MANS: A softbot with adaptive negotiation strategies in the B2B e-commerce

Negotiation is a process of reaching an agreement on the terms of a transaction, such as price, quantity, for two or more parties. Negotiation tries to maximize the benefits for all parties concerned. Instead of using human-based negotiation, e-commerce provides such an environment as adopting automated negotiation. Thus, choosing agent technology is appropriate for an automatic electronic negotiation platform, since autonomous software agents strive for the best deal on behalf of the human participants. Negotiation agents need a clear-cut definition of negotiation models or strategies. In reality, most bargaining systems embody nearly one negotiation model. In this article, we present a mobile agent negotiation system with reusable negotiation strategies that allows agents to dynamically embody a user’s favorite negotiation strategy which can be preinstalled as a component in the system. We develop a prototype system, which is fully implemented in compliance with FIPA specifications, and then, describe the benefits of using the system. Key-Words: B2B e-commerce, Multi-agent system, Negotiation strategy, Negotiation agent