of buying intention application; (iii) item quantity; (iv) geo-location data, as complementary buying intention data or any combinations of items (i) to (iv).

(7) The method of any of claims 1 to 6, further comprising: (i) item price; (ii) date of buying intention application; (iii) users profile data; (iv) date of buying intention creation; (v) geo-location data; (vi) predefined item categories, as part of the search criteria to retrieve registered buying intentions or any combinations of items (i) to (vi).

(8) The method of any of claims 1 to 7, wherein the registration of a new buying intention or the retrieval of registered buying intentions is restricted to users with special privileges of data access.

(9) The method of any of claims 1 to 8, wherein the registration of a new buying intention is performed by: (i) reusing keywords used by a search engine to search for content in the internet; or (ii) reusing keywords representing an item visualized in a webpage or email.

(10) The method of any of claims 1 to 9, further comprising the notification of users about:

(i) the creation or edition of buying intentions; (ii) the transmission of new sales messages; (iii) the registration of new users in the system, according to notification criteria customized by respective notification receivers about events (i) to (iii) or any combinations of events (i) to (iii).

(11) The method of any of claims 1 to 10, further comprising the automatic selection of buying intentions and communication of sales messages according to sales criteria customized by respective users operating as sellers.

(12) The method of any of claims 1 to 11, further comprising the automatic update of buying intentions price values according to buying criteria customized by respective users operating as buyers.

(13) The method of any of claims 1 to 12, further comprising the estimation of the risk that a user does not proceed with the purchase after receiving a sales message fitting his/her buying intention.

(14) A computer-implemented method for revenue management, characterized in that it comprises the following steps: (i) retrieving registered buying intentions related to a particular item for sale; (ii) reading data about executed sales transactions of foresaid item; (iii) generating a list of buying intentions advised for seller's acceptance.

(15) The method of claim 14, further comprising the automatic acceptance and communication of sales messages.

(16) The method of claim 14 or claim 15, further comprising the generation of a new selling price advised for publication in the market.