40. The method of claim 11 wherein when a buyer request is received, an expected contribution to the seller utility from that request is calculated such that the optimal price computed by the seller engine will be the price that maximizes such contribution.
40. The method of claim 11 wherein when a buyer request is received, an expected contribution to the seller utility from that request is calculated such that the optimal price computed by the seller engine will be the price that maximizes such contribution. 42. The method of claim 40 wherein the utility function is linear as given substantially by u = w R ⁢ R t + Q ⁢ ⁢ ρ ⁡ ( p ) ⁢ p R T + w M ⁢ M t + Q ⁢ ⁢ ρ ⁡ ( p ) ⁢ ( p - C ) M T + w S ⁢ S t + Q ⁢ ⁢ ρ ⁡ ( p ) S T where w R is revenue utility weights, w M is profit utility weights, w S is sales volume utility weights, Q is number of units, p is unit quote price by seller and the variable being optimized, ρ(p) is historic bid-response function, C is unit cost for seller, R t is revenue achieved so far, R T is revenue target as configured by the seller where T is the total time to achieve the target, M t is achieved profit so far, M T is profit target as configured by the seller where T is the total time to achieve the target, S t is achieved sales volume so far, and S T is sales volume target as configured by the seller where T is the total time to achieve the target.