An Agent-based Approach for Allocation between Buyers and Sellers through a Broker Agent in E-commerce Systems

Abstract

A broker agent in e-commerce systems enables buyers and sellers to do business with each other to achieve the benefits for both buyers and sellers. A broker agent acts as a middleman between buyers and sellers to carry out the allocation process. Although some recent research has focused on this issue, an agent-based e-commerce system to carry out allocation buyers’ requirements and sellers’ offers is still sparse. Based on the mentioned analysis, this paper proposes an agent-based approach for allocation between buyers and sellers through a broker agent in e-commerce systems. The major contributions of this paper are that (i) an agent-based framework is proposed for allocating buyers and sellers. The framework includes three layers: interface layers, modeling buyer’s requirements and seller’s offers, and an allocation layer; (ii) a formula system is built to determine buyers’ satisfaction degree as per seller’s offers; and (iii) an objective function is built to help a broker agent to carry out allocation processes between buyers and sellers to maximize buyers’ satisfaction degree. The results of simulation experiment demonstrate the proposed approach is effective under the different situations, it provides a set of solutions to achieve optimal matching pairs to support decision-makers.