WO2023035021A1

WO2023035021A1 - Computer-implemented method for holding an auction

Info

Publication number: WO2023035021A1
Application number: PCT/AT2022/060306
Authority: WO
Inventors: Harald HOCHMANN
Original assignee: Day Investments Gmbh
Priority date: 2021-09-11
Filing date: 2022-09-07
Publication date: 2023-03-16

Abstract

The invention relates to a computer-implemented method for holding an auction, comprising the following steps: determining a minimum price M, a starting price S, an auction duration D, a time increment Z and a bidding increment B; providing product-specific information by transmitting data packets (4) to multiple bidder computers (2); continuously establishing the current auction price P; providing the auction price P to the bidder computers (2); and reducing the auction price P by the bidding increment B after the time increment Z has elapsed, wherein the server (1) establishes multiple possible purchase prices, stores them in a bid database (3), transmits them to the bidder computers (2) and, if applicable, receives at least one data packet (5) comprising a purchase price bid and a user ID of a user from a bidder computer (2) and reserves the purchase price in the bid database (3) for the user ID, and ends the auction immediately when the auction price P is equal to the highest purchase price stored in the bid database (3) before the full time increment Z has elapsed.

Description

Computer-implemented procedure for conducting an auction

The invention relates to a computer-implemented method for conducting an auction.

Auction methods are known from the prior art. Auctions are mechanisms that determine the price and allocation of goods by comparing competing bids. Their distinctive feature is that they are bound by precise rules that determine who can bid, what bids are allowed, which bid wins, and what prices are to be paid. This is where they differ from informal negotiations, which do not follow any predetermined rules.

The best-known form of auction is the "English auction", in which the bidders place ever higher bids and the highest bidder is ultimately awarded the contract. The offers can be submitted openly or hidden - with the first variant everyone knows the current price level, with the second not.

A "Dutch auction" is essentially a reverse "English auction". In a "Dutch auction" the price gradually decreases until a bidder accepts the current price and thus wins the bid. There is therefore only one bidder, who is also a buyer. It was first used on the Dutch flower markets, as this type of auction is usually very quick, and is still used in Holland today for cut flowers (tulips) and cheese.

When implementing such methods in computer systems, the problem arises that the auctions last a long time and thus take up the resources of the computer network for a long time.

The invention is therefore based on the object of accelerating the technical sequence of the auction process in order to use the resources of the computer network as little as possible and to be able to end the auction as quickly as possible.

This and other objects are solved with a method according to claim 1.

A computer-implemented method according to the invention comprises the following steps performed by a server on a computer network, for example the Internet. A server according to the invention can contain a data processing unit. The data processing unit can be designed as a microcontroller or microcomputer and a central processing unit (CPU), a volatile semiconductor memory (RAM), a non-volatile semiconductor memory (ROM, SSD hard disk), a magnetic memory (hard disk) and/or an optical memory (CD ROM, DVD-RAM) as well as interface units (Ethernet, USB) and the like. The components of such data processing units are known to those skilled in the art. The server can be connected to the client PCs via the Internet.

In a first step, a minimum price M, a starting price S, an auction duration D, a time step Z and/or a bidding step B for the sale of a specific product are determined. In a second step, the server provides product-specific information to a large number of bidder computers in the computer network. The bidder's computers can be connected to the server via the Internet in particular.

During the duration of the auction D, the server continuously sets a current auction price P and makes this available to the bidder computers via the computer network for the duration of a time step Z. After the time step Z has expired, the server reduces the auction price P by the bidding step B.

According to the invention, the server specifies a large number of possible purchase prices between the minimum price M and the starting price S, stores these in a bid database and transmits the bid database at least partially to the bidder's computers in the form of data packets. In particular, the bid database can be a table divided into individual time steps.

If necessary, the server receives at least one data packet comprising a purchase price bid and a user ID of a user from a bidder's computer and exclusively reserves the purchase price corresponding to the purchase price bid in the bid database for this user ID. If necessary, several purchase prices in the bidding database can also be reserved exclusively for one user ID.

The server ends the auction before a time step Z has elapsed if the auction price P is equal to the highest purchase price reserved for a user ID in the bid database.

According to the invention, it can be provided that the minimum price M, the starting price S, the auction duration D, the magazine Z and/or the bidding step B are determined by an auction configurator preferably implemented in the server, with the auction configurator preferably being connected to an external product owner via an interface stands. The auction configurator can be a software module in the server. According to the invention, provision can be made for the auction configurator to be connected to a bid manager, which is preferably implemented in the server, with the bid manager being connected to the bidder computers via an interface.

The bid manager can also be implemented as a software module in the server.

According to the invention, it can be provided that the bid manager continuously makes available and reserved purchase prices in the bid database to the bidder computers.

According to the invention, it can be provided that the bid manager only allows those bidder computers to submit a purchase price bid that have been certified before the start or during the auction according to a certification level dependent on the starting price.

According to the invention, it can be provided that the bid manager gives the certified bidder computers the opportunity to buy the product at the current auction price immediately.

According to the invention, it can be provided that the computer network is the Internet. The auction configurator and the bid manager can each be designed as software modules in the server or be connected to a data processing unit in the server via an interface.

According to the invention, it can be provided that the bidding step B is calculated using the formula B=(S−M)/D. Before the start of the auction, the bidding manager can calculate possible purchase prices Pi by the formula Pi = S - (i * B), where i = 1 , 2, ... , D and B = (S - M) / D. The bidding manager can store the purchase prices Pi in the bid database before the start of the auction.

The invention also relates to a computer-readable storage medium, comprising instructions that cause an electronic data processing unit in a server to carry out a method according to the invention. Although this auction system is designed for internet domain names, this auction system can also be used for any product such as electronics, cars, real estate, etc.

Further features according to the invention result from the claims, the figures and the description of the exemplary embodiments.

The invention is explained in more detail below using an exemplary embodiment. FIG. 1 shows a schematic block diagram of the units involved in the method, FIG. 2 shows the basic functional sequence of a method according to the invention.

1 shows a server 1 which contains an auction configurator 6 and a bid manager 7 . These two units are implemented as software modules in a data processing unit of the server. Other components of server computers according to the invention are known to those skilled in the art.

The bid manager 7 of the server 1 is connected to a large number of bidder computers 2 via the Internet. The bidder computers 2 have registered on a website before the start of the auction process, for example by entering a user name and a password, and display a customer-specific customer area on the auction provider's website.

In the exemplary embodiment shown, the bidding manager 7 sends the bidder computers 2 data packets 4 with product-specific information. The bid manager 7 is also connected to a bid database 3 . The bid manager 7 continuously transmits data packets 4 to the bidder's computer 2, including the current content of the bid database 3 and possibly product-specific information. On the bidder computers 2 customer-specific website is displayed on which the current auctions are displayed. Product-specific information is displayed for each auction, which is provided by the auction configurator 6, which in particular receives this from an external product owner. For each auction, the bidder computers 2 can see which purchase prices are still possible, possibly taking into account the certification level of the assigned user.

In the state shown, one of the bidder's computers 2 transmits a data packet 5 to the bid manager 7 with its user ID and a purchase price bid. The purchase price bid is selected from the free bid prices made available to the bidder computer 2 by the bid manager 7 . Bid manager 7 enters the bid price offered by bidder computer 2 in bid database 3 and reserves the bid price for the relevant user ID. The bidding manager 7 then informs the other bidder computers 2 about the higher bid price that has been submitted, which therefore also represents the new increased end price of the auction. Due to the increased final price offered, the remaining auction time is reduced accordingly.

Optionally, the bidder's computer 2 can also end the auction immediately by sending the data packet 5 by confirming the current auction price. The other bidder computers 2 are accordingly informed about the immediate end of the auction.

2 shows the basic functional sequence of a method according to the invention. Here, a product is auctioned online using a Dutch auction (reverse auction) and a combined English auction (conventional auction).

An auction initially starts with the help of the Dutch auction at a high starting price S within a predetermined auction duration D, for example 30 days.

Within the duration of the auction D, the auction price P decreases during a previously specified period of time Z, for example 24 hours, by a previously specified fixed bidding step B until the previously specified minimum price M is reached. In order to determine the bidding step B, the difference between the starting price S and the minimum price M must first be determined. This difference is divided by the auction duration D. Thereafter, the amount (daily average) is rounded if necessary. For example, a start price of EUR 500 and a final price of EUR 400 result in a difference of EUR 100. With an auction duration of 30 days and a step duration of 24 hours, this results in a bidding step of 3.33333 EUR/day, which is rounded down to 3.33. However, if you multiply 3.33 by 30 days, you get an amount of EUR 99.90 instead of EUR 100. You can now correct either the start price or the end price.

This means that either the final price is assumed to be EUR 400.10 and the starting price to be EUR 500, or the final price to be EUR 400 and the starting price to be EUR 999.90, so that bidding steps B are the same and there are no rounding problems due to periodic bids there are more decimal places.

You can also optionally round up or down the daily average. e.g. to 3.00, 3.05, 3.10, 3.15, 3.20, 3.25, 3.30, 3.35, 3.40, 3.45, 3.50 etc. With a higher daily average e.g. 166.66666 EUR can be rounded to 160, 165, 170 etc. and the starting price and the final price can be adjusted accordingly.

Since the calculation of the roundings quickly becomes confusing, the product owner can use an auction configurator to select the appropriate bidding step, starting price and minimum price, which is then taken as the basis for the auction.

The product can be bought immediately at any time during the auction, but also optionally before the auction has started, at the currently displayed price (buy it now option). In this case the auction will end immediately. Independently of the Dutch auction, an English auction will take place at the same time. The bidder can set a purchase price bid in the customer online area with the help of the bid manager within the specified bidding steps up to the currently displayed auction price and thus exclusively reserve this bidding step for himself, whereby bidding steps can also be skipped. If the currently displayed auction price is selected, there is the option of ending the auction immediately and purchasing the product immediately.

Due to the fact that in the Dutch auction the auction price is reduced by the bid step within the respective time period Z, it follows that the displayed auction price corresponds to the purchase price bid specified by the bidder within the duration of the auction. In this case, this bidding step does not last for the respective period Z (e.g. 24 hours) but the auction is ended immediately at the beginning of period Z and the bidder has won the auction.

The remaining time is shown as a countdown by a display unit in the customer area of the auction website or transmitted to the bidder's computer via the computer network. In addition, bidders can outbid the purchase price bids set by other bidders with the help of the English auction, whereby the other bidders can exclusively reserve the bidding steps that are still available for themselves.

Irrespective of this, a bidder can immediately buy the product at the displayed offer price at any time. In this case, the auction will be ended immediately. If a bidder has been outbid by another bidder, they will receive an email and can bid a higher price or buy the product immediately.

The auction is either actively started by the product owner in order to actively market the product, ie to actively find a buyer who will take part in the auction based on this auction, e.g. by writing to interested parties by e-mail, letter and/or postcard, or is started when a prospect actively contacts the product owner to purchase the product and accepts the prospect's bid as the reserve price. The start of the auction is agreed either by the product owner in the case of active marketing or, if necessary, with the interested party. All auctions can be started at any time, whereby the auctions are mainly started on the half hour and on the hour in order to guarantee a clearer process and an end time that is easy to remember.

Auctions can be started immediately or with a time delay as "Scheduled Auction". The length of the time delay until the auction starts is also agreed by the product owner in the case of active marketing or, if necessary, with the interested party. The purpose of the "planned auction" is that the product owner still has time to find interested parties for the auction and to invite them to the auction in the course of active marketing before the auction starts. For this reason, it makes sense that a "Planned Auction" is only displayed on the website for one to two weeks as a planned auction, with the start date, start time and any other information, such as the starting price, being specified and a counter also being displayed , which shows the remaining time until the auction starts.

In order to access the Bid Manager, an online account for bidders is provided on an auction website. Registration is free and also enables bidders to include their desired auctions in a watch list in order to receive an e-mail for each transaction in the respective auction (new bid, purchase) or to add the desired auctions to a favorites list. Participation as a guest without registration is not possible. However, it is possible to follow the auctions on the website free of charge without registering.

An active auction can last practically indefinitely, with an auction generally lasting between one day and 62 days (2 months) if the time period is defined as 24 hours, for example. How long the auction actually lasts is either determined by the product owner during active marketing or is agreed with the interested party who has actively contacted the product owner. The minimum price is determined by the product owner himself in the case of active marketing. If the Bidder has contacted the Product Owner himself to purchase the Product and the Prospect's counter-bid based on the offer sent by the Product Owner is in a region that the Product Owner is willing to set as a reserve price, the Prospect's price will become the reserve price be.

In the case of active marketing, the starting price is determined by the product owner himself and, as described above, will preferably be so high that it cannot be achieved even with the help of an English auction. If necessary, you can also increase the starting price with a safety buffer and, if necessary, extend the auction length.

If the prospect has asked the product owner for an offer, the expected final price of the auction will usually be the price offered by the product owner in the offer, but may be higher or lower depending on the agreement between the product owner and the prospect and subsequent bidder.

In order to make an auction safe for everyone involved against attempted fraud, certification levels are used, each of which allows a certain bid amount. Depending on the product, these can be selected accordingly and have different heights. A higher certification level can be provided for a higher quality product. For example, the mobile phone number of the interested party can be checked by sending a PIN (TAN), or as a higher level of certification, a scan of the bidder's passport, identity card or driver's license can be checked online.

In order to place a bid, a user must be logged in, have the respective certification level and click the "Bid" button for the respective product. The bid manager then opens, the available purchase prices are displayed as bidding steps and a free purchase price bid can be reserved exclusively. The bids that have already been filled are displayed as crossed out and the respective anonymous bidder, for example "Bidder 10", is displayed to the right. In addition, the product can also be bought immediately in the Bid Manager, provided the certification level is high enough.

After the confirmation of the first bid, this represents the bidder's acceptance of the product owner's offer. Acceptance is subject to the condition precedent that the bidder is the highest bidder after the end of the bid period. A bid expires if another bidder places a higher bid during the offer period or buys the product using the buy it now option.

If a bidder is outbid, they will automatically receive an email from the auction system. In addition, the price offered by the bidder and the currently highest bid price are displayed in the bidder account. If the bidder is the highest bidder, his submitted bid price is marked in green and the reserve price corresponds to his bid price. If the bidder is not the highest bidder, then their bid price is marked in red and the minimum price corresponds to the current bid price of the respective highest bidder.

In the Bid Manager, the bidder can exclusively reserve any purchase price (bid step) displayed as available for himself. If the bidder skips several bidding steps, the lower bidding steps that are still free will automatically be assigned to him as bid. This means if the next higher bid step is e.g. 100 and the next bid steps are 110, 120, 130 and 140 and the final price is 150 EUR and the bidder bids 120 EUR, then the bid steps 100, 110 and 120 will be automatically assigned to him and the other Bidders can see in the bid manager that this bidder has reserved these three bidding steps for himself.

The bidder cannot cancel the auction himself. This can only be done under certain circumstances as described in the terms and conditions, the product operator or the project operator, for example in the event of a fraud incident. The advantage of submitting a bid and not waiting until the current price is the desired amount is that bidders can reserve a purchase price exclusively for themselves in advance and other bidders can only select a higher bid step. If the current price reaches the highest price offered, this auction step no longer lasts for the previously specified period of time (e.g. 24 hours) but the auction is ended immediately.

Compared to a generally customary English auction, the auction described in the auction described does not become longer but shorter when a bid is submitted. This is due to the fact that the auction duration (e.g. 30 days) was divided into a predetermined number of auction steps (e.g. 30) each lasting a predetermined period of time (e.g. 24 hours). The more of these bidding steps are reserved by bidders, the shorter the time span from the current price to the highest bidding price. This means, for example, over a period of 24 hours, the auction will be shortened by three days if three bid prices have been reserved.

There are no costs for the bidder to register the account and use the auction platform. Only if the product was purchased by the bidder does the bidder incur the displayed costs for the purchase of the product. The project operator receives a commission from the product owner for the successful sale of the product. Payment and shipment of the product will be handled between the product owner and the buyer upon a successful sale. Optionally, the project operator can also take over the processing in trust. In this case, the product owner and the buyer must agree on who will bear the costs of the escrow.

The invention is not limited to the exemplary embodiment described, but includes all methods within the scope of the following patent claims.

Claims

patent claims

1 . Computer-implemented method for automatically conducting an auction in a computer network, comprising the following steps performed by a server (1): a. Determination of a minimum price M, a starting price S, an auction duration D, a time step Z and/or a bidding step B for the sale of a specific product, b. Provision of product-specific information to a large number of bidder computers (2) in the computer network, c. during the auction duration D, ongoing determination of the current auction price P, provision of the auction price P to the bidder computer (2) for the duration of a time step Z, and reduction of the auction price P after the end of the time step Z by the bidding step B, characterized in that the server (1) d. sets a large number of possible purchase prices between the minimum price M and the starting price S, stores them in a bid database (3) and transmits them to the bidder computers (2) in the form of data packets (4), e. optionally receives at least one data packet (5) comprising a purchase price bid and a user ID of a user from a bidder's computer (2) and exclusively reserves the purchase price corresponding to the purchase price bid in the bid database (4) for this user ID, and f. the auction ended before the end of a time step Z if the auction price P is equal to the highest purchase price reserved for a user ID in the bid database (3).

2. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that the minimum price M, the starting price S, the auction duration D, the time step Z and/or the bidding step B are determined by an auction configurator (6) preferably implemented in the server (1), which preferably is connected to an external product owner via an interface. Method according to Claim 2, characterized in that the auction configurator (6) is connected to a bid manager (7) preferably implemented in the server (1), the bid manager (7) being connected to the bidder computers (2) via an interface stands. Method according to Claim 3, characterized in that the bid manager (7) continuously makes the purchase prices available in the bid database (3) and the purchase prices reserved in the bid database (3) available to the bidder computers (2) in the form of data packets (4). . Method according to Claim 3 or 4, characterized in that the bid manager (7) only allows those bidder computers (2) to submit a purchase price bid which have been certified according to a certification level dependent on the starting price S before the start or during the auction. Method according to Claim 5, characterized in that the bid manager (7) gives the certified bidder computers (2) the opportunity to buy the product at the current auction price P immediately. Method according to one of Claims 1 to 6, characterized in that the computer network is the Internet. Method according to any one of Claims 1 to 7, characterized in that the bidding step B is calculated by the formula B = (S - M) / D. Method according to one of Claims 1 to 8, characterized in that the bidding manager (7) before the start of the auction duration D calculates possible purchase prices Pi using the formula Pi = S - (i * B), where i = 1 , 2, ... , D and B = (S - M) / D, and the purchase prices Pi are stored in the bid database (3). Computer-readable storage medium, comprising instructions which cause an electronic data processing unit in a server (1) to carry out a method according to one of Claims 1 to 9.