E-commerce companies publish tender notices for the whole society to attract interested suppliers to participate in the bidding competition, and then select the best ones from them. This method is called open bidding, also known as competitive bidding. The basic procedures of competitive bidding are bidding, tendering, bid opening, bid evaluation, bid award and contract signing.
(1) Bidding: Prepare bidding documents according to procurement requirements (bidding documents are invitation documents issued by e-commerce companies to suppliers, including project requirements, bidding rules and contract conditions, and are also the main basis for bidding activities. They are legally binding on all parties involved in bidding activities) and publish bidding notices.
(2) Bidding: Interested suppliers fill in bidding documents according to bidding requirements and submit them to e-commerce companies.
(3) Bid opening: E-commerce companies formally open suppliers’ bid documents at a pre-specified time and place.
(4) Bid evaluation: E-commerce companies review and evaluate bid documents according to regulations and select the most suitable suppliers. Bid evaluation is a very important task, and e-commerce companies should do this work in accordance with the principles of openness, fairness and impartiality.
(5) Awarding: Select the supplier based on the best bid after the bid evaluation
(6) Signing the contract: Both parties sign the contract in accordance with the regulations
In order to achieve better development, an e-commerce company decided to expand its LED billboard sales business. After a market survey and analysis, the e-commerce company adopted the competitive bidding method and expected to invest 2 million yuan. LED billboards are an unfamiliar field for the e-commerce company. As soon as the bidding announcement was issued, many suppliers came in droves. This situation of many suppliers competing with each other made the e-commerce company very selective.
The e-commerce company strictly followed the competitive bidding procedures. After a series of links such as bidding, opening, evaluation, and awarding, it finally selected a supplier with a relatively suitable price from multiple suppliers that met the quality and service requirements. Since the product itself is not a niche product, it took less than a month from bidding to selecting a supplier, and the time cost was not increased compared to the ordinary method.
Tips
If it is an e-commerce company that adopts the competitive bidding method for the first time, it is likely to save money in an unfamiliar field, and at the same time it will have a new understanding of this method, so that it will have more choices in future procurement work.