Combining bundle search with buyer coalition formation in electronic markets: a distributed approach through explicit negotiation Conference Paper uri icon

abstract

  • In electronic markets, both bundle search and buyer coalition formation are profitable purchasing strategies for buyers who need to buy small amount of goods and have no bargaining power. It is valuable to combine these two purchasing strategies for buyers to obtain greater discounts based on the different discount policies of multiple sellers. In this paper, we present a distributed mechanism that allows buyers to use both purchasing strategies. The mechanism includes a very efficient heuristic bundle search algorithm and a distributed coalition formation scheme, which is based on an explicit negotiation protocol. The resulting coalitions are stable in the core. The simulation results show that the cost to buyers is close to the optimal cost. Increasing the number of buyers who are involved in the coalition formation process does not increase the communication load caused by the negotiation between two buyers. Copyright 2004 ACM.

name of conference

  • Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Electronic commerce - ICEC '04

published proceedings

  • Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Electronic commerce - ICEC '04

author list (cited authors)

  • He, L., & Ioerger, T. R.

citation count

  • 8

complete list of authors

  • He, Linli||Ioerger, Thomas R

editor list (cited editors)

  • Janssen, M., Sol, H. G., & Wagenaar, R. W.

publication date

  • January 2004