Incentive-based website architecture

The present invention applies gaming theory and well-understood sales processes and techniques to allow the operator of an interactive sales medium to control what is displayed to a user of the medium in a manner that signals their intentions (e.g., looking for a lower price, looking for a particular incentive, etc.) so that the “strategies” being used by the consumer can be identified and exploited to lead the consumer to a desired end choice. In particular, upon identification of the strategies being used by the consumer, incentives (e.g., gradually increasing rewards and/or decreasing “punishments”) are presented to the consumer in such a way that the margins achieved by an eventual sale are slowly decreased with each presentation of the incentives to the consumer. Since the presentation of each incentive increases the likelihood the consumer will make a purchase, margins are maximized for the seller.