Bidding on Product and Service Rentals

A computer program product encoded on a tangible, non-transitory storage medium, the product comprising computer readable instructions for causing one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

• presenting selection between a deal for a rental period for a product that enables a user to purchase a rental period for a specified amount and an auction a rental period for a product over an auction period, wherein the product is possessed by a partner and a bid server manages the deal and the auction;
• if the deal is selected, transmitting a request to the partner to send the user the product;
• if the auction is selected, determining whether the user submitted a winning bidder based on bids received during the auction period;
• and
• transmitting a request to the partner to ship the product to the user if the user selected the deal or is the winning bidder.