Once an auction is live, all invited and notified sellers have the opportunity to view and start bidding for the IPS/IPS`s variants. The invited and subscribed sellers will receive a push and/or e-mail notification (depending on their notification settings) regarding the start of the auction. Once they enter the auction, this is the view they will have:
At the top, there is a timeline that gives an idea of the different stages of the auction and at what stage it is at the moment.
Below it, under “Offers”, sellers will have a view of all bids submitted, if the offer visibility is not determined by the buyer as “Private”. Under “Comments”, sellers will have access to information about discussions, remarks, and clarification about the current auction and the IPS’s included in it. The visibility of the comments is the same as the visibility of the offers. In order to have visibility to bids and comments, the seller must have submitted at least 1 bid in the auction. Sellers will have the opportunity to send a personal message to the buyer in case they need to personally communicate with them. Under “Documentation” you can view attachments such as general conditions, drawings, etc. in case the buyer has attached such. In the “Notes” it is possible to have additional explanations about the auction by the buyer, and under “History” will be visible submitted bids. Information such as the number of views, participating sellers, and potential participants can be seen at the top right.
The Active links in the auction are the specific IPS’s which contain the quantity preferred by the buyer to purchase the products contained in it. All IPS variants can be structured in sheets and groups based on the buyer’s preferences for their appearance and organization. To see an IPS and its variants, click on the link. Here you can see all the products contained in the IPS. These products are interchangeable for the buyer.
It could occur that the seller does not have all or any of the IPS products in a particular auction he is taking part in. In this case, the moment the seller submits an offer for such a product, it will automatically be added to his product nomenclature as a public and without a set price. Afterward, the seller can edit the visibility and set a price from “My Product Nomenclature”.
To take part in the auction, the seller needs to click on the “Make an Offer” button highlighted in blue. A new column will open next to the rest of the placed offers, where the seller can choose the product/products he/she wishes to bid for from the drop-down menu and respectively give a price for it/them. When finished, the green tick needs to be selected and the bid will be posted.
All participating sellers will be notified about the new bid being given, however, the visibility of who posted the bid and its associated price will depend on the type of auction access and offer visibility settings determined. The Buyer can request additional information from the sellers to be filled along with the monetary offer value. Such information can include the warranty and delivery period in days.
Whether the seller can submit a bid for only one IPS or is required to enter a price for all of them depends on the number of winners determined by the Buyer. For example – if the auction is with Multiple winners, then each seller can bid for only one of the IPS, but if the auction is with One winner, then each seller is required to enter a price for each IPS before they can submit the offer.
By submitting a bid in an auction, free sellers will have visibility of the first two competing bids submitted in the auction. To see all competitive offers, the seller needs to have a paid tier or one-to-one annual subscription with the buyer who has started the auction.
After submitting their offer, sellers have the opportunity to delete it within 2 minutes of submitting by pressing on the bin icon. Also, sellers can decide whether to improve their original offer by making a new offer or sticking to the original one. To improve an offer that has already been made, the seller must click on the edit sign, which looks like a pen, inside the column containing the offer that is awaiting improvement, and enter the new improved price. There is a possibility to change the delivery time/guarantee in case these fields are active. Once the changes have been made, the seller can click on the green checkmark to save the changes made.
There is no limit to the number of bids that can be placed in an auction until the end of it, unless the buyer sets a maximum number of bids per seller in the extension of the auction. If the buyer has set 10 offers, it means that after the auction goes into extension, each seller has the right to improve their offer a maximum of 10 times. The buyer does not have to enter the maximum number of offers in the extension, but when he does, the sellers will see this in the auction rules.
Please note that the buyer will be able to include all offline bids received for some of the products in the IPS variants and make them visible to bidders. Offline offers are those received from buyers from sellers who are not registered users of Auxionize.
You have several options for commenting on the auction. The comment can be at the auction level (questions/information about the auction itself), at the IPS level (questions/information about the IPS and the products contained in it), or at the attribute level (questions/information about the attribute of a product or its values). Therefore, in the comments section, you can indicate which comments you want to view.
In addition to these 3 types of comments, you have the opportunity to leave a public note directly to your offer here:
