A method for facilitating sales and pricing of independent parties' goods.
The method removes price control from buyers and sellers by deriving a
sale price from an index price using a method set by either the seller or
a third party. The index price is provided by a party other than the
buyer or seller. The sale price may be derived at a time of sale or at a
time of registering the good for sale. The standard ID code of readily
identifiable, fungible, durable goods is used by sellers to identify used
goods to the marketeer. The marketeer exploits the nature of such goods
by choosing the price of a comparable new good as an index price and
deriving a discounted sale price for the used good from the price of a
new good having essentially the same value due to its fungible, durable
nature. A best price for a good is ensured by using as the index price a
lowest price among a group of vendors for a comparable good.
In a computer-implemented version of the method, a shopping agent program
is used to query one or more vendors to determine a best price for a
comparable good and a pricing agent program is used to derive a
discounted sale price for the good from the best price for the new good.
An apparatus for performing a computer-implemented version of the
inventive method is also provided.