Patent Application
20060080210
None.
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of a system and network for matching purchasers to vendors. More particularly, this invention relates to a system and network for obtaining competitive quotes for user-configured articles.
2. Description of Related Art
Traditional purchasing methods often required large expenditures of time for potential purchasers of an item to locate sellers of like items, and to negotiate for the purchase of those items. This was particularly true for the automobile consumer, for which transactions traditionally began with a consumer visiting a nearby dealer, discussing the type of car the purchaser wanted including make, model, color, and options, and haggling with the dealer to try to obtain the best possible price. Oftentimes the consumer felt pressured into buying a more expensive automobile than the consumer wanted. This time consuming process might be repeated as the consumer visited several dealers in an effort to obtain the best possible price for the automobile or automobiles in which the consumer was most interested. Many consumers find the face-to-face haggling process distasteful.
More recently, electronic communication methods have contributed significantly to the consumer's ability to negotiate with different dealers and to do so with less time invested and in a more comfortable environment than was previously possible. Some consumer advocates recommend sending a request for a quote (“RFQ”) to several dealers via facsimile, and then faxing the lowest quote to the other dealers in an effort to play the dealers off against each other and spur competition between the dealers.
Various Internet based car buying services have become more popular in recent years. These include sites as CarBargains.com, CarsDirect.com, Autobytel.com, InvoiceDealers.com, and Cars.com. Most of these services allow the user to configure his desired vehicle by specifying the year, make, model, color, and options that the user is interested in, and inputting the user's geographic area such as by providing a city or ZIP code. Some of these services state that they will put the consumer in touch with a nearby dealer who will send the consumer haggle-free pricing and delivery information. Some of the services then provide one or more offered prices for the desired vehicle by one or more dealers located within the user's area along with the contact information for the dealer or dealers. One of these services, CarBargains located at www.carbargains.com which currently resolves to http://www.checkbook.org/auto/carbarg.cfm, states that it will obtain and forward to the consumer at least five competitive bids from dealers in the consumer's area and forward those bids and the dealer contact information to the consumer. CarBargains currently charges the consumer $190 per use of the service.
The present invention provides a unique system and method for competitive bidding for user-configured articles such as automobiles.
In one embodiment the system operates without charge to the consumer. The consumer visits the system web site using a browser program and, using a series of menus, configures the car he is interested in purchasing and optionally provides other parameters such as financing or trade-in information. The consumer enters in a geographic determiner such as a city and state or a zip code, and selects his dealer search range in a unit of measure such as miles or kilometers. The process generates a request for quote which may be sent to participating new automobile dealers within the specified distance range of the consumer. Alternatively, in order to keep the numbers of dealers invited to submit quotes to a reasonable number, the request for quote may be sent to only certain ones of the dealers within that geographic range. Those certain ones can be selected on the basis of their being the nearest dealers to the consumer, random selection, rotation, or some other selection process.
The user-provided configuration information is then sent to a number of automobile dealers within the consumer's geographic area such as by an email message. The dealers are advised that the quote period will be open for a specific period of time such as three days, and are invited to respond to the request for quotes. The dealers may then respond within the quote period by visiting a dealer quote management web page provided on the system and inputting a quote, or by responding via email with a quote. The quote may be either for the exact automobile as configured by the user, or may be for a car that differs slightly from the user-configured car. For example, the dealer may have in stock the car requested by the consumer except that the in stock car has a premium package not requested by the consumer. The ability to respond with a quote for a similar though not identical car is especially helpful for dealers trying to move their current inventory. The quotes can also be thought of as bids to sell, or selling bids.
During the quote open period dealers receive automatic notification such as by email if their quotes have been beaten by another dealer. All dealers can view the current quotes including the currently lowest quote, but cannot see the identities of the dealers who submitted those other quotes. The dealers can submit new quotes if they wish to do so in an effort to beat the currently lowest quote. Optionally, if a new lowest quote is received within a specified amount of time before the quote period closes, such as within the last hour, then the quote period can be extended by an additional period of time so that the dealer who had previously submitted the lowest quote will have the opportunity to beat the new lowest quote.
Dealers may submit quotes one by one in response to requests for quotes, or they may specify a standing quote or bid. The standing bid may effectively say, for example, “Always bid $1500 over invoice for a 2004 BMW Z4.” The standing bid may be for a specified amount over (or under) invoice (or MSRP). The standing bid may also effectively specify one or more cars that the dealer has in stock and wishes to sell, and thus create a standing order to place quotes for automobiles that are close enough to the particular car requested by the consumer that the dealer would like to submit a quote for supplying that car. The dealer may specify a time frame after which the standing bid will expire.
The consumer can also view the progress of the quotes. The service provides to the consumer a personalized quote progress page on the Internet showing the consumer the automobile as he has configured it, the manufacturer's suggested retail price, the dealer invoice price, the history of the quotes received, any applicable notes regarding whether and how the received quotes differ from the exact car as configured by the consumer, and the currently lowest quote. The service also sends to the consumer an automatic message such as via email or pager alert that a new lowest quote has been received. This process helps to personally involve the consumer in the progress of the quote process, and helps contribute to an auction-like environment thus generating interest, excitement, and commitment by the consumer.
At the end of the quote period the system sends to the consumer a message notifying the consumer of the lowest quote or bid, providing the contact information of the dealer who provided the lowest quote, and advising the consumer that someone from the lowest bidder's organization may be contacting him shortly. The system also automatically sends to the low bidder the consumer's contact information. The system also charges the low bidding dealer a referral fee. In this way consumers need not be charged for the service, and dealers receive high value leads in exchange for the fees they are charged.
Additionally, the consumer is provided with information regarding other quotes that were received including the distance at which the corresponding dealers are located. The system asks the consumer whether he would like to receive the contact information for the dealers submitting any of those other quotes. For example, the second lowest quote may be from a dealer who is located much closer to the consumer than the dealer who submitted the lowest quote, and therefore the second lowest quote from the closer dealer may be the more attractive quote to the consumer.
A unique feature of the present system is that dealers are encouraged to provide quotes for non-exact matches, thus increasing in some cases the pool of dealers who will respond to the request for quote and increasing the number of quotes received. This also gives the consumer the chance to receive quotes for cars with options that he may be interested in, but which otherwise would not be included within the quotes received. The consumer is given a variety of choices at the end of the process, all of which may be attractive to the consumer. In this way the consumer is presented with a range of options, all within the range the consumer's zone of interest and all of which are the result of a competitive bidding process.
If the consumer elects to receive the information regarding a second quote, then the consumer is given the contact information for the second dealer, the consumer is notified that the second dealer may be contacting him soon, and the consumer's contact information is sent to the second dealer. The second dealer is now also charged a referral fee. Thus, any selection by the consumer results in a relatively high value lead and a referral. Similarly, the consumer may select additional quotes for which to receive dealer contact information, resulting in additional exchanges of contact information and additional referral fees. If the user cannot be effectively contacted through the contact information he provided, the referral fee(s) may be cancelled or refunded at the dealers'request and upon confirmation that the user cannot be contacted.
Although particularly well suited to facilitating sales of user-configured motor vehicles using the Internet, the system can be used to sell other types of vehicles, fleets of vehicles, other types of user-configured articles, or even other non-configured articles or groups of products and using other types of networks.
In one aspect therefore, the invention includes a method of providing to a user at least one offered price for an article, the method comprising allowing the user to remotely enter configuration data to configure a desired article according to the user's preference, receiving the configuration data and forwarding the configuration data to a plurality of potential sellers of the article within the user's geographic area, receiving quotes or selling bids and bid information representing offered prices from the potential sellers, automatically notifying the user when a new lowest bid has been received, allowing the user to monitor progress of the bidding and view the bidding history on a personalized bid progress display page, selecting at least one of the bids and forwarding the selected bid to the user, sending mutual contact information to both the user and the potential seller making the lowest bid, and charging a fee to the potential seller whose bid was forwarded to the user, the potential seller defining the selected seller. Information regarding bids other than the lowest bid are also provided to the user, and if the user elects to receive additional information regarding one or more of the other bids mutual contact information is sent to the user and the next bidder, and the next bidder is also charged a referral fee. Bids may be standing bids that expire after a specified period of time. Potential sellers may be notified that their bids were beaten and invited to beat the currently lowest quote.
In another aspect, the invention is of a system which allows a user to request competitive quotes from a number of different sellers of a user-configured article, and in which the user is notified via an electronic means of the progress of the quotes received while the period for receiving quotes is still open. The notification can be via a personalized web page having current and historical information about the quotes received, and/or can be an automatic notification such as via an electronic mail message, an instant message, a pager message, a telephone message, or the like.
In yet another aspect, the invention is of a system for facilitating competitive quotes for selling a shopper-configured article, the system including means for allowing a shopper to specify a configuration of an article for possible purchase by the shopper, means for electronically gathering a number of quotes for the article from different vendors, means for automatically identifying one of the quotes received as being a preferred quote, means for forwarding the preferred quote to the shopper and specifically identifying the preferred quote as being preferred, and means for allowing the vendor who submitted the preferred quote to contact the shopper and be charged a fee for the referral. As used herein, the term “article” will be interpreted broadly to include services.
Exemplary embodiments of the invention will be further described below with reference to the drawings, in which like numbers refer to like parts.
According to one illustrative embodiment:
The invention will be described below with reference to an illustrative embodiment in which a consumer seeks quotes for an automobile from new vehicle dealers. It is to be understood that the preferred embodiment is for illustration purposes only and does not limit the invention. Throughout the discussion, the terms “consumer,” “potential purchaser,” “user,” or “shopper” will be used to refer to the person who is seeking quotes for an article or articles. The term “price” will be used even though it may be understood that the price may be expressed either in absolute dollars or other monetary units, or relatively compared to manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) or dealer invoice price. The terms “quote,” “selling bid,” “bid,” or “offering price” will refer to a quote by a potential seller of an article. The term “vendor,” “potential seller,” or “dealer” will refer to the potential seller who provides a quote to the system for the consumer's consideration. The term “person” will be used in its legal sense to refer to any individual, business entity, government entity, or the like.
In the illustrative embodiment the system is implemented across a global information network such as the Internet, and using protocols including the world wide web and hypertext transfer protocol (http). The information to be displayed is viewed by the consumer and by participating dealers using a program such as a commercially available browser program.
When the user has finished configuring his vehicle, he is presented with a summary of the vehicle as configured and the MSRP and/or dealer invoice price for the vehicle as configured. The user may add free text comments to his request for a quote such as required delivery information.
Once the consumer has configured his vehicle and submitted his request, an invitation to quote is automatically sent out to a number of dealers within the consumer's specified geographic region. The invitation to quote may be sent to all of the dealers within the geographic region. Alternatively, if the number of dealers within the geographic region is too large, in order to keep the number of invited dealers to a reasonable number the invitations to quote may be sent to a subset of the available dealers, with the subset chosen based on nearest distance to the consumer, randomly, or on a rotating basis to help ensure that no dealers receive preferential treatment. Alternatively, dealers who pay a periodic fee to participate in the program may receive preferential treatment over dealers who merely pay a referral fee but do not pay a participation fee. Referral fees will be discussed later. Still further, the dealers may be chosen based on nearness to the consumer, historical data relating to how often the dealers have quoted in the past, or some other criteria.
When a request for quote is submitted by a consumer, the dealers to whom the request for quote will be forwarded receive an automatic alert that they are being invited to respond to the request for quote. The alert may take the form of any one of known message types including email, pager alert, text messaging, instant message, telephone call, facsimile, Internet page posting, and others, or a combination of these message types. In the illustrative embodiment the alert is an email message.
After receiving an invitation to quote, a participating dealer can visit a special quote management page established for that dealer on the world wide web.
The system provides consumers with unique feedback mechanisms allowing them to keep apprised of the progress of the quotes. When the consumer has finished configuring his vehicle and submitting the request for a quote, the system sends to the consumer a message such as an email message stating, “Thank you for configuring a vehicle for competitive quote. Click here to monitor the progress of your quote. Please contact [email address] for any questions regarding this email or PriceGrabber Autos. You may also call us at [telephone number and extension].” The “Click here” anchor links to a page established by the system on the world wide web for that consumer to monitor the progress of that particular quote and possibly other quotes requested by the same consumer. Clicking on the link takes the consumer to the personalized quote progress page established on the system for that individual registered consumer.
Additionally, the user is sent a message such as an email message when a first quote or a subsequent quote is received, such as, “A new quote in the amount of $46,000 has just been entered on your configured vehicle. Click here to view the progress of your price quote” with a link to the consumer's quote progress page and again giving email and telephone numbers to contact if the consumer has a question.
The quote period remains open for a specified period of time such as three days. During that time dealers are sent messages advising them if their previously lowest quotes were beaten by another dealer. The dealer can then respond by submitting an updated quote that is lower than the currently lowest quote. If a lowest quote is sent within a specified minimum time of the quote period closing, such as one hour, the quote period may be extended in order to give other dealers the option of beating that new lowest quote.
Once the quote period has ended, the user is sent a message such as the following email message:
In addition to sending the dealer's contact information to the user, the user's contact information as registered is automatically sent to the dealer who submitted the lowest exact quote. If the dealer attempts to contact the user using the user's contact information provided by the system but the dealer cannot effectively contact the user, the dealer can request within a specified period after the quote period closing time that the referral fee be canceled or refunded. If the system operator also cannot effectively contact the user, or in any other way determines that the dealer should not be charged for the referral, the referral fee may be canceled or refunded.
User 1002 continues the quote process at 1010 by selecting an automobile, either by selecting the year, make, and model, or by specifying other parameters such as a vehicle type and a specified price range and then choosing from a pick list provided. See
The system then matches at step 1012 the make and model of the car requested to dealers in the user's geographic area who sell that model automobile. After giving the user the opportunity to adjust the geographic data, the system then sends the configuration data to the participating dealers at step 1014, selected if necessary by the system from among the pool of possible dealers in order to prevent the request for quote from being sent to an unreasonably large number of dealers. The request for quote is sent to dealers shown generally as dealers 1004 through 1009. The dealers respond by submitting quotes. The quotes are received by the system at step 1016. The quotes typically include both exact matches and near matches.
The system notifies the user at step 1018 of quotes as they are received including the new lowest exact match quote when it is received. Users are also notified of non-exact match quotes along with a link so that the user can view the non-exact match quotes, thus stimulating consumer interest. Dealers are given an opportunity at step 1020 to beat the current lowest quote.
Once the quote period is over, at step 1024 the system sends to the user the contact information for the dealer who submitted the lowest quote, and also notifies the user of the other quotes received including both exact match quotes and non-exact match quotes. The system also notifies the user that the dealer submitting the lowest exact match may be contacting him soon. At step 1026 the system also sends to the dealer who submitted the lowest exact match quote the contact information from the user, and at 1028 charges the dealer a referral fee. The referral fee may be charged via a dealer's account kept on the system, electronic funds transfer, a charge to the dealer's credit card, or other well known methods of charging a fee. What the dealer receives in exchange for this fee is a referral to a registered consumer who has expressed a particularly high level of interest in the exact car in the exact configuration that the dealer is offering for sale, and has reason to believe that the dealer will give him the best possible deal on that automobile. The dealer is thus willing to pay the referral fee for this high value referral in addition to any periodic fee such as annual participation fee which may be charged to participating dealers.
Additionally, the user is given the option at step 1030 to view the details of other quotes submitted by other dealers, including both exact match quotes that may have been higher than the lowest quote but may be from dealers who are closer to the user and thus more desirable overall. The user can also view non-exact match quotes if those non-exact match quotes interest him. The non-exact match quotes may include, for example, a quote for a car with additional upgrade options not in the car as configured by the consumer, but nevertheless being offered at an attractive price by a dealer in an effort to move his existing inventory. The user is asked whether he wishes to have contact information exchanged with any of the dealers who submitted one or more of the other quotes. If the user clicks “yes” to exchange that contact information, then at step 1032 the contact information for the dealer on whose quote the user clicked is sent to the user, at step 1034 the user's contact information is sent to that second dealer, and at step 1036 that dealer is charged a referral fee. The referral fee charged to the second dealer may be more or less than the referral fee charged to the first dealer. The referral fee charged to the first dealer may also be reduced in response to the user selecting a second quote in order to compensate for the now-diluted value of the first referral, such that the first dealer is charged the highest fee level only when that dealer's exchange of contact information with the user is exclusive. Alternatively, the user could be charged a small fee for requesting contact information from a second or subsequent dealer in order to discourage indiscriminate selection of quotes which result in lower value referrals.
The quote and referral process is completed when the user chooses not to view additional information for any more quotes. The page at which the user elects to receive additional quote information is preferably left up and available to the user for at least a week after the quote period has closed, so that the user can elect to receive additional quote information if the user is unable or unwilling to purchase the vehicle from the first dealer. There may be many reasons which cause the user to not complete the purchase from the first dealer, including but not limited to the first dealer having sold the automobile from existing inventory before the user purchases it, the user not liking the first dealer's personal style, or the user perceiving a flaw in the particular vehicle offered.
It will be appreciated that the present invention is applicable for obtaining competitive quotes not only for motor vehicles such as automobiles, trucks, motorcycles, and recreational vehicles, but to other user- or purchaser-configured articles as well such as airplanes, boats, computers, stereo systems, other consumer electronics, and many other articles. Additionally, the invention may be used for competitive bidding for multiple articles such as an entire fleet of identical or different and differently configured vehicles. It will further be appreciated that although the invention is well suited to competitive bidding for user configurable articles, the articles need not necessarily be user configurable. For example, the present invention could be used to obtain bids on, and purchase, a specified commercial quantity of a standard product, or quantities of different products such as an entire purchase of office supplies or office furniture. The invention could also be used to purchase services. As one example, a homeowner could post photographs of the exterior of his or her house, provide any additional information that will be needed to obtain bids, and then painting contractors could bid for the job possibly without leaving their offices or requiring the homeowner to be present for a site inspection. As a second example, the invention could be used to obtain competitive bids for construction contracts and subcontracts with appropriate modifications of the user configuration process. Such modifications would include the uploading and display and/or emailing of files such as architectural drawings and specifications in the case of construction services. As a still further example, the invention could be used to obtain competitive quotes for machining molds and then producing specified quantities of injection molded parts, given specifications for the mold and the parts material. The possibilities are many.
Although the invention is well suited for implementation on the popular world wide web using its protocols and http links embedded within electronic mail messages, the invention could be implemented using other types of computer networks and software. Given the disclosure herein together with existing data regarding vehicles, their options, and their prices, someone of ordinary skill in the art of software programming could write the software code necessary to implement the invention. As part of the process of implementing the invention, the source and/or object code would be stored on at least one computer readable media for reading by a computer which would implement the process. The computer readable media would usually include at least a hard magnetic disc drive, but could include a CD ROM or other suitable media at one point or another within the programming, storing, loading, and implementing processes.
It will be appreciated that the term “present invention” as used herein should not be construed to mean that only a single invention having a single essential element or group of elements is presented. Similarly, it will also be appreciated that the term “present invention” encompasses a number of separate innovations which can each be considered separate inventions. Although the present invention has thus been described in detail with regard to the illustrative embodiment and illustrations thereof, it should be apparent to those skilled in the art that various adaptations and modifications of the present invention may be accomplished without departing from the spirit and the scope of the invention. For example, various modes of communication are available for configuring the desired article, inviting quotes from participating dealers, providing quotes, and notifying consumers and participating dealers of the progress of the quotes, and are generally suitable. Those methods include, but are not limited to, email, instant messaging, web pages, pagers, telephones, facsimile, and text messages via pagers and cellular telephones. The present invention could be adapted for use with any or even all of those communication methods, as well as communication modes that have yet to be invented or popularized. Still further, it will be understood that the term “article” as used in the claims which follow can refer either to a single discrete article or collectively to a set of separate and distinct articles, or to a service or services.
Accordingly, it is to be understood that the detailed description and the accompanying drawings as set forth hereinabove are not intended to limit the breadth of the present invention, which should be inferred only from the following claims and their appropriately construed legal equivalents.
