Negotiation by software agents in electronic marketplace

Negotiation, an important facet of business, is an iterative and complex process. Depending on the nature of business and the type of transaction, negotiation criteria, duration and complexity vary widely. An intelligent software agent can help the consumers and enterprises in business negotiation. It can negotiate with humans or with other software agents to arrive at mutually agreeable terms and conditions of a business transaction. For instance, a buyer agent may negotiate with several seller agents, or take part in bidding in an online auction. The online automated negotiation has many advantages and overcomes some of the problems and limitations of human negotiation. In this paper, we identify specific demands on and major issues in online negotiation and outline major negotiation agents developed for electronic marketplace. We also highlight a few research issues for further work.

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