A Negotiation Agent System in E-Commerce

Abstract

Due to the growth of Internet and computing power of PCs, activities in the real world have been changed with the help of computers. Internet commerce became an interesting research area along with the change of this new computing environment. In a traditional commerce environment, negotiation was an interest topic in the past. In the new Internet commerce environment, computer-supported negotiation becomes interesting in academics. In this chapter, a computer-supported negotiation agent system on the Internet to help buyers to make decisions is then proposed. We believe that a negotiation problem does not focus only on one issue, but rather on multiple issues. Therefore, our negotiation mechanism is based on a multi-attribute utility theory. And, the negotiation strategy focuses on the weighting adjustment on multiple issues. On the other hand, software agent is a useful technology in this new computing environment and the technology has several advantages to solve different computing problems. In a negotiation process the user cannot handle the complex process individually. Also, the process is a time consuming task. Thus, we use the advantage of agent technology as the major system developed approach. With the help of the technology the system can be more efficient in many Internet commerce applications.