Electronic markets are breaking new ground in old industries by providing them with a wealth of supply chain information via the Internet. The way that net market makers match buyers and sellers is key to the success of a marketplace and the design of electronic marketplaces has become a million-dollar business. This is a challenging field for both the business and the academic community.

This book introduces a framework of negotiation protocols for electronic markets. In particular, I will focus on multi-dimensional auction mechanisms which allow automated negotiation on multiple attributes and/or multiple units of a product. The findings and analyses should be useful to an audience of scholars as well as practitioners involved in the business of electronic market design. Through this book a reader should be able to understand the multitude of technical and economic issues involved in the design of electronic marketplaces. In contrast to purely economic treatments of this topic, the book combines aspects of both economics andcomputer science. The book provides a detailed description of the various negotiation protocols, which will be a valuable resource for systems engineers and designers. It also covers the relevant theoretical concepts in this multi-disciplinary field and should, therefore, be of interest to the wider academic community.