1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an intermediation system providing business information of an article or service through a network and an intermediation device used in the system.
2. Description of the Related Art
The development of the Internet makes it possible to acquire various kinds of information via personal computers, cellular phones and PDAs. To give an example, information on various products or services can be obtained. In addition, an auction site on the Internet or a reverse auction site thereon is used, and various kinds of business is performed (for example, refer to the website at http://auctions.yahoo.co.jp/ (Jan. 7, 2008)).
An Internet auction is an auction to be held via the Internet. Specifically, an unspecified number of persons price any of exhibited articles on screens of computers, etc. connected to the Internet, and only the highest bidder can obtain the article. A typical Internet auction site is configured as follows.
(1) Participants (buyers) bid prices for a certain product individually during a predetermined period. The highest bidder receives an e-mail message indicating that he or she has won the product.
(2) The exhibitor (seller) of the product informs the highest bidder of the remittance and delivery systems.
(3) The bidder pays money and the exhibitor sends the product in response to the payment.
Nowadays, there are various kinds of auction sites on the Internet, it is advantageous in that many goods can be purchased cheaply with enjoyment, but because there is a pit for business with an unknown partner, attention is needed. As described above, when simple Internet auctions are utilized, there is the case that a trouble about an article follows.
Currently, reverse auctions of which system is opposite to that of auctions are also popular. In a reverse auction, a buyer requests a product that the buyer wants and its desired price. In response, sellers offer their products that are suitable for the request of the buyer. The buyer selects the cheapest one among the offered products, and finally purchases it. A reverse auction system of this type is often applied to public works tenders.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,794,207 discloses a method of transacting goods on an Internet reverse auction. This method is carried out as follows.
A buyer sends a mediator of the reverse auction a request of a product that the buyer wants, its conditions, and the buyer's credit card account. In response to the request, sellers send the mediator their estimations. The mediator chooses the most suitable one among the estimations, and informs the buyer about the seller for the selected estimation. The buyer purchases a product that this seller offers.
Another style of transaction over the Internet is a website trading. The website trading provides a system in which a website mediates the trade of products between buyers and sellers over the Internet. Products or services that the sellers offer are displayed on this website.
In such a website trading, a transaction is conducted as follows.
(1) Buyers first need to register them to the website as members in order to participate in the trade. A person entitled to be the member is limited to an employee for a corporation or a member for an organization who has purchasing authority.
(2) An administrator of the website exams the entry persons and, then provides IDs and passwords if the examination is successful. The member (buyer) inputs a desired product and its categories, the number of the product and its price to the site. If some of other members (sellers) have interest in the inputted information, then they can contact the buyer. The sellers offer their products, and a seller who has offers the product of the lowest price among the sellers can bid.
The merit of such website trading is that sellers can promote their sales, that is, to get a chance to sell their products to different persons from conventional customers without incurring cost. In addition, it is advantageous to sell competitive products or inventories. Meanwhile, the merit of buyers is to increase their opportunities to purchase desired products at low prices.
As described above, electronic commerce or transaction thereof over a network such as the Internet has become popular.
JP2004-171198 (claims 1 and 18) discloses a method of trading real estate properties. This method makes it possible to make a contract of transacting real estate properties over a network while eliminating unnecessary information, and to provide a real estate trading site containing fresh, secure and a lot of information. Specifically, this method relates to real estate trade to be made between browsers of the site and real estate agencies over a network. Furthermore, the method includes the steps of registering a user to a server connected to a network as a formal member, registering an agency to the server as an agent member, retrieving data on all the agent members from a terminal connected to the server, selecting desired one among all the agent members based on the retrieved data, and making a user confirm a contract between the user and the selected agent member.
JP2004-171198 (claims 1 and 18) discloses a method of determining population ranking of real estate properties over a network by users and agencies. This method includes the steps of retrieving, by a user, information on real estate properties from a terminal connected to a server through a network, viewing details of attracting properties, viewing drawings of the properties, counting the number of reviewing the details and drawings of the properties, retrieving, by an agency, information on real estate properties from a terminal connected to a server through the network, viewing details of attracting properties, reviewing drawings of the properties, counting the number of reviewing the details and drawings of the properties, and showing the counted number to the users and agencies.
As described above, various transaction methods which are conducted over a network are presently available. However, has not yet been conceived, any network system in which sellers can find potential customers based on information on products or services that buyers wish to purchase. Especially, it is difficult to give proper information to potential buyers, because some of buyers who are seemingly earnest might be in fact just browsers.
Typically, when receiving inquiries from many customers, a seller tries to give the answers to them in the order of the degree of their enthusiasms. However, there is no method of measuring the enthusiasms of buyers. Therefore, a seller may end up in losing potential customers, because the seller gives a higher priority to just viewers such as pricer than potential customers. Also, potential customers may feel dissatisfied because they cannot obtain necessary information timely.
Taking the above disadvantages into account, the present invention has been conceived. An object of the present invention is to provide a system for mediating transaction information, which can measure enthusiasms of buyers and uses the measured enthusiasms as parameters. An additional object of the present invention is to provide a device used in the above system.