Analysis Of Multi-Item Online Auction Design:a Multi-Agent-Based Approach

With the rapid development of E-commerce, the competition among different commercial sites become increasingly fierce, therefore, it’s important to explore the optimal auction mechanism design which inserts deep influence on both the bidders and the auctioneers.To study the impact of different auction designs on the final revenue gained by both sides, the paper built a bottom-up multi-agent model based on the mechanism of taobao website.The empirical results indicate that:(1) compared with Dutch auction, the English clock auction brings lower market clearing price, higher utility for consumers and lower revenue for the producer; (2) as to Dutch auction, with the increase of price reduction value, the speed of reaching the market clearing price, equilibrium utility and equilibrium revenue become higher, the utility of consumers become higher while the final clearing price and equilibrium revenue hardly change. The contribution of this paper lies in the support for auctioneers to choose the optimal auction mechanism and for bidders to adjust their bidding behaviors accordingly.