Auction software is

application software Application software is any computer program that is intended for end-user use not operating, administering or programming the computer. An application (app, application program, software application) is any program that can be categorized as ...

, that can either be deployed on a

desktop A desktop traditionally refers to: * The surface of a desk (often to distinguish office appliances that fit on a desk, such as photocopiers and printers, from larger equipment covering its own area on the floor) Desktop may refer to various compu ...

, on a

web server A web server is computer software and underlying Computer hardware, hardware that accepts requests via Hypertext Transfer Protocol, HTTP (the network protocol created to distribute web content) or its secure variant HTTPS. A user agent, co ...

or as a

smart contract A smart contract is a computer program or a Transaction Protocol Data Unit, transaction protocol that is intended to automatically execute, control or document events and actions according to the terms of a contract or an agreement. The objective ...

on a blockchain virtual machine. This software is used by auctioneers and participants of

online auction An online auction (also electronic auction, e-auction, virtual auction, or eAuction) is an auction held over the internet and accessed by internet connected devices. Similar to in-person auctions, online auctions come in a variety of types, with ...

s such as

eBay eBay Inc. ( , often stylized as ebay) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that allows users to buy or view items via retail sales through online marketplaces and websites in 190 markets worldwide. ...

. Smart contracts replace an auctioneer's server, if the auctioneer is not trusted. Online Auction companies have opened up their applications to third party application developers to extend the capabilities and increase revenue. API interfaces were developed using

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...

which enable third party developers to build applications that use the back-end of the online auction.

Economic experiments

Economists use special software to study human behavior in auctions by running auctions in a lab. There are diverse software tools for laboratory economic experiments, which allow fast programming of auctions. For instance, z-Tree programming language allows programming an experimental double auction in less than a day. This practise led to appearance of multiple scientific publications exposing results for generalized second price auctions, Dutch auctions, all-pay auctions and other auction types.

Auction websites

Auction websites reside in three categories according to the business model. These are B2B (Business to Business), B2C (Business to Customer), and C2C (Customer to Customer).

website serves all three business models. SAP Ariba website is dedicated to B2B. Ariba patented its auction software technology and won a case worth over $6M against

Emptoris Emptoris is a brand within IBM's Commerce Portfolio. History Late 1999 Avner Schneur founded Emptoris with a goal to transform the strategic sourcing. When acquired by IBM, Emptoris was a developer and provider of strategic supply and contract ...

Inc. in 2009.

Smart-contract based auction

Blockchain The blockchain is a distributed ledger with growing lists of Record (computer science), records (''blocks'') that are securely linked together via Cryptographic hash function, cryptographic hashes. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of th ...

s with

Ethereum Ethereum is a decentralized blockchain with smart contract functionality. Ether (abbreviation: ETH) is the native cryptocurrency of the platform. Among cryptocurrencies, ether is second only to bitcoin in market capitalization. It is open-s ...

functionality allow definition, execution and enforcement of auctions between untrusted parties without the involvement of a trusted third party. A smart contract is code that is executed on top of the blockchain. Blockchain auction ensure transparency and prevent cheating by auctioneers and

collusion Collusion is a deceitful agreement or secret cooperation between two or more parties to limit open competition by deceiving, misleading or defrauding others of their legal right. Collusion is not always considered illegal. It can be used to att ...

by bidders.

Auction sniping software

Auction sniping can be done by software on the bidder's computer, or by an online sniping service. eBay Germany banned ''automated'' sniping services in 2002, but the ban was declared illegal by

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

's County Court, and revoked.

General game playing

General game playing General game playing (GGP) is the design of artificial intelligence programs to be able to play more than one game successfully. For many games like chess, computers are programmed to play these games using a specially designed algorithm, which c ...

was also proposed for trading agents in

supply chain management In commerce, supply chain management (SCM) deals with a system of procurement (purchasing raw materials/components), operations management, logistics and marketing channels, through which raw materials can be developed into finished produc ...

thereunder price negotiation in online auctions from 2003 on. Hereby, an auction can be described in a game description language.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Online Auction Research Report (1999)

Best2Bid leading auction system for Asia market