Abstract: A permission-based marketing system for selling goods and services wherein a consumer requests one or more sellers to present proposals for the consumer to purchase a particular item and the opportunity to respond to the request for these proposals is advertised and sold to sellers for a fee. A portion of the fee paid for the opportunity to respond to the request is paid to the consumer. A system which performs the permission-based marketing method is also provided as well as a World Wide Web portal site and a method for interacting with this portal site.

Abstract: A tire loading apparatus and method of packing tires that includes placing the tires in a rack, compressing the tires, and assembling the rack are disclosed. The apparatus includes one or more conveyors, scanners, and robots that load tires from a conveyor to a rack. A tire unloading apparatus is also disclosed. The unloading apparatus includes a scissor mechanism to raise and/or lower tire racks to an unloading platform. The unloading apparatus additionally includes one or more unloaders and conveyors. The sorting and unloading of tires is accomplished with one or more automated conveyors, scanners, and storage structures for reading information from incoming tires and using the tire information to sort and store the tires. A rack to improve compression and support of tires during storage and shipment is also disclosed.