A fair and secure group buying system based on arbitration computing mechanism

Trading is a mutually agreeable process. Buyers hope that they can buy their favorite goods or services through trading, and merchants hope that they can obtain a reasonable profit. If friends or family of a buyer are interested in the same commodity or service, they can often buy at a lower price by buying in volume. This concept is referred to as group buying. Although the profit on a single commodity decreases for a merchant, the overall profits are increased due to volume. Traditionally, buyers and merchants trade through a group buying service company. However, sometimes transaction disputes arise. This might happen because a buyer has already paid through a group buying service company but has not received the merchandise or because a merchant has delivered merchandise to a buyer but has not been paid. Transaction disputes arise. We propose a fair group buying system. The proposed scheme uses secure computing theory to meet the security requirements such as mutual authentication, integrity of transaction data and anonymity of buyer. We propose a fair and secure group buying system based on arbitration computing mechanism to provide a comprehensive method for arbitrating an appeal. We create a win/win situation for the buyers, the merchants and the group buying service companies.