MXPA03002912A

MXPA03002912A - Reverse auction method and system.

Info

Publication number: MXPA03002912A
Application number: MXPA03002912A
Authority: MX
Inventors: Alison Quinn Galik
Original assignee: Brady Mtb Llc
Priority date: 2000-10-03
Filing date: 2001-10-03
Publication date: 2004-12-03
Also published as: KR20040010538A; RU2003112975A; EP1323106A1; CN1509449A; IL155148A0; CA2424232A1; AU1132902A; WO2002029672A2; JP2004515847A

Abstract

On-line reverse auction methods and systems are disclosed. Specifically, such methods and systems enable a buyer interested in purchasing a product or service to create a request for proposals and to upload it in a web site for access by suppliers.The suppliers submit bids by uploading them into the web site in reply to the request for proposals. The buyer as well as the suppliers may view all the bids submitted. The buyer may review bid details for bids submitted in reply to the request for proposals while a supplier may review bid details for his or her bid submitted. The bid details may be reviewed by accessing the web site. Once a bid has been accepted by the buyer or a counter offer is accepted by the seller, a confirmation of the acceptance is sent to the buyer and to the supplier that submitted the accepted bid.

Description

METHOD T SYSTEM OF INVERSE 3BASTA FIELD OF THE INVENTION This invention relates to online auctions. In particular, this invention relates to methods and systems for providing online business-to-business acquisition services via the Internet, with the feature of placing buyer requirements for services and products and comparing the supplier's offers for the compliance with the buyer's requirements.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The current online airline ticket auctions give individual buyers the opportunity to bid for an airline ticket. Generally, the buyer specifies the dates of the trip, the cities of departure and arrival, and the maximum amount of money that the buyer wishes to pay per ticket. The specified information is forwarded by the online auction provider to various airlines or agents in an attempt to obtain the tickets at the desired price.

Then, the buyer receives a notification from the online auction provider indicating whether the buyer's offer has been accepted by an airline or not. In current online auctions, the buyer can not directly negotiate a price with the airline. In addition, current online auction providers are not the right people to meet the needs of corporate buyers, who are interested in buying a large number of tickets. This is because in the current online auctions airline tickets are not transferable. In addition, you can not negotiate discounts with an airline when a single buyer buys a large number of tickets at once. Moreover, the only relevant information that is taken into account as part of the determination to accept offers is the price of a ticket. Therefore, there is a need in the art for methods and systems for auction that are available to a corporate buyer and that allow a seller to present the information different from the price information for a service or product as part of a product. auction procedure, where the buyer and the seller can directly negotiate an agreement.

SUMMARY OF THE INVBMCIÓW On-line reverse auction methods and systems are described. Specifically, these methods and systems allow a buyer interested in acquiring a product or service to create a request for proposals and upload them to a website so that suppliers have access. Suppliers present the offers by uploading them on the website in response to the request for proposals. Both the buyer and the suppliers can see all the offers presented. The buyer can review the details of the offer for all those offers submitted in response to the request for proposals, at the same time that a supplier can review the details of the offer for their submitted offer. You can review the details of the offer by accessing the website. Once an offer has been accepted by the buyer or an offer in the counter is accepted by the seller, a confirmation of acceptance is sent to the buyer and to the supplier who submitted the accepted offer. An objective of the present invention is to provide methods and systems that present a corporate buyer and allow a seller to enter information different from the price information for a service or product as part of an auction procedure, wherein the buyer and the seller can directly negotiate an agreement. In addition, another objective of the present invention is to provide buyers and sellers with the ability to execute a deal or commitment to conduct business between them. Furthermore, another objective of the present invention is to achieve the objectives that were previously established, allowing both buyers and sellers to negotiate agreements via the Internet. Moreover, another objective of the present invention is to place on a website the details of the requests for the proposals presented by the buyers and of the offers presented by the sellers to facilitate the negotiation process. With these and other objectives, advantages and features of the invention, which may be apparent in the present invention thereafter, the nature of the invention can be clearly understood with reference to the following detailed description of the invention, the appended claims and the various figures appended thereto. present invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail, with reference to the following figures, wherein: Figure 1 is a flow chart of a first method of the present invention; Figures 2A-2C are drawings of a user interface for entering the registration information of the user according to the modalities and methods of the present invention; Figures 3A-3D 30? drawings of a user interface for entering the travel policy information of the purchaser in accordance with the modalities and methods of the present invention; Figure 4 is a drawing of a user interface for loading historical travel data into a website according to the methods and methods of the present invention; Figures 5A-5C are drawings of a user interface for creating a request for proposals according to the modalities and methods of the present invention; Figure 6 is a drawing of a request for proposals requests that are open for offers and the corresponding offers according to the modalities and methods of the present invention; Figure 7 is a drawing of the details of the offers presented in response to a request for proposals in accordance with the modalities and methods of the present invention; Figure 8 is a drawing of a user interface for responding to an offer according to the modalities and methods of the present invention; Figure 9 is a drawing of a user interface for searching a request for proposals in accordance with the modalities and methods of the present invention; Figure 10 is a drawing of a screen of the results of the search for requests for proposals according to the modalities and methods of the present invention; Figure 11 is a drawing of a screen of the purchaser's history to which the provider has had access according to the modalities and methods of the present invention; Figure 12 is a screen drawing of the requests for proposals submitted by a buyer in accordance with the methods and methods of the present invention; Figure 13 is a drawing of the transactions between buyers and suppliers according to the modalities and methods of the present invention; Figure 14 is a drawing of a user interface for entering offers according to the methods and methods of the present invention; Figure 15A-15B are screen drawings of the offers submitted by a supplier in response to various requests for proposals in accordance with the methods and methods of the present invention; and Figure 16 is a drawing of a system for implementing a reverse auction method according to the methods and methods of the present invention. These and other features and advantages of the present invention are described in or apparent from the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREVIOUS MODALITIES Referring now to the drawings in which like elements are shown with similar reference numbers / Figure 16 shows a reverse auction system 1600 according to one embodiment of the present invention. The system can include personal computers that buyers use (ie, purchaser's PC 1601-1603), personal computers that providers use (ie, provider's PC 1604-1606), and at least one data exchange server 1610, a set of 1611 web and database servers, and a network (ie, 1612 Internet) that interconnects PCs 1601-1606 and servers 1610-1611) The personal computers of the 1601-1603 buyer and the personal computers Provider 1604-1606 can be personal computers by themselves. Alte natively, personal computers 1601-1603 can be interconnected through the intranet of the buyer's company. In a similar way, the personal computers of the provider 1604-1606 can be interconnected through the intranet of the provider's company. In one embodiment of the present invention, a buyer may be a company interested in purchasing airline tickets from the provider's airlines (for example, an airline). A buyer can also be represented by a travel agency. Although the functions developed by the server 1610, the web server 1611a, the database server 1611b can be executed in a single server unit, each of them is illustrated separately to emphasize their respective functionality. The 1610 server can include a computer with the ability to process data at high speed. The 1611a-b web and database servers can include computers equipped with software to run on a website and a database system. For example, the web server 1611a may be a Windows NT server and may include software such as the Microsoft Internet Information Services software that are used to provide static html pages that are generated to support the functionality of the Internet interfaces. user shown below and to model the data that is kept on the server of the 1611b database. The web server 1611a can also include software responsible for data replication between the database 1611b and the server 1610. The database server 1611b can be executed by running an Oracle SQL 7.0 server on a separate Windows server. NT. In 1600 system, the 1611a web server serves as a frontline server to collect from and transmit data to the buyer's PCs 1601-1603 and the provider's PCs through the Internet 1612. The data can be stored in the servers of the server. 1611b database. The data exchange server 1610 can be connected to the web and database servers 1611a-b via the Internet 1612. The data exchange server 1610 can access the data from the web servers and the database servers. data 1611a-b. Using the data that was accessed, the data exchange server 1610 performs functions such as the search for requests for proposals based on the criteria entered by the suppliers, the offers of categories, etc. Figure 13 illustrates a high-level diagram of potential transitions that can be made as part of an online auction. In the figure, each buyer 1302 presents an RFP. On the other hand, each provider 1306 can respond to more than one RFP. A more realistic example, although not illustrated, is one in which each buyer submits more than one RFP and each seller offers in any of the RFPs presented. Figure 1 illustrates a flow diagram of a method for conducting an online reverse auction according to an embodiment of the present invention. Step 101 includes the online registration of a buyer and at least one vendor or vendor. In the analysis of Figure 2 below, the information that has entered either a buyer or a seller as part of online registration 101 is described. In step 102, the buyer can enter information about the company as well as the information historical and scheduled trip information. The information that the buyer has entered as part of step 102 is described in the analysis of Figures 3A and 3B below.

In step 103, a buyer creates a request for proposal (RFP) that can be based on historical data. Historical data can be entered as part of step 102 or can be automatically created by keeping a record of the buyer's travel preferences as time passes. The RFP may include information such as travel dates, departure and arrival airports, the desired class of service, the number of seats, etc., that would allow a provider to search for an RFP to judge whether the RFP is of interest and to present an offer in response to the RFP (step 104). For an RFP that remains open (for example, a buyer has not accepted an offer submitted in response to the RFP), the offers can be seen by the buyer and the sellers who have submitted the offers (step 105). That is, the offer activity can be viewed by accessing the data exchange server 1610 of FIG. 16. Step 106 may include viewing the details of the offers presented in response to a particular RFP. In the analysis of figure 7 below, the screen of the details of the offer is described. Step 107 includes actions that the buyer can take as part of the reverse auction. These may include withdrawing the RFP, declining an offer, accepting an offer, or making a counter offer. Step 108 includes actions that a vendor or vendor may take as part of the reverse auction. These may include accepting or declining a counter offer and responding to a counter offer. In step 109, a seller can send a corporate identification number (ID) to a buyer once a purchase agreement has been reached. After the corporate ID number is sent, the buyer can close the transaction. In step 110, the web server 1611 transmits a notification to the buyer as well as to the seller of the winning bid. The notification indicates confirmation of the acceptance of the offer. Figure 2A illustrates a user interface 200 for entering user registration information. The user interface can be displayed on any of the purchaser's PC 1601-1603, in figure 16. The interface 200 can include fields for registering by entering a username 202 and a password 204. An additional field can also be provided 206 to give the confirmation of the password. The registration procedure can be carried out before the actual registration in the system. That is, a new user can receive via e-mail a registration name and a password that are required to register with the system. Alternatively, a user can first register and then obtain a registration name and password. Figure 2B shows the fields in the interface 200 that are used to enter information about the company. The information can include the name of the company 208, the category of the company 210, the federal registry of the cause of the company 212, the address of the company 216, the city, the state and the country in which the offices are located main (218, 220, 222), the telephone and fax numbers of the company (224, 226), the DUNS number 228, and the address of the company's website 230.

The DUNS number can be defined as the number that the company Dun & Bradstreet assigns a company to associate that company with a particular industry, etc. The DUNS number can be used in the present invention to verify that a particular company that signs its registration is in fact a genuine company. As part of the registration process, the buyer enters the contact information as illustrated in Figure 2C. Specifically, the buyer can enter his name 232, his post 234, his email address 236, his main language 238, the telephone number 240 and the fax number 242, Figure 3A illustrates a user interface 300 to enter the information of the buyer's travel policies. Travel policy information can be included as part of the PF and can be used by a vendor for the target RFPs in which you must submit an offer. The buyer can also enter a name alias 302 to maintain his anonymity during the online auction process. The buyer can also enter the name of a 304 agency that will be used to book the trip along with the corresponding agency number 306. The IATA agency number refers to a number assigned by the Air Transport Association and can be used to identify travel agencies that book air travel. further, the buyer can indicate if it authorizes the use of the current agency 308. That is, the buyer can have a travel agency or record the use that can be accepted to reserve the trip through the system of the present invention as indicated in field 308. Finally, if the buyer does not wish to authorize the use of the current agency but, instead, wishes to authorize the use of a new agency to reserve the trip, the buyer can also indicate this with the use of field 310. The buyer can enter a desired class of service for flights that last a certain number of 312 hours or that last longer than another number of 314 hours. The service class may include economy class, business class, or first class. The buyer can also specify if he wants a non-stop direct flight 316. The buyer can enter the alternate airport information in field 318 and the travel pattern information in fields 320 and 322. The trip pattern information can include a current annual 320 air volume and some expected change in air travel 322. The current annual air volume may indicate the annual air volume of the calendar year in dollars. The expected change 322 in air travel can be indicated in terms of percentage for the next calendar year. Turning now to Figure 3B, the user interface 300 may also include a field 326 in which the buyer indicates that only certain suppliers may bid on the RFP. The air lines in field 326 can be selected from a list of available airlines 324. Figure 3C displays fields 328 in which, the buyer can enter the reasons why the airlines were discarded in list 326. Finally, Figure 3D displays a message that is shown to the buyer upon successful registration. After this message has been displayed, an email is sent to the buyer with confirmation of his username and password. Figure 4 illustrates a user interface 400 for loading historical travel data on a website. In the example of Figure 4, historical travel data can be located in a file on any of the buyer's PCs 1601-1603. The user interface 400 provides a field 402 for entering the name of the historical travel file. Historical travel data can be used to create an RFP. You can also manually create an RFP without relying on the loading of historical travel data. Historical travel data to be loaded may be limited to only part of the travel history. For example, travel history can be limited by specifying a start date and a finish date. The user interface 400 provides the fields for entering a start date 404 and a finish date 406. The user interface 400 also provides fields to enter the country where the tickets were purchased (408) and to enter future dates for travel (410 and 412). The historical travel data file can be created using a spreadsheet program such as Excel. In addition, the historical travel data file may have fields that specify the range information, the city pair information, the airline, the segment count, the billing cost, and the service class. The range refers to the market range based on the cost of billing. The range field is filled with a number, where one would be the highest rank. The billing cost can be defined as the sum of the simple travel cost in the market with a particular operator minus the amount spent on commissions, discounts, taxes, etc. The city pair field includes the bi-directional origin and destination cities, while the airline field includes the airline that has flown between that pair of cities. The segment counting field can include the sum of the number of segments flown in a particular market with a particular operator. A segment can be defined as a simple trip. A market can be defined as the cities of origin and destination. Within the context of hospitality, a market can be defined as the location of a hotel. In addition, within the context of car rental, a market can be defined as the location of the collection and return of the car. The billing cost field can include the sum of the segment cost of a market in a particular operator. The service class field can indicate the type of service flown in a market with one operator per segment basis, which can be defined as how much a company spends in a particular market and for a particular service class (for example, 100 trips). singles from Philadelphia to Dalas in economy class, where each single trip costs $ 300.00). The billing cost field would then include $ 30,000 (100 * $ 300.00) as the total cost spent in the market. Figure 5A illustrates a user interface 500 for manually creating an RF. The user interface can include fields to enter a category 502; the country of reservation 504; the cities of origin and destination (506 and 508); the segments 510; the travel start date and the end date (512 and 514); service class 516; the start date and the expiration date of the RFP (518 and 520); and a section for access control 522.

The category 502 field can refer to the type of service or product for which an RFP has been submitted. The user interface 500 of Figure 5A is customized for air travel. Modifications to this modality may include customization of the user interface to reflect the RFPs for which a service or product other than air travel is desired. The reservation country field can refer to the country in which the plane tickets are being purchased. In field 506, buyers can specify from which airport or airports they want to exit. Similarly, in field 508, buyers can specify the airport or airports to which they wish to arrive. Buyers can enter segment information (ie, single trip) in field 510. For example, the 100 segments in field 510 reflect 100 single trips that have been requested as part of the RFP. Fields 512 and 514 may include a date or range of dates on which the journey begins and ends respectively. In field 516, buyers can enter the desired service class. For example, buyers can specify tourist, executive or first class. In field 518, buyers can enter a date on which an RFP is available in the system for vendors to access. Field 520 includes the date on which the RFP is no longer available in the system for vendors to review. The access control section 522 in the user interface 500 includes a list of the airlines excluded from the RFP. Figure 5B illustrates a user interface 524 for creating RFP using the loaded travel historical files. Figure 5C includes a section 526 to specify the historical travel dates used to create an RFP. In Figure 5C, a list of RFPs created from the loaded historical files is also illustrated. Figure 6 illustrates a screen of a buyer's RFP that is open for offers as well as corresponding offers. Figure 6 also illustrates three bids presented (624,626, 628) for a single RFP. RFPs are assigned an RFP number 602. In addition to displaying the RFP number, additional information on RFPs is included. Each RFP in the list has an "active" status, which indicates that RFPs are open for bid. A different asset status could be "available", meaning that no response or offer has been received; "response", means that an airline has submitted an offer or has responded to a counter offer from the buyer, "under offer", means that the buyer has offered against and awaits a response; "sold" means that an offer or proposal has been accepted by the buyer; and "declined" means that the offers made were not accepted by the buyer and that the offer is closed. Other information related to the RFP and the offer includes the bidder of the offer 604, the country of reservation 606, the pair of cities 608, the number of segments offered 610, the number of segments requested 612, the service class 614, the standard and travel dates (616, 618) and the start and end dates of the RFP (620, 622). Figure 7 illustrates the details of the offers submitted in response to a specific RFP 702. Each offer has an associated 703r status that can indicate whether the offer is new, has been updated, if the buyer has responded to the offer, or if It has been declined. Vendors also have access to the details of the offer for a specific RFP and can therefore update their offers in an attempt to get them accepted by the buyer. In one embodiment of the present invention, once an offer has been declined for a particular RFP, the seller who submitted the declined offer may not update said offer or submit a new one in response to that RFP. Field 704 indicates the name of the airline that is presenting the offer. The seller's commitments section can include the price 705, the percentage discount 706, the percentage discount 708, the 710 updates, and the frequent flyer miles 712. The seller's commitments section includes the segment 714 fields, the percentage of simple trips offered 716, the percentage cost 718, and a cost amount 720. The segment fields 714 include the number of segments offered by an airline at the price per segment indicated in the price column 705. The cost in percentage 718 may include the percentage of the coast that has been spent in a certain market that the provider may require in order to give a discount or incentive. For example, a supplier can expect to receive $ 100, 000.00 to make that business worthwhile in a particular market or in a packaged market (at least two markets) in exchange for a 10% discount in those markets. In another example, a supplier can expect to receive 50% of the amount of money spent in a particular market, that is, a buyer spends $ 300, 000.00 per year in a given market and the provider expects at least $ 150,000.00 from the buyer. Figure 8 illustrates a user interface 800 to respond to an offer. A buyer can review a 624 offer for a particular FP number 802 and can respond to that offer by either accepting, declining, or responding to the offer using the 804 buttons. Figure 9 illustrates a user interface that is deployed to a vendor for Look for either buyers or RFP in the system that meets certain criteria. The user interface 900 may include fields 904 that allow a vendor to search for RFPs based on criteria such as the airport of departure or arrival specified by a buyer, the pair of cities, the number of segments, the class of service, travel dates, etc.; the 906 fields that allow the seller to search the RFPs of the buyers that are based on the criteria of the buyers such as the location of the main offices of the buying company, the travel agency of the buyer, the expected change in air volume, etc . Search field 902 provides vendors with the option to search all available RFPs that have been opened within a certain period. Finally, the vendor has the option of searching the RFP by clicking on the button 908 in the user interface 900; or looking for buyers, by clicking on the button 910. The RFP information can reside in the database 1611 of figure 16 and the search can be carried out by conducting a survey in the database using, for example, SQL commands which include the information entered in fields 904 and 906 as parameters for the survey. Once the RFPs that meet the description in the fields are retrieved from the database, they can be displayed to the vendor. Each RFP includes information in addition to that used by the vendor as parameters for the search. Figure 10 illustrates a screen of search results for buyers. The buyers can be identified by a name alias 1002. The information displayed can be related to a specific RFP, presented by the buyer 1002, which meets the RFP search criteria. The information can include the air volume of the 1006 customer, the reservation agency for the specific RFP 1004, the city of main offices 1008 and the status of the main offices 1010. The air volume can be defined as the total amount that a company expects spend on air travel for a specific period. For example, an annual airline volume of $ 1,500,000.00 means that the company expects to spend that amount of money on air travel during the course of that year. Figure 11 illustrates an exemplary screen of the buyer's historical information, as accessed by a provider. The information displayed may include the name alias of the buyer 1102, the annual air volume in dollars 1104, the expected air volume change 1114, the reservation agency 1106 and the associated IATA numbers 1112, the indication of agency authorization 1108, the agency which required to reserve 1110, and travel policy information 1116. The seller can have access to a list of reserved flights 1118 by the buyer within a range of dates of historical data of interest. Figure 12 illustrates a screen of the RFP 1204 list presented by a particular customer 1202. The list 1204 may include a buyer's RFP that meets a seller's search criteria, as well as other RFPs submitted by the same buyer. Figure 14 illustrates a 1400 interface for entering offers. Once a buyer identifies an offer of interest, the buyer can start the negotiation with the seller who submitted that offer. The buyer can respond to the initial offer as part of the negotiations. The user interface 1400 can display the original offer made by the vendor 1401 as well as the offer offer 1402. The interface 1400, when displayed to the provider, presents the provider with a field 1404 to respond to the contra offer of the compiler. Figure 15A illustrates a list 1502 of the offers in progress submitted by a provider in response to various RFPs. The information in the list can include the number of RFP 1504, the name alias of the buyer 1506, the country of reservation 1508, the pair of cities 1510, the number of segments offered in the offer 1512, the number of segments that were initially requested by buyer 1514, class of service 1516, date of commencement of travel 1518, date of termination of travel 1520, date of commencement of RFP 1522 and date of expiry of RFP 1524. SimilarlyFigure 15B illustrates a list of RFPs that have been finalized 1526. List 1526 includes a section specifying those RFPs that have been sold to other providers 1528 as well as those declined 1530. Although this invention has been described in conjunction with the embodiments As outlined above, it is apparent that those skilled in the art will see various alternatives, modifications and variations thereto apparent. Accordingly, the preferred embodiments of the invention that were stipulated above are intended to be illustrative but not limitative. Various changes can be made without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention.

Claims

NOVELTY OF THE INVENTION Having described the present invention, it is considered as a novelty and, therefore, what is contained in the following is claimed as a priority: CLAIMS 1. - An online reverse auction method that includes: receiving information from a buyer to create a request for proposals; place the request for proposals on a website for vendors to access; deploy to sellers and the buyer through the website at least one offer submitted in response to the request for proposals by at least one of the sellers; and receive notification of acceptance for one of the offers. 2. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that information is received from a buyer to create the request for proposals that comprises: receiving a category of service; receive a start date to access the request for proposals; receive a number of segments; and receive an expiration date to access the request for proposals. 3. The method according to claim 2, characterized in that information is received from a buyer to create the request for proposals that also includes: receiving the airline as the category of service; receive the departure and arrival information of the airport; and receive the travel dates. .- The method according to claim 1, which also comprises: displaying the details of the offer for the request for proposals. 5. - The method according to claim 1, which further comprises: receiving a record of the buyer's historical travel data and placing the record on the website. 6. The method according to claim 5, characterized in that information is received from a buyer to create the request for proposals comprising: receiving a record of historical travel data in its entirety, multiple selections of the record, and a single selection of the record, to create the request for proposals. 7. - The method according to claim 5, characterized in that the record of the historical travel data of the buyer is received, which comprises: receiving the cities of origin and destination; receive an airline used to travel between the city of origin and the city of destination; receive the sum of a number of simple trips flown in a particular market on a particular airline; receive an expected change in travel information; receive a sum of the segment cost of a market on a particular airline; and receive information that indicates the kind of service flown in a market in a market in an airline by segment. 8. - The method according to claim 1, which further comprises: creating an electronic contract between the buyer and the seller who submitted the accepted offer. 9.- The method of compliance with the rei indication 1, which also includes: receiving offers from the buyer and a seller to negotiate an offer. 10. The method according to claim 9, characterized in that receiving offers comprises receiving a counter offer. 11. - The method according to claim 9, characterized in that declining a received offer stops the negotiation of the offer. 12. - The method according to claim 10, characterized in that declining a counter offer received stops the negotiation of the offer. 13.- An online reverse auction method that includes: searching the requests for proposals in a database; have access to a request for proposals; receive a first offer in response to the request for proposals; display other offers received in response to the request for proposals, and send a notification to one of the parties that submitted the request for proposals when that party accepts an offer. 14. - The method according to claim 13, which further comprises displaying the details of the offer for the request of proposals. 15. - The method according to claim 1, characterized in that displaying the details of the offer includes at least one of the following: display a range of an offer; display the status of an offer; deploy the provider that is making the offer; unfold the price; display the discount of the purchase price of the point of sale; display cash reimbursement information; display the update information; deploy credited miles; display the expiration date of the offer; display the number of segments; display the segments as a percentage of the total number of trips expected; and display the percentage of billing cost. 16. - The method according to claim 13, which further comprises: updating the first offer after the seller reviews other offers. 17. - The method according to claim 13, which also comprises: receiving a counter offer from the party that submitted the request for proposals. 18. - The method according to claim 13, characterized in that the request for proposals search comprises: receiving the search criteria that include a pair of cities, the airport code, the number of segments, the class of service, the start and end dates of the trip / the request for open proposals and expiration dates, and the request for the number of proposals. 19. The method according to claim 13, which also comprises searching for buyers with an available request for proposals. 20. - The method according to claim 19, characterized in that the search for buyers with an available request for proposals comprises: receiving the search criteria that includes at least one of the following; the annual trip volume; travel agency; the buyer's identification number; the reservation agency; the IATA agency number; the expected change in the volume of travel; the information of the alternative airport; and the location of the buyer's main offices. 21. - The method according to claim 13, characterized in that having access to a request for proposals includes: displaying the generic information of the buyer without the name of the buyer being displayed. 22. - The method according to claim 13, characterized in that having access to a request for proposals includes: displaying the historical information of the buyer. 23. The method according to claim 13, characterized in that receiving a first offer comprises: receiving a price and at least one of the following: receive a percentage discount; receive the rebate information; receive information about updates; and receive the frequent flyer miles included as a bonus offer. 24. - The method according to claim 13, characterized in that receiving a first offer comprises: receiving the information in percentage of cost on an offer made; receive the percentage of desired business offer based on the segments; and receive the price by segments; and enter the number of segments committed by the buyer. 25. - The method according to claim 14, characterized in that displaying the details of the offer includes at least one of the following: displaying a range of an offer; display the status of an offer; deploy the provider that is making the offer; unfold the price; display the discount of the purchase price of the point of sale; display cash reimbursement information; display the update information; deploy credited miles; display the expiration date of the offer; display the number of segments; display the segments as a percentage of the total number of trips expected; and display the percentage of billing cost. 26. - A system for conducting an online reverse auction that includes: means to search the requests for proposals in a database; means to access a request for proposals; means to receive a first offer in response to the request for proposals; means to display other offers received in response to the request for proposals; means to display the details of the offer for the request for proposals; and means to send an identification number to one of the parties that submitted the request for proposals when that party accepted an offer. 27. - A system for conducting an online reverse auction comprising: means to receive information from a buyer to create a request for proposals; means to place the request for proposals on a website for vendors to access; means to deploy to those sellers and the buyer through the website at least one offer submitted by at least one of the sellers in response to the request for proposals; and means to receive notification of acceptance for one of the offers.