WO2006092726A2

WO2006092726A2 - Electronic system for exchanging goods and services

Info

Publication number: WO2006092726A2
Application number: PCT/IB2006/000472
Authority: WO
Inventors: Menachem Golan
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2005-03-03
Filing date: 2006-03-03
Publication date: 2006-09-08
Anticipated expiration: 2007-09-03
Also published as: GB2439859A; CA2599880A1; GB0718820D0; IL185662A0

Description

ELECTRONIC SYSTEM FOR EXCHANGING GOODS AND SERVICES

CROSS-REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS This application is related to and claims priority from U.S. Provisional Patent Application Serial No. 60/658,067, entitled "ELECTRONIC SYSTEM FOR EXCHANGING GOODS AND SERVICES," filed on March 3, 2005, and U.S. Provisional Patent Application Serial No. 60/725,187, entitled "ELECTRONIC SYSTEM FOR EXCHANGING GOODS AND SERVICES," filed on October 11, 2005, both of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention is directed to an integrated system of banking, credit, marketing and advertising, that allows its users, individual and/or corporate, to buy and sell one from another with payments being made at least partially with goods and/or services that the purchasing (acquiring) user brings into the system and advertises on the system.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Bartering has been a common form of commerce since the beginnings of civilization. Bartering is effective in that goods and/or services are exchanged between parties to the barter, rather than money. Bartering is typically done on a small scale, and is conducted directly between two entities, typically people. For example, in a traditional barter, a dentist treats a painter's tooth, and in return for the dental treatment, the painter will paint the dentist's office, without cash or other money exchanged between the dentist and the painter. While such a conventional bartering system works on a small scale as noted, what is needed is a system for facilitating bartering on a much larger scale, in particular, one in which goods and/or services can be exchanged between individuals and/or corporations, between various professionals and entrepreneurs, etc. and, furthermore, which allows for barter transactions to occur without any obligations for direct mutual purchasing between any two users.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In accordance with this and other needs, the invention described hereinafter is generally directed to a method for administering transactions involving bartering. The method or process includes creating a group of members, each member of the group being both a buyer of at least one good/service and a seller of at least one good/service. At least one first member selects at least one good/service offered from a second member, and the least one second member receiving a credit in proportion to the good/service selected, for selecting at least one good/service from at least one other member of the plurality of members.

The invention also provides a system, for example, a computerized or electronic system, in full or in part, that facilitates barter transactions between users, including, individuals to individuals, individuals to business entities, and business entities to business entities. To this end, the system generally operates as a bank of goods and/or services (also referred to as "items"), which creates unique credit lines, with assurances from personal credit cards and/or other personal financial accounts (individually or collectively referred to hereinafter as "credit cards"). Furthermore, the system may reward outstanding system users with, for example, automatic and non-automatic advertising upgrades in the system where users are evaluated based upon criteria such as their individual transaction quantity (experience of other users or user experience), quality of the goods and/or services they provide to the system for acquisition by other system users, etc.

While it will be appreciated that the invention has the advantage of providing a means for consumers to save money and to tap into additional income sources as well as the advantage of providing a means for retailers and distributors to increase their sales as they reach potentially new audiences, various additional advantages, features, properties and relationships of the invention will be obtained from the following detailed description and accompanying drawings which set forth illustrative embodiments which are indicative of the various ways in which the principles of the invention may be employed.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

For use in better understanding the invention described hereinafter reference may be had to the following drawings in which: Figures IA and IB is a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary method for buying goods and/or services within the subject electronic system for exchange;

Figures 2A and 2B is a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary method for selling goods and/or services within the subject electronic system for exchange; Figure 3 is a block diagram illustrating various exemplary systems, procedures, and processes within the subject electronic system for exchange which are interacted with by buyers and sellers;

Figure 4 is a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary log-in procedure for a user within the subject electronic system for exchange;

Figure 5 is a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary registration procedure for a user within the subject electronic system for exchange;

Figure 6 is schematic diagram illustrating an exemplary user advertising rating system within the subject electronic system for exchange; Figure 7 is a flow diagram illustrating various ways in which a user may interact with the subject electronic system for exchange;

Figure 8 is a block diagram illustrating operation of the subject electronic system for exchange;

Figures 9 is a screen shots illustrating an exemplary Web page presented to users of the subject electronic system for exchange;

Figures 1OA and 1OB is a flow diagram further illustrating various ways in which a user may interact with the subject electronic system for exchange ;

Figure 11 is a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary transaction within the subject electronic system for exchange; Figure 12 is a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary international transaction within the subject electronic system for exchange;

Figure 13 is a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary regular order transaction within the subject electronic system for exchange;

Figure 14 is a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary regular order cancellation transaction within the subject electronic system for exchange;

Figure 15 is a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary international order transaction within the subject electronic system for exchange; and

Figures 16A and 16B is a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary buy back/pool order transaction within the subject electronic system for exchange.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

With reference to the figures, the following describes an electronic system 10 for facilitating the exchange of goods and/or services. As will become apparent, the system 10 provides its members (i.e., registered users) with credit at all stages of the purchasing (acquiring) process, allowing them to purchase (exchange) goods and/or services even prior to having to provide goods and/or services to other users of the system 10. Throughout this document, the term "system," in singular or plural, is used to mean the machinery, i.e., hardware, software, and combinations thereof, and/or the enterprise or parties responsible for the administration, maintenance, and control, of the machinery, on which the invention is performed. It is thus to be understood that the system and components illustrated within the figures are presented by way of example only and in a manner that is not intended to be limiting.

To facilitate the exchange of goods and/or services via the system 10, in addition to making goods and/or services available to users for exchange, the system 10 will further request that each buyer of goods and/or services will serve as a guarantor for the goods and/or services they offer via the system 10 in exchange for the goods and/or services they purchase (obtain). To this end, the user may be required, for example, to provide the system 10 with access to their personal credit card. In connection with the purchase of goods and/or service, while not required, buyers are preferably given "grace periods" in which they will be able to supply their own goods and/or services to other users of the system 10 to thereby account for a purchase amount owed within the system 10. By providing "grace periods" a user's personal credit card need not be charged until necessary by the system 10 and the user can accumulate a surplus of credits in their special credit account which is managed for the user by the system 10.

As generally illustrated in Fig. 8, the system 10 also has the advantage of facilitating barter transactions between various different types of users, both corporate and individual, regardless of the size. The system 10 additionally has the advantage of facilitating barter transactions by providing various different means by which the system 10 may be accessed by such users. For example, as illustrated in Fig. 8, users of the system 10, i.e., buyers or sellers, may include users which access the system via a visual or audiovisual enabled access device, e.g., a computing device such as a desktop or laptop computer 22, cell phone, PDA, etc. having a Web browsing application and the ability to directly or indirectly access the system 10 via the Internet, as well as users which access the system via an audio enabled device, e.g., a LAN or cellular telephone used to access the system 10 via a call center 12. Such users of the system 10 may thus take the form of individuals such as a painter 01, doctor 04, homemaker 06, craftsman 07, small retail businesses such as a camera store 03, and large entities such a corporate retailer or manufacturer 02. Further, the system 10 can provide information (for example via a user's Web page or a general directory) that allows these users to contact one another by telephone, fax, e-mail, etc. or by means of system supported services such as instant messaging. Yet further, an internal e-mail system may be provided to support communications between and to users, e.g., to deliver system messages to the participants such as statements, announcements, monthly bills, order details, advertising, etc.

For ensuring desired operation of the system 10, users of the system 10 should be obligated, partially or completely, to exchange goods and/or services with other users of the system 10. To this end, the system 10 preferably refuses to accept users who are not willing to define the goods and/or services that are to be offered via the system 10, and/or users who are unwilling to partially or completely provide reciprocal goods and/or services in exchange for their received goods and/or services from other users, and guarantee their reciprocal goods with a form of payment, such as a credit card. Thus, at the beginning state of entering the system 10, a user not providing reciprocal good or service and guaranteeing their good or service, regardless of the goods/services being offered, and/or does not implement the steps required in order to bring his declared intentions to realization, according to definitions set forth within the system 10, should not be able to continue obtaining (purchasing) any goods or services from other users of the system 10, even if that user can pay for goods or services in monetary funds, such as cash money (that may be secured via the user's credit card as entered into the system). These definitions or rules of the system 10 will therefore be desired to be applied to all users equally, as all users, regardless of size, corporate or individuals, should be mutually obligated to acquire (purchase) goods and/or services from other users, acting as providers (sellers) in the system, and vice versa.

To illustrate a benefit that will be obtained by this desired operation of the system 10, it is assumed that a large corporation becomes a user of the system 10 and, as such, will be obligated, in exchange for the ability to offer goods or service via the system 10, to obtain (purchase) goods or services of relatively equivalent value or partial value from other users of the system 10. Further assuming that another user of the system 10 includes an individual, such as a graphic designer. Thus, by desired operation of the system 10, the graphic designer will now be given at least an opportunity to provide graphic design services to a company that he normally would not have the chance to meet and work for. As evidenced by this example, by establishing a system which requires fulfilling mutual obligations, users of all sizes are provided with at least the opportunity to obtain benefits that might be considered to be typically reserved only for corporate or other large entities.

As a still further benefit to users of the system 10, the system 10 may be adapted to include methods for determining ratings of users based on factors such as their credit history, activity within the system 10 (e.g., one or more of frequency of access, purchases, sales, etc.), quality of the goods and services offered by the user (and any user experiences associated therewith), etc. In this manner, should a user be determined by the system 10 to have a high rating based on one or more of such factors, e.g., determined by the system 10 to be above a predetermined value, the user may be granted a separate line of credit and/or a separate system credit card for use within the system 10 and, possibly, outside of the system 10. If earned credit is to be used outside of the system 10, the user may be provided with a system credit card which would be a credit card issued by a financial institution intended to be used like a regular credit card, but which can also be used with System Exchange Units (SEUs) or Barter Trade Dollars (BTDs) which terms are used interchangeably to represent currency internal and exclusive to the system 10. To facilitate use of the system credit card outside of the system 10, businesses that except the system credit card as a form of payment may be advertised in their members page, in a special section of the Web site, etc. which thereby allows users to find out where they may shop using the system credit card. Still further, the system 10 may function to correlates a user's rating in the system to the advertising/marketing to be provided in connection with the user's offering of goods or services via the system 10. In this regard, the system 10 will offer multiple types of advertising memberships which function to determine how and where user's goods and/or services are displayed or otherwise presented such as, for example, in response to a received search request, during a browsing session, etc. Fees for the advertising membership(s) may be upfront fees or fees that are tied to actual sales of products, i.e., fees that are tied to a level of advertising associated with an item actually purchased. The advertising level of a user may also be used to determine if the goods or services of the user will appear in a distributed print catalog and, if so, how within the catalog any advertising may appear, e.g., as a classified-type add, a partial page add, a full page add, location within the catalog, etc. Accordingly, each new transaction carried out by a particular user in the system 10 and/or any increases in monetary amounts associated with that user may function, in accordance to a predefined amount and achievement ladder, to award the user with a higher rating(s) and, as a result, the user may receive immediate advertising upgrades to the advertising membership level. The upgrades may include, but need not be limited to, enlarged advertising space, additional product/service categorical placement, enhancement of graphical and textual appearance for the user's products or services, etc. Similar upgrades may be added to the user's component inside the call center accessible portion of the system 10 and may include, but again need not be limited to, additional categorical placement, additional advertising space and/or time, as well as advertising enhancement through professional copywriting and narration services.

As discussed above with respect to Fig. 8, the system 10 is preferably implemented within a network environment and, as such, is preferably accessible via the Internet through the use of a Web enabled device, such as a personal computer 22 or other device having Web browsing functionality. When the system 10 is accessed using a Web enabled device, the system 10 will function to present to the user various Web pages (which can include or exclude graphics) having links to other Web pages, content, etc. As will be understood, the Web pages provide, among other things, a means for a user to initially register with the system 10 and thereafter to navigate to various areas within the system 10 where the user may view content, perform a search, post information, change information, etc. By way of example only, Fig. 9 illustrates a Web page having graphic user interface elements which, in a conventional manner, allow a user to navigate to further Web pages having content related to: products being offered (where products are searchable by means of brand, drill down categories, and/or by means of free form searching); services being offered; secondhand products being offered; stores defined within the system 10; account information of the user (e.g., a section enabling every system user to view all recorded system transactions as well as his account information, including: shopping cart, buying orders, selling orders, closed orders, SEUs accumulated, advertising rating units (ARUs) accumulated, billing information, commission and fees paid into the system for facilitating transactions, messages, etc.); auctions of products, services, BTDs; etc. With respect to the stores, all users within the system 10 will own a store (one or more) under which they will be able to post their available products and services. Results returned from searching and browsing within the Web site supported by the system 10 may be sorted and filtered where the sort and filter parameters may change according to each category to suit customer needs (e.g., the "television" category may sort by screen size, frequency, and manufacturer while the "computer" category may sort by processor, memory, etc.) and may additionally consider the advertising membership levels of users whose products/services are located as a result of a search or browse operation. By way of further example, a user may be able to perform a freeform string search from every Web page and the search results may be filtered according to the kind of Web page the search was initiated from. Thus, if the search was initiated on the general system homepage, the given results may be from all areas such as products, services, secondhand items, and relevant advertised stores whereas, if the search was initiated on a specific homepage, such as a category page, or a products homepage, the returned results may be limited to items within the relevant category or products, respectively. Furthermore, while navigating within the system 10, users may be able to bookmark other user pages in the system 10 (as well as any other favorite pages or data in the system 10) and the system 10 may store a history of pages each user has accessed for later retrieval by the user. In this regard, it is contemplated that large corporate entities such as retailers may have a sponsored mini Web site in the system 10 and/or a complete linkage to their corporate Web site in such a way that users will be able to browse/surf that Web site to learn more about goods/services, to checkout orders, etc.

It will be also be appreciated that the system 10 may support a number of local Web sites (e.g., ...com.uk) each of which would preferably use a common root so as to inform users that a visited Web site has an affiliation with the system 10. In this regard, the system 10 may comprises a central platform and various sub-platforms that enable international transactions between participants in different countries/jurisdictions in accord with their local rules. The central platform would provide various managerial support to the system, e.g., to manage the clearinghouse tasks, and the sub-platforms could be operated in cooperation with affiliated partners with the owners of the system keeping the rights to control and access these sub-platforms. Still further, the system 10 may utilize the local Web sites to accommodate users in their local language, to provide local offerings, etc.

To draw the attention and gain the trust of first time visitors to the system 10 (while persuading them to participate as a member), the system 10 may be adapted to present upon initial Web site access a short Flash based movie (which may be enable to be skipped) having video and audio components which function to illustrate the principles of the system 10 and how it can be used to make purchases without cash payments or for less cash. After presentation of the Flash based move, the system 10 preferably functions to direct a visitor to a Web site home page having the aforementioned and illustrated user friendly and state-of-the art interface. As a still further means for attracting potential users to the system 10, the system 10 may provide two levels of Web site navigation. In a first level, a visitor may navigate through all advertised items and shops in the system 10 without, however, having the ability to take any further actions as generally illustrated in Fig. 10. In the second level, a member (i.e., a registered system user) may not only navigate through advertised items and shops in the system but may also take further actions, e.g., buy and sell goods and/or services as generally illustrated in Figs. 7 and 10.

To enable a user to become a member, the system 10 functions to step a user through a registration process which is illustrated by way of example in Fig. 5. Preferably, the registration processes includes three stages where the first stage allows for the creation of a username and password pair, the second stage allows a user to become established as a buying member of the system 10, and the third stage allows a user to become established as a selling member of the system 10. More particularly, the second stage functions to collect buying related information from the user such as: credit card information (users will be eligible to participate in the system only if they own a valid credit card), an amount of a credit line to be dedicated for an account within the system (typically after preplanning a credit line with a system administrator by telephone or online), billing address, shipping address, contact details, etc. while the third stage functions to collect selling related information from the user such as: type of advertising membership or level desired, detailed information with optional pricing for product or services to be offered, full seller description, contact details, logo, etc. During the third stage of the registration process (or at other times the user plans on selling a good/service), the user may also be required to select one or more appropriate classifications for the products or services to be offered by the user, which classifications are preferably administered by the system 10. In the event that a user cannot find a suitable classification in which to place their products/services, the user may have the option of submitting a request for a new category to be opened which request can then be reviewed by staff responsible for administering the system 10 and/or be processed automatically by the system 10 without staff intervention in the process.

As will be further appreciated, the division of the registration process into three stages may be used to control the manner in which the user interacts with the system 10. For example, once the user has completed the first stage of the registration process and their username and password pair has been successfully stored within the database server 24, the user may be allowed to select goods or services for purchase, e.g., place goods or services into a "shopping cart." However, until the user completes the second stage of the registration process, the system 10 may optionally function to prohibit the user from completing transactions from the "shopping cart."

While the system 10 may support partial registration, since it is desired that every user will have to function as both a buyer and a seller, it is preferred that users not be allowed to remain in the system 10 if they act as only buyers or as only sellers.

Accordingly, visitors that enter the system 10 in order to shop and decide to buy, should be required to register in the system 10 and post a sale of at least one of their own products or services. Similarly, visitors that enter the system 10 in order to sell, should be required to register in the system 10 and become a buyer within a set period of time. For purposes of ensuring that barter transactions occur within the system 10, the system 10 may further require that all users purchase at least one monthly ad in the system 10 upon initially registering with the system 10 and, thereafter, as long as they need to sell a product and/or service. In this regard, after a user is registered with the system 10, the system 10 will function to monitor user activity within the system 10. Registered buyers who do not manage to sell a good and/or service should be automatically prompted and sometimes required to advertise more. To this end, the system 10 may temporarily upgrade a user's advertisement level without additional charge in order to increase sales opportunity. Similarly, registered sellers who do not manage to buy may be required to enter an advertisement depicting items and/or services they wish to purchase and may be required to advertise for goods and/or service as long as they do not buy from another user within the system 10. The system 10 may determine the volume of the advertisement required. The system 10 may also alert users to the possibility that they may not be able to fulfill their obligations and may further function to determine a user's chances of fulfilling obligations on the basis of accumulated knowledge regarding the user's activities in the system. The system 10 may then recommend a course of action to help the user meet such obligations such as by forming a plan to increase user's sales (e.g., via advertising enhancements to be purchased or provided), by providing an extended payment option of installments, by allowing a user to purchase SEUs at discounted rates, etc. As a further aspect of the registration process, the system 10 may require a user to consent to the terms and conditions associated with using the system 10 before the user is allowed to perform actions as a buyer and/or as a seller. By way of example, a user may have to agree that in case of dispute, the user will follow the procedures prescribed by the system, and abide by the decisions of an arbitration board associated with the system 10. Similarly, buyers may have to agree that their monetary payments will be paid by the credit card company to the system 10 (against the system's undertaking to settle their obligations to the sellers for the buyers) and sellers may have to agree to be paid by the system with barter points only, which can be exchanged by them for the following only: payment for purchases (which will include "near money items" such as fuel, supermarket vouchers, utility payments, etc.) and commissions (or other charges/offsets) to the system 10. Additional terms and conditions might include a recognition that the system 10 has the discretion to not extend credits or loans to users, that the system 10 will not be legally responsible for the quality of the products and services nor for their proper delivery to buyers (unless delivery is undertaken by the system 10), that all the rules of the card companies will apply directly to sellers and buyers, etc.

For further assisting a user during the registration process (and throughout continued use of the system 10), the system 10 may offer online multimedia guides, explanations, FAQs, forums, call in support, etc. for the purpose of explaining steps within the registration process (and other system processes, requirements, etc.).

Likewise, the system 10 may offer a number of tools and mechanisms to assist a user in identifying specific areas where services and/or products could be advertised. Examples of such tools and mechanisms include, but are not limited to: surveys (e.g., the users will be able to fill out a survey with parameters about their occupation and areas of interest which the system 10 will subsequently evaluate to offer appropriate opportunities); campaigns (e.g., the system 10 may launch advertising campaigns aimed at increasing the supply of services or products, according to the supply/demand balance and the need of the system 10); requirements (e.g., the system will manage a list of requirements with services and products demanded and advertised by system participants); etc. As a further aide to users, the system 10 may also provide, from the initial registration procedure (and afterwards), a marketing forms system, used to identify future wants and needs of users within the system 10 with an emphasis on purchasing. For example, one form may investigate user specific wants and needs of goods and services to be obtained for the next 12 months, as well as finding out what the user anticipates doing (i.e., purchasing) with any accumulated SEUs. As noted, the SEUs serve as currency for the system.

Once a user has become a registered member of the system 10, the system 10 will have established the accounts that will be used by the system 10 to track system activity by the user. In this regard, it will be understood that the system 10 is a commerce platform that enables its users to sell and buy items and services in advanced ways, e.g., each user in the system 10 is functioning as both a buyer and seller. To support this functionality, each user has a virtual BTD account in the system 10 through which their transactions are passed as illustrated in Figs. 11 and 13. As seen in the example transactions illustrated in Figs. 11 and 13, users are being credited and debited for their selling and buying activities in BTDs which BTDs are maintained/tracked by the system 10 in the BTD account that has been created for that user. Stated differently, the system 10 functions to transfer the reward from sales, i.e., BTDs, to the account of the seller after it has charged the account of the buyer 10. While it is preferred that the reward the seller is being credited with is always in BTDs, it will be appreciated that for some sellers, e.g., big corporations which have made an individual contract with the system operator, it may be desirable to provide the reward both in hard currency and BTDs. Further, in keeping with the desired operation of the system 10, in a case where a user has an insufficiency of BTDs in their account upon the day a charge becomes due, e.g., for a buying activity and/or for commissions due to the system administrator ("B-Barter"), the user will be charged by their credit card (and/or by a check in hard currency) according to the amount of BTDs that are insufficient in their account. As concerns commissions/charges/etc, charged by the system operator for the services the system 10 is providing, the commissions are always charged in BTDs and commission transactions will behave exactly in the same way as a buying transaction in case of insufficiency of BTDs in a user's virtual account on the day of charge.

More particularly, the system 10 will function to manage accounts that are in addition to each user's virtual account. A first account, i.e., a "B-Barter trust account," is a hard currency account to which all transactions being paid by users in hard currency against their buying (because of lack of BTDs in their virtual accounts) are channeled. The balance of this account belongs to the users and represents their profits in the virtual system as well as any interest if earned. A second account, i.e., a "B-Barter BTD commissions account," is a virtual currency account that is accumulating BTDs being paid by users against the commissions they are debited. A third account, i.e., a "B-Barter hard currency commissions account," is an account to which all commissions being paid by B-Barter users directly in hard currency, because of lack in BTDs in their virtual accounts, are channeled. Also, this account is accumulating the hard currency that was received from exchanging the BTDs accumulated in the B-Barter BTD commissions account with equivalent amounts of hard currency. The B-Barter commission accounts (hard currency and BTDs) belong only to the system 10 and are used for its operational needs whereas the B-Barter trust account holds currency units that parallel the BTDs appearing through out the system 10 and the system 10 and possibly users can use this account for exchanging their BTDs. The accounts will be held in accordance with required rules, laws, and regulations. Furthermore, within a global system, the central platform will host these clearing accounts for the system, which will effectuate all necessary clearing tasks between sub-platforms in regard to monetary and BTD transfers in case BTDs need to be transferred from one participant belonging to one sub-platform to a second participant belonging to a second sub-platform or in case monetary transfers need to be made from one affiliated partner operating one sub-platform to a second affiliated partner operating a second sub-platform as generally illustrated in Figs. 12 and 15.

According to the behavior that is being created between BTDs and hard currency within the system 10, for each BTD that is appearing in a user's account an equivalent unit of hard or real currency appears in the B-Barter trust account as is illustrated in Fig. 11. Therefore no single BTD unit will appear in the virtual system without having a parallel hard currency unit in the B-Barter trust account. As a result, the system 10 may use hard currency collected in the trust account to, for example, credit users that are interested in exchanging BTDs they collected in the system to hard currency. In that case the system 10 will take an equivalent amount of currency from the trust account and will credit the user and the BTDs received from the user will be erased from the system, since they no longer have a parallel in the trust account.

The system 10 may also use hard currency collected in the trust account to credit users that have contracts according to which they are supposed to be partially credited by hard currency. In that case the system 10 will function to transfer the currency amount to this user in parallel to BTDs to his virtual B-Barter account. For example if this user was supposed to be credited with 1,000 BTDs at the end of the month, but according to his contract he is supposed to receive 80% in hard currency, the system 10 will function to take 800 BTDs, exchange them with 800$ from the trust account, and transfer to this user 800$ + 200 BTDs. Again, the exchanged BTDs will be erased from the system, since they no longer have a parallel in the trust account.

Still further, the system 10 may use the hard currency collected in the trust account when the system 10 exchanges the BTDs received against commissions with the hard currency in the trust account. Again, this operation of the system 10 is made possible since those BTDs have parallel units in the trust account. As before, the exchanged BTDs will be erased from the system since they will no longer have parallel in the trust account.

As noted previously, the system 10 will be able to manage and clear international transactions as well as domestic transactions. As illustrated in Fig. 12, international transactions are typically those that are effectuated between users that belong to different countries (i.e., users on different subsystems or sub-platforms). Assuming an instance where one country is preferably assigned no more than one licensee, i.e., only one subsystem exists per country, it will be seen that a user's domestic activities are managed by their respective subsystem. However, once a user makes transactions with other subsystems, the system Clearing Account, as the platform's core system, will function to coordinate transactions and ultimately clear any balances on the international and domestic level. To this end, the subsystems charge the credit cards of their users and the subsystems charge the respective commissions as agreed with the licensee. All these subsystems are integrated into the central Clearing Platform so that all local and international BTDs and money transactions can always be credited or debited to the respective participants and the system accounts (users will preferably be registered within the local subsystems). Thus, while each subsystem (typically a subsystem represents a country) has its own set of local participants, these users can not only trade among themselves but may also trade with users of other subsystems as shown in Fig. 12 No matter with whom a participant trades, all transactions are always backed by the local credit card of the buyer and, as such, the system 10 never needs to charge a negative BTD balance on a user's account as an international credit card charge if the participants are of two different subsystems. The banking account of the system 10 will also be used to transfer monetary balances between the banking accounts of the different affiliated partners, if any. In particular, such transfers would normally be caused by purchases of "near money items" by participants belonging to a sub-platform that is different from the sub-platform to which the seller of the "near money items" belongs. Monetary balance transfers may also be caused by the need to transfer the amount of money charged from a buyer's credit card account to a seller's affiliated partner against the BTDs credit of the seller.

As concerns the exchange of BTDs for cash, such conversions, as applicable, should be allowed to occur only within the system 10, whether it be between users and the system, the system and users, or users themselves. The system 10, serving as a bank, may offer this conversion only when payment dates are near and a user has not been successful in covering his commitments by selling his products/services. The conversion will be done using the system bank's offered conversion rate which may be based on a specific user's account activities history, i.e., the conversion rate may be flexible to promote use of BTDs within the system 10.

From the foregoing it will be appreciated that, once the registration process has been completed and the system 10 has established a BTD account for the user the user will be able to access the various purchasing related services offered by the system 10. To gain access to the various services offered by the system 10 a user may be required to first log into the system 10 as generally illustrated in Figs. 7 and 10. An exemplary log-in process is illustrated in Fig. 4 and requires that a user first provide a system 10 recognized username and password pair. Additionally, as part of the log-in procedure, the system 10 may determine if the user currently attempting to log-in has a valid, associated account with the credit bank of the system 10, i.e., a BTD account that is properly tied to a user's personal credit card. In the event that the user properly enters their username and password pair and has a valid, associated account with the credit bank of the system 10, the user may then navigate within the system 10 to gain access to the array of system features/tools as either a buyer or seller as illustrated in Figs. 7 and 10. The array of system features/tools that would be accessible to a logged-in member as a buyer or as a seller may include, as appropriate to the user, the registration feature (if particularly needed to complete registration), the advertising feature, the credit issuing feature, the catalog, the ordering system, and the credit bank of the system as generally illustrated in Fig. 3. Thus, it will be understood that the different arrays of the system 10, namely, the array of banking/financial tools, the array of marketing/advertising/sales tools, the array of managerial/accounting tools, and the array of credit company tools, are available to every registered user of the system 10 and, as a result, the system 10 provides a "one stop shop" experience for building and running unified business activities as opposed to the conventional paradigm in which separate entities merely support their own individual commercial functions. Considering now a buying member within the system 10, a buying member may, as noted and as generally illustrated in Figs. 1, 7 and 10, browse the catalog of goods/services that are being made available by the system 10 and then choose to buy a seller's offered goods and/or services, e.g., to place a desired good/service into a

"shopping cart" or to create a "work order" and, thereafter, continue to a check out procedure or request acceptance of the work order, respectively. In addition to being able to browse and buy, a buying member may be able to (or may be forced to) upload a request to the system 10 to post an offer to buy goods and/or services. When posting an offer, the buyer can request to receive bids on a request and then have an opportunity to select a bid winner and/or have the system 10 automatically select the bid winner. The system 10 may also allow sellers to respond with counter offers to a buyers initial request. In connection with the ordering process, a buyer may also elect to partially pay for an item with their own product and/or service, i.e., as part of a "buy back pool."

When a buying member performs a transaction within the system 10 the system 10 functions to ensure that various transactions rules are followed. In this regard, in keeping with the desired operation of the system 10, every purchase by a buying member will be subject to the use of the buyer's valid credit card and approval of the card issuer. Furthermore, transactions will be made directly between buyers and sellers, each of whom will be fully responsible for carrying out their respective obligations, e.g., proper payment and delivery. As noted above, payment may be deferred over a "grace period" to thereby allow the buying member an opportunity, if needed, to build the credits in their account with the credit bank of the system 10 by means of selling their own goods and/or services. It will be appreciated, however, that sellers may be able to change the "grace period" such that the "grace period" has a longer duration than is defined within the system 10. However, the system 10 (typically in consultation with the card company /companies of the buyer) may limit the length of the seller provided "grace period." Payments made by a buying member to a seller from their account in the credit bank of the system 10 may also be made over a number of installments, usually up to 12, but sometimes more, starting at the end of the grace period at the discretion of the seller. On each payment's due date, the system will transfer BTDs between accounts in the manner discussed previously.

As further discussed above, each purchase by a buying member will be backed by the buyer's credit card. Thus, the credit card company statement of the buyer may show, as is customary, the seller name, the total amount, the transaction date, the number of installments, and the due date(s). The buyer's BTD account maintained by the system 10 may also mirror those details, however, denominated in BTDs, and may likewise indicate the specific purchase details, such as: list of the items bought, name of the store with a link to it, the username of the seller, etc. In some instances these additional details may be included in the card company statements. More particularly, upon the occurrence of a buying transaction, the buyer's personal credit card will be posted with the purchase monetary amount on the date the transaction is made with a value date reflecting the "grace period." In parallel, the buyer's BTD account will be posted with the purchase BTD amount on the date the transaction is made, also with a value date reflecting the "grace period." If on the due date the buyer's credit card needs to be actually debited, i.e., the buyer fails to have the required BTDs in their account, the system will use the moneys to be collected from the personal credit card issuer of the user to purchase BTDs on behalf of the user which BTDs will be distributed to the seller (and to the operator as a commission if applicable) in keeping with the account balancing discussed extensively above and illustrated in Fig. 11. The system may also function to use the user's personal credit card to purchase BTDs at the time of the transaction to thereby pre-fund the user's BTD account with BTDs in an amount that will be needed for transfer to the seller's BTD account upon expiration of the "grace period." In this instance, if on the due date the buyer's BTD account has a surplus of BTDs after the transfer of the necessary BTDs to the seller, the system 10 may function to credit the user's credit card with the monetary amount needed while debiting the buyer's BTD account and managing the trust accounts accordingly. In either of these cases, it may also be desirably to have an agreement in place with card issuers so that all transactions of user via the system 10 will be shown separately on the cardholder monthly statement, i.e., indicating each transaction amount (which may also include proceeds from selling BTDs back to the system) and the calculated net amount debited on any particular date throughout the month, in order to amplify and support system "ideology." Still further, the system 10 may develop together with the credit card company of the user a method of canceling the original buy and sell transactions on any particular date and entering a new transaction for the net balance due. The participants will then be able to see the detailed movements in the BTD account only.

As a further component of the purchasing functionality of the system 10, the system 10 may function to restrict buying as a function of the credit line established for a user. In this regard, a user's credit line will be stored in a database accessible to the system 10 and may be made available to the user to adjust or manage. In this case, the user may adjust their credit line, i.e., it may be increased or decreased, based on various factors, that may include: the amount of credit available to a user in accordance with their lines of credit provided to them through their credit card issuing financial institutions or companies capable of issuing credit or charge cards; the amount of credit available to a user in accordance with their system credit card (i.e., a card that is tied to the user's BTD account and which, when used, functions to convert BTDs into hard currency); the amount that may be established by partially or fully collateralizing a user's property, such as, real-estate, vehicles, and other titled goods. While a user may be able to adjust their credit limit for use in the system 10, this credit limit may be capped to not exceed these aforementioned credit vehicles.

From the foregoing, it will be appreciated that transactions within the system 10 may be facilitated by being based on a line of credit that will be issued to users to guarantee their satisfying their accounts with the system over time. Within the confines of the system 10 it is preferred that account balancing be achieved through the gradual use of SEUs rather than with cash. To this end, a credit line may further provide for a "grace period" in which to meet obligations and the system 10 may provide for the use of monthly, installment payments as discussed previously. Nevertheless, in certain situations these "delayed" payment options may be excluded from use, for example, where the value of a purchase will be such that credit can be extended only for a limited time period, such as a few days to a few weeks, or in cases of real-estate purchases and/or those by commercial businesses in which the credit will be adjusted specifically for the purchasing entity. In still further cases where the user displays account activity yet cannot handle the rate of payments to which the user has been obligated, the system 10 may offer the user a still further extended payment plan, deferred payment plan or a change in advertising allocation. If a user chooses one of these options, his account should be charged with additional SEUs and/or cash in return for reallocating of payments or advertising solutions.

Under ideal circumstances, the user will succeed in covering all his purchases by the sale of goods and/or services of his own. In other words, under these circumstances and for the user in question, the volume of purchases will equal the volume of sales. Under these ideal circumstances, from the aspect of the payment of commissions to the credit card company, the credit card company will receive double commissions for each order made in the system 10, namely, one for a buyer's purchase transaction and one for a seller's account crediting for his current sale and against his previous buy, and, as such, a direct outcome of this situation is that the risk level for the credit card company approaches zero because the transactions that are transferred offset and cancel one another. While the aforesaid describes the situation that would prevail under ideal circumstances, it will be understood that, as the sum of the purchase increases, a user's ability to cover all of his purchases by the sale of goods and/or services of his own may likely drop. Since the system 10 is not anticipated to operate under optimal conditions but rather under these market conditions, the sum that a user will ultimately pay will not be zero nor close to zero (although it is expected to be far lower than the sum of the purchase according to which the commission on the transaction was paid in advance, e.g., 50%-70%). Thus, when the system operates as expected, there are two outcomes, namely, a rise in the quantity of commissions that are paid to the credit card company and a drop in the risk for the credit card company. Accordingly, it will be seen that the system 10 has the advantage that credit card companies will be a party to a new type of transaction in which the credit card companies were not previously involved, i.e., transactions among private individuals and transactions between private individuals and corporate entities, and, as a result, this exposes the credit card companies to new profit channels that were not existing before.

Considering now a selling member within the system 10 (whether an individual or group of sellers between which proceeds are to be distributed or a contractor selling services/goods which a sub-contractor will perform/supply and be rewarded in keeping with the operations of the system 10), a selling member uses the system 10 as illustrated in Figs. 2, 7 and 10 to advertise their products and services for sale or auction, which advertisements may additionally include payment and delivery terms. In this regard, the system 10 may support an auction site as well as user stores in which a user advertises the goods/services they are offering. It will also be appreciated that the user's store can contain and sell unadvertised items. For the good/services to be offered, the system 10 may additionally provide tools for stock management which can be used to indicate to potential buyers if an order can be processed or if it requires a specific prior confirmation by the seller. In case where a seller has opted to use the system's stock management and has limited the offer to a certain number of units and those units have been ordered, the system 10 will function to notify the seller of the order and the advertisement will freeze automatically until renewed by the seller.

Still further, the system 10 may allow users to describe products in messages or sound bytes with their own voice. This information may then be provided in a user's voice mail boxes along with contact information for the seller. In this manner, by simply using their telephones and the call center 12, buyers may be able to browse product/service categories, browse different seller offerings, hear their introductions/briefs, leave voice messages on sellers' voice boxes and/or call them directly after hearing their recording. Yet further, advertising of products and services may be made by means of a distributed, print catalog.

While it is a goal of the system 10 to facilitate transactions between sellers and buyers, it will be appreciated that it will be desirable for the system 10 to maintain the right to temporarily or permanently reject users seeking to list certain of their goods and/or services. For example, it may be desirable to reject a selling user if there is a surplus in a certain service or market sector and the system wishes to preserve the chances of its existing users in those fields to acquire enough SEUs to fulfill their obligations. Still further, it may be desirable to reject a selling user if the system 10 does not believe in the worthiness or reputation of a provider or the quality of the goods and/or services being offered or the selling user has previously failed in supplying proper goods and/or services and is now attempting to register with different goods and/or services. Yet further, when a seller is out of stock of goods and/or services, the system 10 may not list these items. While these items may not be listed, user's of the system 10 may still be able to contact the particular seller, i.e., the seller might not be immediately removed as a selling member of the system 10 in this instance. The system 10 may additionally reserve the right to disqualify and bar customers (sellers or buyers) from participating in the system if their credit card charge back rate is higher than acceptable by the card companies or the system 10. Transactions between sellers and buyers may be accomplished via access to the system supported Web site as discussed previously. In addition, transactions may be made using the system's call center 12 or by calling an agent of the system 10. A transaction may also be confirmed by the buyer and the seller leaving mutual confirmations on each parties voice boxs according to a predefined format which would be required to be reported back to the system 10. Yet further, the system 10 may support on-location order processing through the use of the system credit card, by the seller printing out an invoice for the buyer to sign which would then be sent to the system 10 for processing, by using an on-location personal computer, or other similar computer device, to access the system online (through the world wide web), or by using the automatic telephone voice system or by calling a call center representative to close a transaction. The system may also support Seller-Buyer Order Structuring Mechanism ("S-BOSM") which is an order which the seller initiates and the buyer confirms.

The system 10 may still further provide mechanisms to support order cancellation.

To this end, the system 10 may allow a buyer to cancel their order by simply pressing a "cancel order" button that may be provided on a "My Buying" page within the "My Account" section of the Web site. Preferably, this type of cancellation will be limited to the following cases (i.e., the button "cancel order" will appear only if the two following conditions exist): less than 2 hours have passed since the order was placed, the buyer was already charged via his virtual account, his credit card, or partially via his virtual account and partially via his credit card, and the seller has not yet indicated that he sent the order to the buyer; or the order appears to be in process status, i.e., the order is waiting to be paid by the buyer via a check payment. In such cases, it is preferred that the buyer will not be charged a cancellation fee and delivery cost and the buyer and the seller will be informed by the system, for example, via their internal system e-mail accounts or other e- mail, about the cancelled order. Fig. 14 further illustrates an exemplary manner in which BTDs may be managed within the system accounts in the event of an order cancellation. In other cases, order cancellation may be possible via interaction with customer support and will be performed according to the law in the jurisdiction of operation. To support such order cancellation, the customer support may, among other things: call the buyer and confirm that he wants to cancel; confirm the order details and verify if the user has received or has not received the order; call the seller and confirm order details; verify that the order has not been sent (a cancellation should not go through if the order has been sent and has not yet been received but should instead, in this case, call for a wait until it arrives); and verify that the cancellation is according to the principles of the law, or that both sides agree on the cancellation. If a cancellation occurs by this means, a written notification will be automatically sent to both sides to confirm the cancellation. Furthermore, if a cancellation occurs by this means, i.e., when both the buyer and the seller agree on the cancellation, the buyer will preferably be charged a cancellation fee and delivery costs, if relevant. Yet further, in case the requested to be cancelled order was partially paid with a buyer's item (POOL case), and the given in item was already realized in full or in part by one of the POOL buyers, the buyer will be credited with BTDs from B-Barter's virtual account to his personal virtual account in the system, according to the realized sum. The unrealized part will be returned to the buyer. Figs. 16 A and 16B illustrate a manner in which BTDs may be managed within the system accounts in an exemplary buy back/pool transaction.

As further concerns the relationship between buyers and sellers within the system 10, it may be desirable to limit any pre-sale and post-sale enquiries conducted between parties to the confines of the system 10, e.g., via system chat, via the internal mail of the system, using contact details posted by the sellers. In this manner, all contacts between the users via the system 10 may be saved with identification of source/cause, to increase the system's capabilities of tracing, dispute resolution, etc. The users may be required to agree to this procedure upon registration. With respect to the delivery of goods/services between the sides, whenever a seller delivers through third parties, the system 10 may require that proper insurance be taken. For this purpose, the system 10 may automatically offer delivery and other insurance policies to sellers and buyers. Yet further, the system might operate delivery and insurance services and make the participants use these services in order to increase the reliability of the system 10. Preferably, the system 10 will provide such services only when all the details, conditions, etc. of the sale have been recorded in the system, and will make decisions as to the delivery on the basis of the information which is contained in the system 10.

To further illustrate the relationship between buyers and sellers within the system 10, the following presents an example in which the system 10 is used to facilitate transactions between a user X, e.g., a buyer, and a user Y, e.g., a seller, whereby it will be apparent how the system of the invention achieves the goal of minimizing the risks involved in the performance of a purchase deal over the Internet. As will be further understood, the transaction between users X and Y will be in keeping with the desired operation of the system 10, namely, that every user within the system 10, in order to be an active user, is to function as both a buyer and a seller, i.e., a user who was a buyer in one transaction must subsequently be a seller in another transaction, and so on.

Considering now the stages for performing a transaction within the system 10, the transaction commences when user X "declares" his desire to purchase goods and/or services from the user Y by issuing the appropriate command. In response to this start of the transaction process, the system 10 examines the credit card of user X in relation to the entire sum of the transaction, by transmitting a request for approval to the credit card company. If the system 10 receives the approval, the transaction is carried out, from the perspective of both the buying and selling users X and Y respectively, who receive notification to that effect, and the transaction is transmitted to the credit card company. The debit transaction that is transmitted is recorded as a current month (and possibly + 60) debit transaction. At this stage user Y is supposed to supply the goods and/or services that were purchased from him to user X, in the manner that was selected by user X. User

X, on his part, can access the details of his order at any time and, from there, provide feedback regarding user Y (and may be required to do so after receipt of the order). As part of the feedback, user X may be further required to state that he did indeed receive the goods and/or services that he ordered and to declare that the transaction has been exhausted, as far as he is concerned. After receipt of the feedback from user X, i.e., a declaration that the goods and/or services that were ordered have been received, the system 10 may function to credit the seller, user Y. Thus, within the system 10 no transfer of consideration to the seller occurs before the receipt of confirmation from the buyer about the receipt of the purchased goods and the system 10 will not expose itself to risks in the event of the repudiation of the transaction by the buyer or a claim of the non-receipt of goods made to the credit card company.

Yet further, under the circumstances that are created by the system 10, in the event of the non-receipt of the goods by user X and/or the non-receipt of confirmation from user X, a clarification stage may take place before the initial billing by the credit card company, which takes place, in this example, a current month + 60 from the date on which the transaction was performed. Therefore, if the credit card company arrives at the conclusion that it should cancel the charge or credit the buyer, cancellation or crediting against the transaction may actually be performed before the billing is performed. In other words, even if the buyer has already been billed (which is highly unlikely in the existing system due to the system's rules of behavior), and the money was actually transferred to the B-Barter's trust account, user Y will not be credited yet by the system 10 and, therefore, the credit card company is not under any risk due to the fact that it now must withdraw the money in order to credit the buyer.

Still further, the system 10 may wait and to see if confirmation is received within a predetermined number of days, e.g., 10 days, after the date upon which the transaction is performed and may, thereafter, send user X a reminder, informing him that he must respond within seven days to acknowledge receipt of the ordered good and/or service. If such confirmation is not received within seven days, the system 10 may send an additional reminder to user X informing user X that he must again respond within seven days. If twenty-four days have passed since the date upon which the transaction is performed and any confirmation of receipt of the goods and/or services has yet to be received from user X, the system may "freeze" the ability of user X to perform operations via the system 10, i.e. to sell and buy within the system and, at the same time, the system 10 may function to initiate a clarification with user X to ascertain the reason for his failure to assent to the request for confirmation. The clarification may be performed by the Service Department associated with the system 10 and may also involve user Y, if necessary. At this point there are two possible scenarios: the buyer received the goods but, for some reason, failed to confirm receipt, either due to a lack of understanding of the process, or as an expression of regret at having performed the purchase transaction (which does not stem from defective functioning on the part of user Y, the seller) in which case the Customer Service receives the declaration from the buyer orally, and issues an order to transfer the payment to the seller; or user X simply did not receive the goods/services ordered. In this latter case, the Customer Service department may initiate a clarification vis-a-vis user Y and user X in order to ascertain the reason for the non-receipt of the goods. If necessary, the clarification may be transferred to the Arbitration Department associated with the system 10. If it becomes apparent that the reason for the non-receipt of the goods stems from a failure to function on the part of user Y, then the debt of user X is cancelled and user Y is not credited.

In cases where the sum of the order exceeds a predetermined amount and/or the goods purchased belong to a category that is designated as sensitive by the system 10, and the delivery is not performed by means of collection by user X or delivery by means of a messenger, the system 10 may obligate user Y to transfer the content of the order in a secured manner that provides both the seller and the system 10 with an indication that the goods have been received by user X. In certain cases the system may also obligate the buyer, user X, to pay for insuring the shipment of the order. By means of all the aforesaid, the system 10 may significantly increase its ability to obtain an indication and to present proof of receipt of the goods by the buyer.

To allow users X and Y to obtain information from the system 10 about their orders and charges, the system 10 enables all its users to access pages on the Web site at any given moment which pages provide each user with information related to the orders and/or sales that they have performed within the system 10. Still further, from a member page users can see the details of their future debits and/or credits, in a banking format, with a link to the source of the debit and/or credit. A member page may also allow users to see their entire debit and credit history, in the same format. While information concerning an order may be accessed via the system 10, in certain circumstances it may be desirous for users to contact one another, for example by an email message that is sent by means of the system 10 or by means of a telephone number and an email address published by each of the users as contact information, to clarify the current status of their orders directly. Still further, users should be able to contact the Customer Service Department unconditionally to receive answers to their questions and assistance in understanding the information.

As a result of the above described operation of the system 10, it will be seen that the likelihood of the credit card company being swamped with complaints and/or requests for clarification and/or requests for the cancellation of transactions by users of the system 10 is minimized. This is due to the fact that the system 10 has been set up in order to provide every necessary response to requests of this nature and other types of inquiries on its own. Moreover, it will be evident that the credit card company's need to employ guarantees against the cancellation of possible transactions will be low, and certainly significantly lower in comparison with any other presently existing e-commerce Web site.

For the purpose of bringing together buyers and sellers, users within the system 10 may, as discussed above, be required to continually advertise at least one product, service, or user store. Accordingly, the system 10 may function to prohibit users that stop all their ads from buying with the system 10 and may also cause that user to loose any accumulated advertisement upgrade rights, if any. In certain circumstances, this prohibition may not be applied immediately and the user may be given a period by which advertising must be restarted.

For the purpose of promoting goods and/or services (i.e., "items") to be sold via the system 10, the system 10 may use an attractiveness rating, calculated from a number of system parameters, to cause certain items, i.e., those with the highest relative attractiveness ratings, to be automatically shown on the top of a Web page on which the items are to be listed (e.g., a products homepage, services homepage, 2^nd hand homepage, category page, etc.). This automatic elevation of the prominence status of items is preferably performed without any additional charge to their respective advertiser. In this manner, as will become apparent, a user may be rewarded for, for example, positive feedbacks, high sales, low prices, etc. while the system 10 has the opportunity to earn higher sales commissions, orders with reduced risks for cancellation, etc. because the system 10 is promoting items and sellers that will have proven track records.

To arrive at an attractiveness rating for an item, the system 10 may monitor and manage various performance related parameters. For example, with reference to Table 1 below, the system 10 may monitor and manage the M parameter which is a measure of the productivity of items which already appear in the top regions of Web pages since such items should naturally gain higher sales relative to items that do not appear in the top regions of Web pages. Such monitoring and management may be done in order to avoid creating a situation in which an already chosen to appear on the top of a Web ρage(s) item will continue to appear on the top of a Web page(s) as long as its stock lasts because its sales should be higher given its higher exposure to potential buyers. With the M parameter adjustment this item should be designated to be attractive only if its sales become significantly higher relative to its previous sales. Still further, items belongs to private sellers may get an M adjustment that will raise their Productivity measure since such sellers would naturally have a smaller number of sales in the system as compared to corporate sellers. An M adjustment in this manner will give private sellers a fair opportunity to sell their items as it is recognized that without such an adjustment almost all of the items that would appear in the best Web page regions would belong to business and corporate sellers. Yet further, unique items, i.e., items which would not be able to be placed into a recognizable category, may achieve a special bonus that will be decided by the person in charge, who will scan the new items in the system. The special unique bonus may then be added to the calculated by the system attractiveness rating.

Table 1 : Parameters for calculating an item's attractiveness rating

(*1) Item's productivity will be adjusted by this argument to be lesser; the argument will express the difference in sales before appearing in the top region, and after. M's weight will be relative to the item's time of appearance in the top region. The needed data will be taken from system 10.

(*2) In this case it will increase the Productivity measure relatively to the difference between private users' sales and other's. The needed data will be taken from system 10.

The attractiveness rating may also be calculated from a number of secondary measures, as set forth in Table 2 below, where each secondary measure may receive a relative weight that will be changeable. For example, the service measure may have a lower weight at the end of a first period of system activity and a higher weight thereafter once the system 10 has an opportunity to collect more user feedback.

Table 2: Secondary measures for calculating an item's attractiveness rating

Thus, given these parameters and measures, an attractiveness rating for an item may be calculated as follows:

(1) Item's rating = (P * (S / T) * M) * Wl + (P / CP) * W2 + F * W3 + A * W4 + B

Where: Wi = relative weight of measure I and B = uniqueness bonus. As will therefore be appreciated, by this formula an items attractiveness rating may be equated to its (productivity measure * relative weight) + (price attractiveness measure * relative weight) + (service measure * relative weight) + (popularity measure * relative weight) + uniqueness bonus. For using the attractiveness rating to influence the manner in which items are advertised, the system 10 may function to, at the end of a defined period of time, update the statistical data which is needed for the aforementioned calculations. Such statistical data may be gleaned from, for example, activity logs managed by the system 10, taken from web sales statistics, or both. In addition, at the end of the period of time, the system 10 may scan the item's data to calculate the attractiveness rating by the given formula and given parameters. In connection with this calculation, and as noted, unique items (which will be mostly the items without a proper category) may be provided with a special bonus that will be decided by the person in charge, who will scan the new items in the system.- Then, for each category of items in the system 10, X items with the highest rating may be shown automatically on the top of the category page they belong to. This manner of selecting items may also be used in connection with other Web pages, such as a products homepage, services homepage, 2^nd hand homepage, etc.

As further concerns advertisement upgrades and/or advertising fees to be charged, the system 10 may additionally take into consideration various user rankings. To determine such rankings, the system 10 may employ an Advertising Ranking Score

System ("ARS") and/or Unique Pay-Per Click ("UPPC") logic. The ARS system takes into consideration factors such as the number of purchases and sales BTDs and monetary sums of transactions for the user (the system 10 may score both buyers and sellers but over score buyers in cases of monetary payments), feedbacks scores given by other participants to the user, and/or scope of cooperation with the system ( i.e., notification about completing of a deal) as discussed in greater detail below. Participants with high ARS scores may receive free upgrade to their ads. The system may express the upgrade in upgrading the user's voice mailbox, ad locations, as well suggesting that the users use the system's creative group for upgrading the ad's design, i.e. copywriting, logo, etc. Later low grades in the ARS scores may result in an automatic downgrade of the upgraded ad since the ARS logic is preferably bi-directional. However, the ARS should not downgrade the participant's ad level below its original location.

Meanwhile the UUPC method allows the system 10 to track interactions with, i.e., clicks on, user's ads. More particularly, the UUPC method leverages the ability of the system 10 to recognize each of the participants during their sessions in the system to therefore be able to identify all the unique clicks per user and collect information not only of the total number of clicks but also of the number of the users who clicked to thereby produce a distribution of those users according to the number of clicks. As will be appreciated, such a methodology will enable the system to vary fees and/or rewards for the number of unique users and the number of clicks per user. For example, in exchange for positioning an advertisement in a desirable location on a Web page, in a search result, etc., the user may be charged fees as determined by a rate schedule tied to the UUPC collected data. Returning again to the ARS system logic and considering Fig. 6, the ARS system considers basic parameters to determine the user's ARS ranking. For example, the system 10 may consider parameters such as: transaction frequency (the frequency of buying and/or selling activity of a user in the full time period the user has been in the system and/or a certain set amount of time); total amount of goods and/or services purchased and offered to other users in the system in exchange for the purchase for the full time period the user has been in the system and/or a certain set amount of time; and the accumulated feedback ranking (e.g., feedback rating regarding quality of service and/or quality of products based on the experiences of other users, also known as user experience) for the full time period the user has been in the system and/or a certain set amount of time. These parameters (or any additional parameters supplemented in the future) may then be factored by the system 10 to form the ranking for the user, that will be known as an advertising rating unit or "ARU." The ARU may be formulated, for example, using the following weights: 30% Transaction Frequency, 30% Total Amount of Goods/services transacted, 40% Accumulated Feedback Rating (User Experiences). Preferably, the accumulated ARU's will be an integral part of the user's account status, and along with the credit balance, will be accessible/viewable by the user at all times. Furthermore, it is possible that ARU's accumulated from transaction frequency or total amounts of goods and/or services will be reset from time to time or that the ARU may be reset from a predetermined baseline, for example, a position of zero. Yet further, the system 10 may maintains the right to recalculate a user's ARU upon any decrease in any one (or more) of the parameters forming the ARU or to change the way it factors the parameters forming the ARU for particular groups of users, for example, based on market sectors, types of goods and/or services, etc. This may be done to stimulate a certain market sector and/or to prevent clients with extreme negative feedback from receiving free advertising upgrades even when their ARU based on the other parameters (transaction frequency and total amounts spent) is high, and/or for any reason (for example, the transaction is in illegal goods and/or services).

As the ARU is used to modify the advertising level of a user, it will be appreciated that the system 10 will preferably monitor every user's ARU at all times. In this manner, should a change be detected by the system 10, the system 10 may automatically upgrade or downgrade the user's advertising solutions according to their earned privileges, on the basis of predefined upgrade units. The base point for any upgrade should be existing advertising units, whether paid for and/or received without payment and/or previously upgraded.

When a user earns an upgrade, the upgrade need not be performed automatically but the user may be presented with a list of their available upgrades so they may choose their desired upgrade. This may typically occur for upgrades requiring additional material such as a new banner size, more advertising space which requires more textual content, etc. Furthermore, for users whose advertising solutions have been automatically upgraded technically (e.g., have received upgrades to their advertising space and/or web page with additional colors, greater size or better placement, etc.), the user may be presented with an opportunity to cancel these technical upgrades and exchange them for creative upgrades, such as, professional copywriting, professional graphical design, animation, etc. Users who wish to take advantage of this opportunity, but with more than one optional upgrade may do so with additional payment in currency or SEUs, as long as their account and credit balance is sufficient (remains positive). Meanwhile, users whose advertising solutions have been downgraded as a result of a negative ARU should not be able to exchange the technical downgrade with a creative downgrade unless the initial upgrade was a creative upgrade. Likewise, users whose advertising solutions have been downgraded as a result of a negative ARU in the feedback parameter should not be able to upgrade their advertising for a certain set period unless they increase their sales of goods and/or services.

In keeping with the ARU requirements of the system 10, it is desired that buyers will inform the system 10, as part of the regular evaluation of the sellers, whether they received their purchases and whether they were satisfied with the purchases. Accordingly, as a term and condition of the system 10, both the seller and the buyer may be instructed to report to what degree they were satisfied with a completed deal or "final sale."

Furthermore, the system 10 may use notice of a final sale to manage account balancing. For example, if a seller's proceeds from a final sale are due on a date later than their credit card charges, the system 10 may automatically advance, against interest and/or commission, a monetary amount equal to the proceeds from final sales to their accounts to cover the expected charges in part or in full. However, in such an implementation, it is desired that the advance will always be set off first against the final sales which fall on the nearest due date(s) and the automatic credit will be implemented only in case of expected negative flow in the customer's account, e.g., when, only part of future BTDs will cover the debit in the participant account, only the necessary amount will be transferred on the due date and the rest of it will remain as future credit. It will be still further appreciated that the system 10 may affect the advertising of a user in order to maintain a supply/demand balance. To the end, the system 10 may automatically alter the advertising of goods/services where demand exceeds supply. This mechanism will also function as a supporting tool for both newly registered users and other participants, in order to help them to find ideas for supplying products or services. As noted above, BTDs are to be exchanged within the confines of the system 10 and, while exchanged as part of normal buy and sell, may also be exchanged through the use of BTD auctions or BTD transfers. With respect to BTD auctions, users with excess BTDs will be able to advertise their wish to sell them through the system 10. Within the system 10, "excess BTDs" eligible to be auctioned may be limited to the following: the BTDs of final sales only regardless of their value-dates less all the -BTDS (e.g., those associated with a purchase) regardless of their value dates but no more than the balance of BTDs whose value date is current (i.e. no later than the date of the auction). BTDs sold during the auction will then be deducted from the current (or nearest due) BTDs of the user's account. Buying of BTDs via auction may additionally be limited to only registered system users that are buying the BTDs in order to settle all or part of the payments due for their purchases.

As concerns BTD transfers (typically with a transfer fee being charged by the system 10), users with excess BTDs may be able transfer all or part of their excess BTDs to a commonly owned account. BTDs may also be transferred to another system user account, preferably being limited to active users only, i.e., only those users that have made at least a purchase and/or sell action within three (3) months. It will be further desired to ensure that the BTDs received by a user via transfer will be limited for purchase purpose only, and the system 10 should not allow selling of those BTDs to other participants. Among other advantages, this option will enable sellers to pay BTDs to subcontractors.

In still further circumstances the system 10 may function, in connection with an order to purchase certain products, usually those being sold by major suppliers, to purchase from the buyer some of the products and services they have offered for sale via the system 10. Generally, the system 10 will do this on behalf of major suppliers in order to help them to utilize the +BTDs accumulated in their accounts while helping buyers as a first step in accumulating +BTDs in order to balance their purchases. The amount of the buy-back may be measured as a percentage of an item bought from a specific supplier. For example, considering a user that has advertised Car Wash services and has bought a $5,000 plasma TV set from Sony (i.e., the user's account was debited with -BTD 5,000), the system 10 may decide to simultaneously purchase $500 worth of car-washes from the user. This will be done at the sole discretion of the system administrator(s), who may take into account such considerations as the system's and the supplier's profit margins. All such Buy-Backs will be entered by the system 10 into a "Buy-back Pool," from which the likes of Sony will be able to draw freely, against their +BTD balances, without any monetary payment and the user's card account will be credited with the proceeds of the Buy-Back, with value dates commensurately with the plasma TV payments, whether the Buy-Back products or services will be actually consumed or not. In parallel, as long as those products/services were not actually consumed, the participant may be required to continuously advertise the carwashes in the system and, in the case where an ad is stopped or frozen by the user, or when the products or services are not delivered, the system will reverse the advance provided to the user.

As will be understood from the foregoing descriptions, by its very nature the system 10 will be inconvenient for those interested in money-laundering. In this regard, activity within the system requires many procedural operations, such as: orders confirmation, confirmation of delivery and receipt of the goods and services, ongoing activity within the system and payment of taxes according to law. In addition, the system 10 charges its participants commissions, according to the transactions and operations that they perform in the system 10. Yet further, and perhaps most important of all, in return for use of the system 10 a user will only receive BTDs which, as noted, is a virtual currency that is usable only in the system 10, which users can exchange for real currency only by conversion, in which they lose a certain percentage of its value on the payment of an exchange commission and must comply with the terms of the system in order to perform the exchange operation. These attributes thus cause the loss of a significant portion of the capital transferred between parties, if such is their intention, with the inability to turn all of capital into real money, i.e., the ability to convert virtual money into real money is available only against a sum of up to the sum of the purchase in the system, which is extremely limiting for anyone interested in money-laundering.

By way of further example, money laundering within the system is inhibited by the adherence within the system 10 to the following rules: the required for Exchange BTD amount will not be higher than the volume of purchase transactions over a period which, for a new user that has not yet used the BTD Exchange option, will be calculated as the time term since his registration to the system until his request for BTD Exchange, and, for an existing user who previously used the BTD Exchange option, will be calculated since his previous BTD Exchange; purchased "Near Money Items" will not be calculated as part of general volume of purchases for time term; and the sum of purchased "Near Money Items" will not be higher than the volume of purchase transactions for the period; a user will be able to Exchange BTDs or to use his excess BTDs for "Near Money Items" only if those BTDs are completely surplus, i.e., the BTDs are not allocated within the system 10 for future payments against user's purchases, commissions, advertisements, debts to the system and etc.

Still further, money laundering within the system 10 may be inhibited by causing the system 10 to, for each user of the system 10, examine with whom that user engages in transactions throughout the user's entire lifetime within the system 10. In this manner, if the data shows that the said user is engaging in transactions with a regular group of other users, this information will be cross-referenced with the information that is obtained from the identity checks performed on the said group of users. It will be appreciated that, because all the sales are made through the system 10, i.e., buyers are charged through the system 10 against their purchases and sellers are credited by the system 10 against their sales, the system 10 creates a special unique environment that enables the system to trace the groups created by those actions over time. Thus, over this time, it will be possible to identify those groups of users who engage in transactions amongst themselves, even if they also engage in transactions with others. In addition, cross-referencing this information with information about the cancellation of requested transactions by users who are not members of such discerned groups will corroborate the assumption that a group of money-launderers is involved. It will be appreciated that the above described methods (processes), including portions thereof, can be performed by software, hardware and combinations thereof. These processes and portions thereof can be performed by computers, computer-type devices, workstations, processors, micro-processors, other electronic searching tools and memory and other storage-type devices associated therewith. The processes and portions thereof can also be embodied in programmable storage devices, for example, compact discs (CDs) or other discs including magnetic, optical, etc., readable by a machine or the like, or other computer usable storage media, including magnetic, optical, or semiconductor storage, or other source of electronic signals. It will still further be appreciated that the processes (methods) and systems, including components thereof, herein have been described with exemplary reference to specific hardware and software. The processes (methods) have been described as exemplary, whereby specific steps and their order can be omitted and/or changed by persons of ordinary skill in the art to reduce these embodiments to practice without undue experimentation. The processes (methods) and systems have been described in a manner sufficient to enable persons of ordinary skill in the art to readily adapt other hardware and software as may be needed to reduce any of the embodiments to practice without undue experimentation and using conventional techniques.

In sum, while various concepts have been described in detail, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that various modifications and alternatives to those concepts could be developed in light of the overall teachings of the disclosure. As such, the particular concepts disclosed are meant to be illustrative only and not limiting as to the scope of the invention which is to be given the full breadth of the appended claims and any equivalents thereof.

Claims

CLAIMS What is claimed is:

1. A method for administering transactions involving bartering comprising: creating a group of members, the group of members including a plurality of members, each member being both a buyer of at least one good or service and a seller of at least one good or service; at least one first member selecting at least one good or service offered from a second member, the second member defining a seller; and the at least one second member receiving a credit in proportion to the goods or service selected by the first member, for selecting at least one good or service from at least one other member of the plurality of members.

2. The method as recited in claim 1 , comprising creating for each member a virtual account in which is maintained a balance of virtual currency which is exchanged between members when members perform a buying/selling transaction.

3. The method as recited in claim 2, comprising creating an association between the virtual account of each member and a credit card used to guarantee buying transactions.

4. The method as recited in claim 3, comprising creating a hard currency account which maintains a balance of real currency equivalent to the amount of virtual currency in the virtual accounts of the members.

5. The method as recited in claim 2, comprising monitoring the buying/selling transactions to provided members within the group upgrades to levels used to determine a manner in which goods or services to be sold are advertised.

6. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the at least one good or service offered from a second member is selected via interaction with a Web site.

7. A computer-readable media having computer executable instructions, the instructions performing steps comprising: accepting input by which a group comprised of a plurality of members is defined within a system for exchange; establishing for each of the plurality of members a virtual account used to maintain a balance of virtual currency; monitoring use of the system for exchange by each of the plurality of members to ensure that each of the plurality of members is both a buyer of at least one good or service within the system for exchange and a seller of at least one good or service with the system for exchange; and balancing the virtual accounts of those members that are involved in a buying/selling transaction for goods or services offered within the system for exchange by exchanging virtual currency between the virtual accounts of those members in an amount that is in proportion to the goods or service involved in the buying/selling transaction.

8. The computer-readable media as recited in claim 7, wherein the instructions accept input used to create an association between the virtual account of each of the plurality of members and a credit card used to guarantee buying/selling transactions within the system for exchange.

9. The computer-readable media as recited in claim 8, wherein the instructions manage a real currency account which maintains a balance of real currency equivalent to the amount of virtual currency in the virtual accounts of the plurality of members.

10. The computer-readable media as recited in claim 7, wherein the instructions monitor buying/selling transactions within the system for exchange to provided upgrades to levels used to determine a manner in which goods or services to be sold are advertised within the system for exchange.

1 1. The computer-readable media as recited in claim 10, wherein the instructions automatically function to change the manner in which goods or services to be sold are advertised within the system for exchange in response to the monitoring.