Reverse Auctions: A Competitive Tool for Today’s Market
Why use Reverse Auctions?
Online reverse auctions are a great source for competitively priced supplies. More and more companies are turning to online reverse auctions to acquire goods and services they need to run their business. They allow a company of any size, from small businesses to huge multinational conglomerates, to procure necessary materials and contracts at the lowest prices available. By obtaining the best possible pricing for the products and labor used in generating their products, companies can lower their operating costs and possibly the price of their merchandise giving them a competitive edge in the market today.
How do Reverse Auctions work?
The majority of people are familiar with the standard, or Dutch, auction that has become so popular online through sites like Ebay. These auctions start with a product or service being offered to any and all interested parties at a low starting bid. Then in an attempt to procure the product or action offered the involved parties or companies endeavor to outbid the previous bidder. Outbidding in traditional auctions means agreeing to pay a higher price than the other prospective purchasers. This results in the highest bidder winning the auction. Most of these auctions are not “silent” meaning the bidders are privy to the value the last bidder offered.
In reverse auctions, a company or person states what service or good they wish to purchase and the maximum price they are willing to pay. Then those who can provide the requested item bid on it. Bidders in this type of auction are competing against others in the same industry to be hired on. They outbid each other by offering the service or product either at a lower price than the person or company before them or by offering more of the product for the same price. As with standard auctions, bidders can view what others engaged in the auction have already bid. This is what drives the offering price down or amount offered up, further insuring the most competitive rate for the client seeking the service. However, in contrast to the Dutch auction, reverse auctions are won by the lowest bidder or the entity that offers the most quantity or quality at the lowest price. Another feature present in reverse auctions that is so advantageous to receiving the best bid possible is a moderator. The moderator adds comments to keep the momentum brisk since many of these auctions have a small window for bidding, often just minutes. All these factors contribute to what has made reverse auctions so appealing to companies both large and small.
Where are reverse auctions held?
Most commerce today is done online as it is so time and money efficient and with the right advertising and networking reaches the largest amount of potential customers. So naturally reverse auctions have found a wide audience on the internet. The best source of online reverse auctions for media is Enversa Media Marketplace.
Enversa complements, rather than replaces, the current media-buying process. Enversa, a Web-based media bidding tool, is used for print, online, outdoor, TV and radio media buys. Used during the negotiation phase of the media-buying process, Enversa delivers significantly more inventory than the current market rate.
Contact Marc Pickren for further details as to how the program works.
This entry was posted on Monday, February 9th, 2009 at 11:05 pm and is filed under Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.