Bidding in multiple on-line auctions

摘要

A method of determining a bidding strategy for purchasing a plurality of goods from a plurality of different types of on-line auctions is described. The method comprises: accessing probabilistic belief models for each of the plurality of different types of auctions; considering combinations of bids in each specific auction type for the plurality of different types of auctions; removing each possible bid of the combination of bids which fails to meet a predefined constraint of that type of auction for the plurality of different types of auctions, by use of the probabilistic belief models; estimating the expected benefit of each possible combination of bids across different types of auctions by use of the probabilistic belief models; and selecting the combination of bids across different types of auction which provides the highest expected benefit, for use as the bidding strategy.