A designated bid reverse auction for agent-based electronic commerces

Abstract

Internet auctions are seen as an effective form of electronic commerce. An internet auction consists of multiple buyers and a single seller. We propose an alternative, the REV auction, in which a buyer can select sellers before conducting the auction. There are several advantages to our mechanism. First, the seller selection mechanism enabled us to reflect the buyers’ preference. Second, the seller’s evaluation mechanism effectively maintains seller quality. Third, our mechanism can avoid consulting before bidding. We implemented an experimental e-commerce support system based on the REV auction. Experiments demonstrated that the REV auction increased the number of successful trades. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2002.