A method and apparatus are provided for generating a sale offer over an
electronic network (such as the Internet). The method and apparatus may
be used with a commercial sale system designed to increase the revenue
income of Web site by offering, at a substantially discounted or
virtually free basis, one more goods and/or services to visitors of the
Web site. According to the features of the invention, the seller (who may
be the owner or co-owner of the Web site) transmits a sale offer on the
Web site for a high quality good or service, wherein the good or service
can be purchased for free or a cost near to zero. The seller may make the
offer visible and available to a number of perspective buyers, who are
connected at that very moment to the Web site. According to an additional
aspect of the invention, the sale offer may be available for only a very
limited amount of time (e.g., one or more minutes) and may be offered at
random or unpredictable times on the Web site in order to increase Web
traffic to the site.