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Agent-mediated Electronic Commerce. introduction. Luk Stoops programming laboratory VUB. Consumer Buying Behavior Model. Need Identification Product Brokering Merchant brokering Negotiation Purchase and Delivery Product Service and Evaluation. Agent Systems. Need Identification.
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Agent-mediatedElectronic Commerce introduction Luk Stoops programming laboratory VUB
Consumer Buying Behavior Model • Need Identification • Product Brokering • Merchant brokering • Negotiation • Purchase and Delivery • Product Service and Evaluation
Need Identification • Becoming aware of unmet need • Stimulating trough product information • Problem Recognition • (Engel-Blackwell model) • Agents • alternate publicity • personalized publicity • ad busters
Product Brokering • What to buy • Critical evaluation of retrieved product information • Agents • allow shoppers to specify constraints on a product’s features • feature filtering • recommend products via “word of mouth” • collaborative filtering
Merchant brokering • Where to buy • BargainFinder • request price from 9 merchant Web sites • 1/3 blocked all of his requests • Jango • request originated from consumer’s browser • Kasbah • distributed trust and reputation mechanism
Negotiation • Auctions on the web • eBay • On Sale • Yahoo • >90 active online auctions • Business-to-business transactions • Fastparts (semiconductor) • FairMarket (computer)
Auctions • Hostile characteristics • first-price open-cry • winning bid > market valuation • Short term benefit • long-term detriment
Auctions Disadvantages • Bids are non-retractable • Products are non-returnable • Long delay between • negotiation • Purchase and delivery • Only the highest bidder(s) can purchase • Shills ! • Buyer coalitions !
AuctionBot • General purpose Internet Auction server • University of Michigan • Start a new auction • Bid in an existing auction. • Facilities for • examining ongoing auctions • inspecting your own account activity • Free of charge.
Product description Minimum price Maximum price Best price so far Time constraints Report activities Product condition Locality Minimum reputation Horrible Difficult Average Good Great Strategy Kasbah Buying Agents
Product description Initial price Lowest price Time constraints Report activities Product condition Locality Minimum reputation Horrible Difficult Average Good Great Strategy Kasbah Selling Agents
Kasbah Find Agents • Monitor market for specific products • timespan • price domain • Buying agents monitor • Selling agents monitor
Purchase and Delivery • Security agents • Agents monitoring • Production • Delivery
Tete-@-Tete (MIT Media Lab) • Negotiates across multiple terms • warranty length and options • shipping time and cost • service contract • return policy • quantity • accessories • payment options • loan options
Beginners Reputation • It is relatively easy to adopt a new or change one's identity. • If a user ends up having a reputation value lower than the reputation of a beginner, he would have an incentive to discard his initial identity and start from the beginning. • Desirable that while a user's reputation value may decrease after a transaction, it will never fall below a beginner's value.
Reputation Improving Rate • Even if a user starts receiving very low reputation ratings, he can improve his status later at almost the same rate as a beginner. • If reputation = the arithmetic average of the ratings received since the user joined the system: users who perform relatively poorly in the beginning adopt a new identity to get rid of their bad reputation history.