Dynamic pricing system and method

A machine-readable media storing instructions, which when executed by a processing system, cause the processing system to perform a method to dynamically price a sellable object, the method comprising:

• providing a first user interface by which a user may define a list of products from which sellable objects may be defined, said list of products comprising descriptions of those products, and pricing information corresponding to those products;
• providing a second user interface by which any user may define extended attributes pertaining to the products and pricing information corresponding to the extended attributes;
• providing a third user interface by which any user may select a product from the list of products to build the sellable object;
• providing a fourth user interface by which any user may selectively add for selectively adding an extended attribute to the selected product
• determining a static price for the sellable object as a function of a base price of the selected product and a base price for the extended attribute selectively added to the selected product;
• determining pricing factors that are applicable to the sellable object based on the selectively added attribute, wherein the pricing factors include a plurality of matrix-based pricing factors stored as a plurality of rows in at least one table in a database;
• dynamically adjusting the static price for the sellable object based on the pricing factors determined to be applicable to the sellable object;
• specifying at least one search criterion based on attributes of the sellable object;
• generating a query identifying the at least one table to search using the search criteria;
• and
• executing the query against a database in which said table is stored to identify at least one matrix-based pricing factor applicable to the sellable object.

A computer-implemented system comprising a distributed multi-tier architecture, wherein the distributed multi-tier architecture comprises:

• a client machine tier comprising a client machine running a client-side software;
• an application server tier comprising a application server coupled in communication with said client machine via a first computer network, each application server running a middleware software;
• and
• a database tier comprising at least one database server running database server software to host a database in which data for the system are stored, each database server coupled in communication with the one application server via a second computer network,
• wherein execution of the client-side, middleware, and database server software cooperatively performs operations comprising:
• providing a first user interface on the client machine by which a user may select products from a list of products stored in the database to define a sellable object;
• providing a second user interface on the client machine by which any user may selectively add an extended attribute to one of the selected products;
• determining a static price for the sellable object as a function of a base price of the selected products and a base price for the extended attribute selectively added to the one of the selected products;
• determining pricing factors that are applicable to the sellable object based on -attributes of the sellable object or the extended attribute added to the one of the selected products, wherein the pricing factors include a plurality of matrix-based pricing factors stored as a plurality of rows in at least one table in a database;
• dynamically adjusting the static price for the sellable object based on the pricing factors determined to be applicable to the sellable object;
• specifying at least one search criterion based on attributes of the sellable object;
• generating a query identifying the at least one table to search using the search criteria;
• and
• executing the query against a database in which said table is stored to identify at least one matrix-based pricing factor applicable to the sellable object.