Model and Optimal Bidding Strategies in Multi-attribute English Auction

Abstract

Currently the price-based only auctions can't completely satisfy the practical demand in E-Commerce. Multi-attribute auctions have gained more and more people's interests because of their advantages comparing to the price-based only auction. In this paper, we propose a novel multi-attribute auction model which is more universal and more suitable for the real-world settings. In our work, we extend David's multi-attribute auction model, and further study the optimal bidding strategies in the multi-attribute English auction protocol. Then we prove an important deduction of David's Lemma 1, and discuss the influence on the optimal bidding strategies of the auction environment parameters. Finally, the analysis shows that the modified English protocol reduces the unnecessary information revelation and improves the bidders' enthusiasm in participating in the auction.