A protocol for "Combination-Web-Shopping"

"Combination-Shopping" wherein individuals seek to buy matched and coordinated combinations possibly from different commercial enterprises, is a common occurrence in every day life. With e-commerce gaining ground, there is a need to provide a solution to a new category of problems in e-commerce, which addresses the need of "single buyer of multiple items from multiple sellers", or multiple businesses transacting simultaneously with a single customer (mB2C). "Combination-Web-Shopping" deals with the problem of purchasing a set of items, comprising a combination from a set of distinct Web shops in one transaction. As a solution the Combination-Web-Shopping protocol is proposed, which is implemented as a message-based centralized workflow application residing at a mediator. The complete workflow specification is also described.