Method of market basket bidding for surplus merchandise

A method of market basket bidding for surplus merchandise comprising:

• soliciting bids for a plurality of lots, each lot having a comparison value and a minimum purchase price;
• receiving a plurality of bids on combinations of the lots from a plurality of buyers, at least one lot receiving bids from more than one buyer being for overlap portion;
• notifying the buyers bidding on the overlap portion;
• allowing the buyers to raise bids on at least one of the overlap portion, at least one lot in the overlap portion, and the combination;
• awarding the overlap portion to a winning buyer, the winning buyer having submitted a bid on a combination that includes the overlap portion, wherein the bid submitted by the winning buyer has a parameter having a higher parameter value than other parameters calculated from bids from other buyers, the parameter being a percentage over a total comparison value for the combination;
• allotting the lots in the combinations not included in the overlap portion to the buyers bidding on the lots;
• and
• requiring the buyers to purchase all of the lots allotted and awarded.

A machine readable medium for market basket bidding for surplus merchandise comprising:

• a first machine readable code that receives a plurality of bids for combinations of lots selected by a plurality of buyers, at least one lot receiving bids from more than one buyer being an overlap portion;
• a second machine readable code that stores comparison values and minimum purchase prices for the lots;
• and
• a third machine readable code that awards the overlap portion to a winning buyer, having submitted a bid on a combination that includes the overlap portion, the bid submitted by the winning buyer having a parameter with a higher parameter value than other parameters calculated from bids from other buyers, the parameter being a percentage over a total comparison value for the combination.