An auction agent for bidding on combinations of items

This paper describes a way to obtain sub-optimal profits in bidding for combinations of goods that are on auction at different sites, and results for an autonomous agent that bids for goods according to the proposed strategy. The types of requirements for combinations are classified as complementary, substitutive and independent. For each type, this paper specifies the region in which bidding on goods will make a positive profit. A bidding strategy is then proposed for sequential auctions under the condition that the bids by the other participants in the auction can be represented by a probabilistic function. Two simulations were constructed to evaluate the proposed strategy. They indicated that the agent that applies the proposed strategy was superior to others that bid for combinations of goods according to simple and intuitive strategies. The simulations also indicated that the proposed strategy was the equilibrium strategy of those we tested, when two agents were simultaneously bidding for the same combination of goods.