Virtual Marketplace for Agent-Based Electronic Commerce

Abstract

This chapter proposes the architecture for a mobile agent-based virtual marketplace. As the Internet grows, the potential for conducting electronic commerce grows as well. However, given the explosion of online shopping, searching for particular products amongst the sea of commercial content could become a fundamental obstacle for Internet electronic commerce. Hence, an agent-based virtual marketplace is seen as the solution. The agents in the marketplace are autonomous, and so there is no need for user intervention once the agents have been deployed with the assigned task. The architecture of the marketplace has been specifically designed to facilitate agent negotiations by providing a trusted and secure environment. A novel dynamic pricing mechanism has also been implemented in the context of the airline ticketing industry and found to be rather successful.