WO2015183993A1

WO2015183993A1 - Systems and methods for collaborative commerce

Info

Publication number: WO2015183993A1
Application number: PCT/US2015/032726
Authority: WO
Inventors: Ramann KAMALAKANNAN
Original assignee: Kamalakannan Ramann
Priority date: 2014-05-28
Filing date: 2015-05-27
Publication date: 2015-12-03

Abstract

A system or method for coordinating a joint purchase between a plurality of users. The system or method comprises providing at least one product or service available to be purchased within a marketplace, organizing a plurality of users to collectively purchase a product or service from the at least one product or service, and purchasing the product. The product or service may be an investment offering. When the system or methods is used to purchase an investment offering the ownership in the investment is shared among the plurality of users until the investment offering is re- sold through another transaction or reaches maturity.

Description

Systems and methods for collaborative commerce

FIELD OF TECHNOLOGY

[0001] This disclosure relates generally to methods and systems for facilitating commerce. More particularly, the invention relates to a methods and systems that allow users to collectively buy and sell products or services in a market place.

BACKGROUND

[0002] Commerce has evolved in many dimensions during the last 20 years with e-commerce leading the way. The recent mobile revolution has also opened the door for m-commerce that is expanding electronic commerce to the world of smart phones and tablets. Consumers today are able to buy goods and conduct commerce whenever and wherever they'd like. In spite of these developments, the format of a typical commerce transaction has not changed during the past 5 decades.

[0003] There have been different evolutions in sales models - from traditional product pricing, auctioning, to freemium models. However, irrespective of all these variations, the model for transferring ownership of a transacted good has not changed. It is well known that one seller typically sells a good or a service to one buyer. At any point during the transaction there is only one owner - the seller owns the good prior to the sale while the buyer owns it after the sale. The concept of multiple individual sellers selling goods to multiple individual buyers has been the foundation of efficient-market economics. This traditional commerce model does not support collaboration among sellers or buyers but instead motivates competition. Although this competition is believed to make the markets efficient, it has also led to strong discriminations in pricing and other customer treatments in less efficient markets such as ones with monopolies and oligopolies.

[0004] One example of such market is the financial services market comprised of banks, mutual funds etc. Typically banks sell their services and products to their customers in the traditional one-to-one fashion. Examples of current products include money market accounts, certificate of deposits etc. Banks incur high costs in maintaining the basic infrastructures, acquiring customers, and distributing their products. These costs not only hinder new entrants from entering the market place, but also get passed on to the customers in the form of expensive products. These costs also force banks to offer discriminatory treatment to different groups of customers. In the case of banks, customers with bigger deposits get better rates compared to customers with smaller deposits.

[0005] This economic imbalance is not limited to the financial services market. In fact, in any commercial purchase transaction for fungible goods the purchaser of a large number of units of the product or service will have a price advantage over a low volume purchaser.

[0006] One way to level the economic imbalance in the marketplace is by increasing the power of consumers on the demand side. Thus, there remains a need in the art for improved methods and systems for facilitating commerce that allows users to collectively buy and sell products in a market place. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0007] It is therefore an object of the invention to provide improved methods and systems for facilitating commerce that allows users to collectively buy and sell products in a marketplace.

[0008] It is another object of the invention to provide such methods and systems that allow consumers to group themselves and collectively purchase a product or a service. By grouping themselves, consumers increase their purchasing power and can over-ride seller's pricing power in the market place.

[0009] It is a further object of the invention to provide methods and systems that allows sellers to group themselves and collectively sell a product or service.

[0010] In one embodiment a software program enables individual investors to collectively invest in one or more products or services that meets their investment preferences. Furthermore, the invention also allows one or more financial firms or banks to either individually or collectively define and sell their products or services to investors using the software platform. The invention will allow investment firms or banks to sell investment products such as certificate of deposits or similar investment products.

[0011] In particular, the methods and systems of the present invention provide products or services that are available to be purchased within a market place. A user can join an existing group of users or create a new group and invite users to join the group to form a plurality of users in order to collectively buy or sell a product or service that is sold in a market place. The plurality of users may purchase a product or service from the market place and share the ownership among the plurality of users until the product or services is re-sold through another transaction or reaches maturity. The invention allows for pre-defining of the distribution of the collective ownership among the plurality of users. In the event of closure of the transaction, the returns or losses are distributed to the respective users according to the previously defined ownership distribution.

[0012] In one embodiment, the ownership of the purchased product or service is held by a custodian representing the plurality of users. The custodian may be a user, groups of users, platform owner, or an individual outside of the group. The custodian may be in charge of managing the purchased product or service, the plurality of users, or distributing any returns from the purchased product or service.

[0013] In a further embodiment, a user may define preferences that help to match the user with products or services listed in a market place.

[0014] In another embodiment, a user may request to be removed from the plurality of users after a product or service has been purchased. A replacement user may be selected to be added to the plurality of users and may replace the user with the replacement user. The ownership distribution of the user may be applied to the replacement user.

[0015] In another embodiment, the invention also allows users to connect to their respective money sources such as bank accounts or credit cards to fund the transaction.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0016] Example embodiments are illustrated by way of example and not limitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings, in which like references indicate similar elements and in which:

[0017] Figure 1 is a diagram of the system, according to one embodiment.

[0018] Figure 2 is a flowchart illustrating a seller listing an investment offering, according to one embodiment.

[0019] Figure 3 is a flowchart illustrating the purchasing of an investment offering, according to one embodiment.

[0020] Figure 4 is a flowchart illustrating a seller using the system, according to one embodiment.

[0021] Figure 5 is a flowchart illustrating a user using the system, according to one embodiment.

[0022] Figure 6 is a flowchart illustrating a group formation, according to one embodiment.

[0023] Other features of the present embodiments will be apparent from the accompanying drawings and from the detailed description that follows.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0024] Disclosed are a method, system, and/or apparatus that allow users to collectively buy and sell products in a marketplace. Although the present embodiments have been described with reference to specific example embodiments, it will be evident that various modifications and changes may be made to these embodiments without departing from the broader spirit and scope of the various embodiments.

[0025] The system 100 in FIG. 1 generally depicts eight high-level modules, including a user interface 101, recommendation services module 102, a collaboration services module 103, a product services module 104, a billing services module 105, an administrative services module 106, user management services module 107, and audit services module 108.

[0026] A computing device or mobile computing device may be used to perform and/or implement any of the embodiments of system 100. The computing device may represent various forms of digital computers, such as laptops, desktops, workstations, personal digital assistants, servers, blade servers, mainframes, and/or other appropriate computers. The mobile computing device may represent various forms of mobile devices, such as smartphones, camera phones, personal digital assistants, cellular telephones, and other similar generic mobile computing devices.

[0027] The various embodiments of system 100 can include embodiment in one or more computer programs (also known as programs, software, software applications, and/or code) that are executable and/or interpretable on a programmable system including at least one programmable processor, which may be special or general purpose, coupled to receive data and instructions from, and to transmit data and instructions to, a storage system, at least one input device, and at least one output device. [0028] Recommendation services module 102, allows users, both sellers and buyers, to use matching recommendations suggested by the recommendation service to match one or more sellers with one or more buyers. Recommendation services module 102 offers two types of recommendations - product matching 110 and user matching 109. Product matching 110 is offered to a buyer who is looking to purchase a product. Product matching 110 uses the buyer' s preferences 130 to find listings in a market place that are closely related to the buyer's preferences and then give the suggested recommendations to the buyer. A market place may be any space, whether actual or virtual, in which a market operates. Market places include product listings within the system 100 or sold on any third party market place such as Amazon.com, eBay, a financial institution, etc. The buyer's preferences 130 may be added or changed through the user management services 107 and may be changed at any time. The product matching 110 may use matching algorithms ranging from simple string matching to advanced data mining-based approaches such as propensity or probabilistic matching techniques. Similar to product matching 110, recommendation services module 102 also provides user matching 109 methods to match buyers to a seller's product list. Using user matching 109, the seller can select a list of buyers to whom the seller would want to market a product. The seller's product offering is sent to the potential buyers who can either individually or collaboratively decide to purchase the product. In another embodiment, user matching 109 provides matching recommendations for users to join a group. A group is created when multiple users are interested in jointly purchasing a specific product or service; the group is organized in the collaboration services module 103. Therefore, user matching 109 can prompt or alert other users to join a specific group based on their preferences. Furthermore, using user matching 109 a user who has formed a group can locate other users who may be interested in the group and invite the other users to join the group [0029] Recommendation services module 102 also includes data services 137. Data services 137 provides the required data for user matching 109, product matching 110, and for user initiated search actions. In one embodiment, a buyer uses a search feature in the user interface 101 to search for products listed in the product listing 117 market place. In another embodiment, a seller uses a search feature to search for qualified buyers. Furthermore, a search feature could be used to search for users or groups. Through the user activated search functionality users can customize their search results rather than receiving tailored matching services offered by product matching 110 and user matching 109.

[0030] Furthermore, the recommendation services module 102 includes rating 138. Rating 138 is used to gather data or feedback from users about peer users (sellers or buyers), groups, products or services, etc. Rating inputs are gathered at various life cycle milestones including but not limited to, after the formation of a group, after the purchase of a product or services, or after the close of the transaction. Rating inputs are collected through various means including but not limited to rating surveys sent through messaging 122, or on the user interface during key milestones such as the close of a transaction. Rating inputs could be in any form including but not limited to, stars rating (i.e. 1 to 5 stars) or a computed value score (i.e. 1 to 100). The rating inputs are used to give a score to users (buyers or sellers), groups, or products and services. The scores may be used to help users gauge the risk or value associated with a particular user, group, or product and services.

[0031] The collaboration services module 103 allows multiple users to collaborate or join among each other in order to buy or sell a product or service sold in a market place. Using the collaboration services module 103, a plurality of users can form a group to collectively buy or sell a product or service. [0032] A group may be formed when a plurality of users are interested in collectively purchasing or selling a product or service. A group could be either a plurality of buyers or a plurality of sellers. In one embodiment, a group of buyers could be formed to buy a certificate of deposit (CD) from a bank. The buyers could group themselves and collaboratively buy the CD from the issuing bank. In another embodiment, a group of sellers (i.e. banks) could collaboratively sell their certificate of deposit products to a large corporation that is interested in investing its cash from a balance sheet in CDs across multiple banks. The formation of a group may be initiated by a buyer or seller using grouping 112. Alternatively, the system 100 may act as an agent to facilitate the creation of a group using grouping 112. Users may join a group in various ways including but not limited to, an invitation to join directly by a member of the group, user matching services 109, or user initiated search for groups based on their own criteria and a request to join a specific group. Users can send messages to invitees of the group through messaging 122. A message is any type of notification sent from a user or the system 100 to other users. Messages can be sent to specific users, broadcasted publically, or sent to users with certain qualifications. Messages may include but are not limited to, invitation to join a group, announcements regarding a group, administrative messages, and new product marketing messages, etc. When a new group is formed the initiating user may define group preferences such as ownership and decision rules that are stored in user policy management 128. After a group is created, messaging 122 is used for communication among the members of the group.

[0033] The voting method 111 in collaboration services 103 allows the members of a group to vote on decisions pertaining to a transaction or subset of decisions such as adding new members, executing a transaction, exchanging a new member with a current member of the group, purchasing, listing or selling a product etc. [0034] Product services module 104 contains a list of products or services 117 that are available for purchase in a market place. The products or services may be added directly by sellers or may be added based on product listing from other sources such as advertisements on the internet or other publications. Groups may be formed to purchase a product or service from the product listings 117 or may be formed to purchase a product or service from a third party provider. The product listing 117 may be accessed by all sellers who wish to list a product or service.

[0035] Product services module 104 also allows the buyer(s) to fulfill the transaction by executing various steps such as purchasing, funding the transaction and shipping, if necessary. A transaction is a process in which resources or assets are transferred between at least one buyer and at least one seller. Transaction management 114 manages the various steps of the transaction. During a transaction, the buyer or a plurality of buyers purchases a product or service from the product listings 117 or from a third party provider. The funds for the purchased product or service are transferred to the at least one seller's bank account. Product services module 104 also includes supporting features for managing product services. Portfolio management 113 is used to manage product or group portfolios. A portfolio may be a group of products purchased by a user (in the case of a buyer) or a group of products sold by a user (in the case of a seller). Portfolio management 113 allows users to manage multiple products and their statuses purchased or sold through one or more groups. Reporting 115 allows detailed reporting capability of all transaction activity. Reporting 115 allows a user to review past transaction activity, export historic transactions, etc. Reporting 115 is specific to the user or group. Policy management 116 allows sellers to define policies associated with the product or services for each transaction. Seller policies may include but are not limited to, rate of return, time horizon of investment, early withdrawal penalties, etc. The invention also allows buyers to define policies during the transaction. Buyer policies are defined when the buyer group is created using policy management 128 in user management services module 107 and are incorporated within a transaction policy when sellers accept the policies proposed by the buyers. Buyer polices may include but are not limited to, voting rights, buyer authorization, early departure conditions from groups or transactions, minimum buyer or seller rating qualification, investment time commitment between buyers etc. A policy is a binding commitment between more than one party regarding conditions made during forming a group, purchasing a product, or investment listing. For example, policies could be between multiple buyers, multiple sellers, system and seller, system and buyer, or buyers and sellers. A policy change after the initial agreement can be made based on voting 111 by involved parties as defined by the existing active policy governing the entity. For example, existing voting rights in a group's policy allow users to vote accordingly to make future policy changes.

[0036] In one embodiment, the product or service may be an investment purchase. Investment purchases may include but are not limited to a certificate of deposit, a loan product, a financial bond, a real estate property, a mortgage product with or without collateral, an antique collectable or an artifact, etc. Once an investment is purchased, the ownership of the collectively purchased product or service is shared among one or more owners until the product is re-sold through another sale or transaction or reaches maturity. When the investment comes to an end, the purchase money, plus or minus any returns, is distributed among the owners as depicted by the share of ownership that was defined in group policy when the group was created.

[0037] Billing services module 105 is used for billing 118 the users for accessing the system 100. Various billing models may be used such as commission, revenue share, subscription fee etc. In addition to billing, billing services module 105 also supports reconciliation 119 between billing and merchant transaction and reporting 120 processes. [0038] Administrative services module 106 supports house holding functions. Authentication 121 allows validating user access to the system 100. Scheduling 123 and automation 124 allow scheduling and automation of functions such as user or group matching, billing, audit checks etc. Monitoring 125 allows constant monitoring of various processes that are running or executed by the system 100. Monitoring 125 can be triggered by other functions such as audit services to support their functionality. Similarly, messaging 122 can be invoked by functions to enable communication between or among users. Messaging 122 can be through any messaging method such as email, texting, instant messaging, in app notifications etc. Messaging 122 also allows the buyer and seller to converse and negotiate seller policies prior to finalizing a transaction. Messaging 122 can be done by any means that allows users to share information such as, text messaging, email, phone, instant messaging, etc.

[0039] The administration services module 106 also manages the security and privacy 126 of the system 100 including the product listing 117, transactions, related data and metadata pertaining to users and their transaction activity. The behavior and functional configurations of the administrative services module 106 may be defined through the user interface 101 by the administrator of the system 100.

[0040] User management services module 107 manages the user subscriptions 127 of all the users who access the system 100. Additionally, user and group management 129 within the user management services module 107 provides support for various utilitarian functions such as adding, removing, and modifying profiles associated with users and user groups. Furthermore, users can manage their preferences 130. Preferences 130 may include product interest, purchase preferences and rate of return etc. Both buyers and sellers may be able to include their preferences 130. Preferences 130 may be added or changed at any time by the user. Provider management 131 and provider integration 132 support functionality for external electronic integration with third party providers to facilitate services such as fund transfer, inventory management, or shipping services.

[0041] Audit services module 108, ensures that all transactions with the system 100 are fulfilled with completeness and accuracy. The completeness check 133, performed by the audit services module 108, monitors to verify that all transactions such as fund transfers, purchases, and product listing are complete. The accuracy check 135, performed by the audit services module 108, monitors for integrity of values such as price and distribution percentages stored and utilized by various calculations with in any transaction. The redundancy check 136 ensures that data pertaining to various functions such as transactions, products, and users are maintained with sufficient redundancy to protect against data crashes and tampering. The rules used by the above checks in the audit services module 108 are defined through policy management 134.

[0042] The flowchart 200 in FIG. 2 illustrates one embodiment of the invention in which a seller lists an investment offering to be sold. An investment may be a product or service. At step 201, the seller has an option to list a new investment offering. The seller may review statistics on user preferences and recent transactions 202. These statistics may be tailored based on the seller's preferences and are provided from data services 137 of the recommendation services module 102. By reviewing statistics on user preferences and recent transactions 202 the seller can better understand what users are interested in purchasing and the returns users are receiving or expecting. Alternatively, the seller may bypass step 202 and define the investment without reviewing user preferences. The seller can define the new investment offering to be sold to a user or a plurality of users 203 using policy management 116 to create terms and conditions offered along with the investment offering. Terms and conditions may include but are not limited to, rate of return, term, breakage penalties etc. For example, if the investment product is a CD, the seller can define the minimum and maximum deposit from each user, number of users allowed in the group, rate of return, term length, and early termination conditions. Once the offering is defined, the seller can now list the investment offering for sale 204 within the product listing 117.

[0043] The flowchart 300 in FIG. 3 illustrates the process of buying an investment offering according to one embodiment of the invention. If the investment offering is being purchased by a group, the system 100 identifies the group custodian 301 who will make the purchase on behalf of the group. If the investment offering is being purchased by an individual, the system 100 identifies the buyer 302. At step 303 the buyer or group can search among listed investment offerings listed for sale in a market place. The market place may be any space, whether actual or virtual. The market place may be the product listing 117 within the product services module 104. The buyer or group custodian may select an investment offering 304. Once an investment offering is selected, the buyer or group custodian may purchase the selected investment offering 305.

[0044] The flowchart 400 in FIG. 4 depicts a workflow of one embodiment of the invention. In this embodiment, financial or investment firms such as banks, credit unions, mutual funds, pension funds, etc. are given access to the system 100 to sell financial products or services. Products or services include but are not limited to, certification of deposit, loans, bonds, real property, etc. The financial or investment firms are the sellers, whereas the consumers who invest in the products are the buyers.

[0045] At step 401, the investment firm's identity is confirmed by authentication 121 of the administration services module. Once the investment firm is identified as a seller the firm has access to the product services module 104 and the user management module 107. At step 402, the seller has an option to either manage a new investment or an existing investment. In the event of opting to managing a new investment, the seller inputs the conditions of the investment offer 403 being listed to sell. Conditions may include but are not limited to, description of investment offer, rate of return, period of investment, minimum number of investors, maximum number of investors, etc. Based on the conditions of the investment offer 403 the recommendation services module 102 may generate a list of potential buyers 404 whose preferences and current investment readiness correspond with the seller's investment offering. Current investment readiness of a user is computed by the system 100 based on inputs such as user's preferences, recent transactions, and available budget. The recommendation services module 102 uses user matching 109 to match buyers to the seller's investment offering. The list of potential buyers 404 may include individual potential buyers or a previously formed group of potential buyers whose group policies correspond with the conditions of the investment offering. In one embodiment, the preferences of the potential buyers in the list of potential buyers 404 correspond with all of the conditions of the investment offering. Alternatively, the preferences of the potential buyers in the list of potential buyers 404 may closely align with the conditions of the investment offering. At step 405, the seller may select a buyer or plurality of buyers from the list of potential buyers 404 or make modifications to the conditions of the investment offering 406. The seller may choose to modify the conditions of the investment offering 406 for many reasons including but not limited to, too few interested potential buyers, too many interested potential buyers, a change in market atmosphere, recent transactions and their rates etc. Once the seller is satisfied with the list of potential buyers 404 the seller may select buyers for the investment offering. The seller may select an individual buyer or a plurality of buyers. In one embodiment, the seller may select all of the buyers in the list of potential buyers 404. Alternatively, the seller may select a limited number of buyers from the list of potential buyers 404. At step 407, the investment offer transaction is executed. The selected buyer or plurality of buyers are informed of the selection and instructed to give approval in order to be included in the purchase of the investment offer. Alternately, the selected buyer or plurality of buyers may be automatically included in the purchase of the investment offering unless they opt out of the purchase. Furthermore, the approval process may be bypassed if all the buyers indicate that they do not need to be notified of an executed transaction in their preferences. The transaction is executed by the transaction management 114 of the product services module 104, which transfers funds from the buyer or the plurality of buyers. The transaction management 114 may also create an account in the seller's firm that manages the investment purchased by the buyer or plurality of buyers.

[0046] The ownership of the purchased investment offer is either held by a custodian representing the buyer or plurality of buyers or by the buyer or plurality of buyers until the investment offer is re-sold through another transaction or until the investment reaches maturity. If held by a custodian, the custodian may be a buyer from the plurality of buyers, multiple buyers from the plurality of buyers, or an impartial individual or group that is approved by the plurality of buyers. The owner of the system 100 could also act as the custodian. A buyer may be allowed to exit an investment transaction. An exit may be through early withdrawal penalties or by reselling the buyer's share of the investment offering to a new users who would like to join the group. The resale price may be set by the reselling user, group policies, or a combination. Alternatively, buyers may not be allowed to exit an investment transaction.

[0047] At step 402, the seller may opt to manage an existing investment. The seller may choose to perform maintenance on the existing investment 410 or close the existing investment 408. If the seller chooses to close the existing investment 408 the proceeds of the investment are returned to the buyer or plurality of buyers 409. The investment funds, as well as the proceeds of the investment 409, are returned to the buyer or plurality of buyers and may be automatically transferred to the buyer' s bank account. The proceeds are distributed to the plurality of buyers according to the ownership share of the individual buyers. In the case of a loss on the investment the remaining investment funds are distributed to the plurality of buyers according to the ownership share of the individual buyers. The closure of an existing investment 408 may be initiated by either the plurality of buyers, a custodian or the seller. Alternatively, the closure of an existing investment may be initiated by the investment reaching its maturity date. For example, if the existing investment is a certificate of deposit with a term of five years the closure of the investment will be initiated when the five year maturity date has been reached.

[0048] The flowchart 500 in FIG. 5 depicts a workflow of another embodiment of the invention. In this embodiment the system 100 allows potential buyers (users) to purchase financial products or services. Products or services include but are not limited to, certification of deposit, loans, bonds, real property, etc.

[0049] At step 501, the user's identity is confirmed by authentication 121 of the administration services module. At step 502, the user has an option to either search for a new investment or manage an existing investment. If the user chooses to search for a new investment, the user inputs their investment conditions 503. Investment conditions may include but are not limited to, description of interested investment, rate of return, period of investment, minimum amount of investment, maximum amount of investment, minimum amount of other buyers, maximum amount of other buyers, etc. Based on the investment conditions and preferences of the user the recommendation services module 102 may generate a list of potential investment offerings or potential groups 504 the user could join. The recommendation services module 102 through product matching 110 uses the user's preferences 130 and input investment conditions to find listings in a market place that are closely related to the buyer's preferences and input conditions and then give the suggested recommendations to the user.

[0050] At step 505, the user may decide to join a group to purchase an investment offer, individually purchase an investment offer, or make modifications to the user' s input conditions or preferences 130. The user may choose to modify preferences 506 for many reasons including but not limited to, no or too few potential investment offers, too many potential investment offers, a change in user' s financial health, etc. Once the user is satisfied with the list of potential investments offers or potential groups 504 the user may select an investment offer or group to join.

[0051] At step 507, the investment offer transaction is executed. The user or plurality of users executes the transaction using the transaction management 114 of the product services module 104, which transfers funds from the user or the plurality of users to the seller.

[0052] If a plurality of users executes a transaction the ownership of the purchased investment offer is either held by a custodian representing the plurality of users or by a user of the plurality of users until the investment offer is re-sold through another transaction or until the investment offer reaches maturity. The custodian may be a user from the plurality of users, multiple users from the plurality of users, or an impartial individual or group that is approved by the plurality of users. The owner of the system 100 could also act as the custodian. A user of the plurality of users may be allowed to exit an investment transaction. An exit may be through early withdrawal penalties or by reselling the users share of the investment offering to a new user who would like to join the group. The resale price may be set by the reselling user, group policies, or a combination. Alternatively, users are not allowed to exit an investment transaction.

[0053] At step 502, the user may opt to manage an existing investment. The user may choose to perform maintenance on the existing investment 510 or close the existing investment 508. If the user chooses to close the existing investment 508 the proceeds of the investment offer are returned to the user or plurality of users 509. The investment funds, as well as the proceeds of the investment offer 509, are returned to the user or plurality of users and may be automatically transferred to the user's bank account. The proceeds are distributed to the plurality of users according to the ownership share of the individual users. In the case of a loss on the investment the remaining investment funds are distributed to the plurality of users according to the ownership share of the individual users. The closure of an existing investment 508 may be initiated by either the plurality of users, the custodian, or the seller. Alternatively, the closure of an existing investment may be initiated by the investment reaching its maturity date.

[0054] The flowchart 600 in FIG 6 depicts a workflow of the grouping process in one embodiment of the invention. At step 601 a user gains access to the system 100 by authenticating credentials using authentication services 121 of the administrative services module 106. At step 602 a user may decide to join a group. If the user decides to join a group, the user may search for available groups based on the user's criteria by inputting search conditions 603. The search will generate a list of potential groups 604 based on the user's criteria. At step 605 the user may select a group from the list of potential groups or may modify the search conditions 606 to broaden or narrow the list of potential groups. Once the user selects a group, the user may send a message with a request to join the group to the group owner to join the group 607. Alternatively, at step 602 a user may create a new group 611. The user creates the group and defines polices, such as ownership, based on his or her preferences 608. Upon creating the group, in step 609 the user may invite other users to join the group. The invited users may be generated using user matching 109 of recommendation services module 102 by matching the policies of the newly created group with other users' preferences and recent transaction activity. At step 610, the user may perform maintenance on the group. Group maintenance may include modifying the group policies, adding or removing users, etc. If a group has more than one member voting 111 will be used to make any changes to the policies of the group.

[0055] It should be noted that either buyers or sellers could act and perform the various steps in FIG. 2-6 either by representing the group or individually. Group representatives are elected by the members of the group through the voting process described in voting 111.

[0056] Although the present embodiments have been described with reference to specific example embodiments, it will be evident that various modifications and changes may be made to these embodiments without departing from the broader spirit and scope of the various embodiments.

[0057] In addition, it will be appreciated that the various operations, processes, and methods disclosed herein may be embodied in a non-transitory machine-readable medium and/or a machine accessible medium compatible with a data processing system, and may be performed in any order (e.g., including using means for achieving the various operations).

[0058] Accordingly, the specification and drawings are to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense.

Claims

CLAIMS What is claimed is:

1. A method of coordinating a joint investment purchase using a computer, the method

comprising:

providing a at least one investment offering available to be purchased within a market place; organizing a plurality of users to collectively purchase an investment offering from the at least one investment offering; and

purchasing the investment offering, wherein ownership is shared among the plurality of users until the investment offering is re-sold through another transaction or reaches maturity.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a collaboration request submitted by a user interested in purchasing an investment offering from the at least one investment offering and initiating the formation of the plurality of users.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

recommending, by a recommendation module, that a user joins the plurality of users.

4. The method of claim 1; wherein the ownership of the investment offering is held by a

custodian representing the plurality of users.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

defining an ownership distribution of the users within the plurality of users.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising: distributing the returns from the investment offering to the users according to the previously defined ownership distribution when the investment offering is re- sold through another transaction or reaches maturity.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

organizing a plurality of sellers who provide an investment offering of the at least one

investment offering within the market place.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

recommending to a user an investment offering from the at least one investment offering that matches the user's preferences.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a request from a user of the plurality of users to remove the user from the plurality of users, after the investment offering has been purchased;

receiving a request from a replacement user to be added to the plurality of users; and replacing the user with a replacement user; wherein the ownership distribution of the user is applied to the replacement user.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the investment offering is a certificate of deposit.

11. A system of coordinating a joint purchase using a computer, comprising:

a marketplace that provides a at least one investment offering available to be purchased; a collaboration module that groups users interested in purchasing an investment offering from the at least one investment offering into a plurality of users; and

a transaction module that allows the plurality of users to purchase the investment offering, wherein ownership is shared by the plurality of user until the product is re-sold through another transaction or reaches maturity.

12. The system of claim 11, further comprising:

a collaboration request submitted by a user interested in purchasing an investment offering from the at least one investment offering and initiating the formation of the plurality of users.

13. The system of claim 11, further comprising:

a recommendation module that recommends to a user that the user join the plurality of users.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the transaction module defines an ownership distribution of the users within the plurality of users.

15. The system of claim 15, wherein the transaction module distributes the returns from the

investment offering to the users according to the previously defined ownership distribution when the investment offering is re- sold through another transaction or reaches maturity.

16. The system of claim 11; wherein the ownership of the investment offering is held by a

custodian representing the plurality of users.

17. The system of claim 11, further comprising:

a plurality of sellers who provide an investment offering of the at least one investment offering within the market place.

18. The system of claim 11, further comprising:

a recommendation module that recommends to a user an investment offering from the at least one investment offering that matches the user's preferences.

19. The system of claim 11, further comprising:

a removal request received from a user of the plurality of users to remove the user from the plurality of users, after the investment offering has been purchased; a replacement request received from a replacement user to be added to the plurality of users; and

a replacement module for replacing the user with the replacement user; wherein the ownership distribution of the user is applied to the replacement user.

20. A method of coordinating a joint purchase using a computer, the method comprising:

providing a at least one product or service available to be purchased within a market place; organizing a plurality of users to collectively purchase a product or service from the at least one product or service; and

purchasing the product or service.