Sellers do not necessarily need to participate in an auction, started by a buyer, in order to have the opportunity to place offers for products and services sought. Another chance to compete for the buyer`s business is by directly placing offers inside those buyers` nomenclatures for specific products and their corresponding variants, contained in those nomenclatures.
Under the “Buyer Listing” section, sellers are able to locate buyers by searching for particular products, for main product categories, or for concrete names of buyer companies. When the seller specifies the certain product or main product category, he is interested to sell, a list of buyers, containing such items in their nomenclatures, appears automatically, revealing also the IPS names, carrying the searched products. Note that it is up to the Buyer to decide which IPS to make Public and visible for the Sellers to offer directly in his nomenclature. If, however, an IPS is set to have Private visibility, only its owner will be able to view it.
- Go to “Buyer Listing” on the left of your seller dashboard.
- Choose how to search for buyers – either by product, product category, or buyer company name.
- If you choose to search by product, in the search field type in the name of the specific item or the category name, associated with it. The search by category is similar, however, instead of typing in, you simply follow the category search from the menu.
- After viewing the listing variety, choose which products you wish to make an offer for by pressing the “Select” on the right side of the product/s.
- Once the selection is made, a list of all buyer companies, containing the selected products in their IPS`s will appear under the list of products, displaying their concrete IPS names.
- After all buyers, associated with the chosen products, become visible, to submit an offer press the green “Make an Offer” button, located on the right of the buyer company name.
- The IPS of the selected company, containing the products sought, appears in a grid style, displaying all products, as well as their variants in the tab Offers.
- To submit a bid for a product contained in the IPS variant, you must enter the mandatory values listed under its name, including the price value of your bid for the quantity specified in the variant, as well as validity, warranty period and delivery period in days. The validity determines for what period of time the offer submitted by the seller will be valid at the price determined by them. Note that the buyer who creates the IPS and its variants determines whether additional fields related to the purchase will be activated, such as product warranty and delivery period. This decision is based on the importance that these parameters have for the buyer. Additional fields can be activated during the creation of the IPS variant and can be turned on and off at any time when the buyer deems it necessary.
- To place an offer click on “New offer”:
- When you are ready to make an offer for a product, contained in an IPS variant, you need to enter the mandatory information fields below its name, such as price value of the offer based on the quantity specified in the IPS variant, as well as offer validity, warranty, and delivery period in days. The validity field communicates for how long the given offer will be valid for the specified price. Note that the buyer, who creates the IPS and its variants, determines if additional fields such as warranty of a product and delivery period will be activated for the seller to fill them in. This decision is based on the importance those parameters have for the buyer. The additional fields could be activated at the time of creation of the IPS variant, and could be switched on and off any time the buyer finds it necessary.
- Once you have filled in the necessary information, click on “Place Offer”. Your offer will then be registered in the buyers` nomenclature under and a notification for a new incoming offer will be sent to the buyer company.
- Bidding for a certain product variant is not limited to one offer only. You can submit another bid for the same variant of the product by providing a different price, based on alteration in some of the required information. For example,, if you are able to offer a shorter and a longer delivery period as an option, the offered price for the shorter delivery period might be slightly higher than the one for the longer delivery time. Some information regarding the IPS variants, predetermined by the buyer, will not be changeable as it is considered a mandatory requirement, not allowing the seller to make any alterations about it. Such requirements could include warranty or delivery periods.
- To change the details you have already entered in an offer, click on the button with the pencil symbol, meaning “Edit offer”. To cancel your offer, simply click the red trash can to the right of the edit symbol. You can also use the “Make an Offer” button for an alternative offer of the same product or for a new offer of another product from IPS.
Important aspect of the nomenclature offering is the offer visibility settings. The offers, placed by sellers in the buyers` nomenclature, could be visible or invisible, depending on the Offer Visibility settings determined by the buyer. Offer visibility settings in the nomenclature are similar to those in the auction. If set to have “Public” visibility, all offers given by sellers in the nomenclature, including seller company name and offer value, will be visible for the rest of the sellers. The “Semi-Public” option will allow the sellers to view only offer values, but not the names of the companies, placing the offers. The “Private” option will not allow visibility to either value of offers or the names of the offering companies.
- To enable offer submission by a company search, choose the “Company Search” option from the left drop down menu and type in the specific company name in the search field.
- Click on the company name, highlighted in blue, when it appears.
- You will then see a window with the specific company information and all its existing IPS`s, which are made public.
- When you find an IPS of interest, click on the green “Make an Offer” button.
- After all products, contained in the selected IPS, and its variants become visible, the procedure for offer placing is identical to the one, described in the “Search by Product” and “Search by Category” section.
- All offers placed by the Seller can be easily accessed, edited and deleted in the menu Buyers -> My offers.