An order promising system (10) includes a commerce module (16) that
receives a product inquiry from a user. The product inquiry includes a
product configuration that includes a product identifier, one or more
option values, and the delivery location for the product. The system (10)
also includes one or more inventory engines (12) that receive the product
configuration from the commerce module (16) and identify one or more
products in the inventory of one or more sellers that exactly or
partially match the product configuration based on one or more matching
rules. The inventory engines (12) also determine a delivery date for each
matching product and communicate the matching products and associated
delivery dates to the commerce module (16). The commerce module (16)
communicates the matching products and associated delivery dates to the
user, receives a request for one of the matching products from the user,
and communicates the request to the inventory engine (12), which receives
the request and commits the requested product to the user.