What is new?

The Internet-based fish sale systems exist since some time ago, and there are mainly two models of such systems:

• Those based on a catalogue on the basis of which the customers create their orders. This model functions like any other e-business portal. It is commonly used by the fish wholesalers for the resale process.
• Those based on a Dutch auction, which is the most common way of carrying out the first sale in the wholesale fish markets. These work like a remote control, so that the customer sees the price panel through the Internet and when that panel reaches the desired price the customer issues an order to fix the price and assign the batch to himself.

The new features of the MASFIT system consist in that the purchase is not carried out by the user, but rather by one of the software agents in an automatic way, based on a predefined strategy and with a capability to react according to the progress of the auction. This allows the user to buy in multiple fish markets at the same time, and in an unassisted way, without the need to keep an eye on the auctions.

The capability of the agents of one single buyer to communicate with each other allows the user to define certain purchase targets that they will later try to achieve in an optimised and coordinated way.