Adding a FlexBid Lot

In many cases, projects are comprised of similar lots and bidders are interested in getting a larger proportion of the business. They may be willing to offer large discounts on the smaller lots if they are awarded all of the business of the bigger lots. FlexBid lots make it possible for bidders to communicate these kinds of conditional discounts.

FlexBid lots are special aggregate lots that enable bidders to place percentage discount bids on a group of lots. When bidders enter a discount for a FlexBid lot, they are NOT modifying their bids on the Standard or ItemBid lots included in the FlexBid lot. Rather, they are applying a percentage discount to their bids based on the condition that they will be awarded all lots included in the FlexBid lot. In Bid Management, FlexBids are displayed as percentages associated with the FlexBid lot, not as bids on the constituent lots.

FlexBid lots are often used to show real-time aggregate bidder rankings by including constituent Standard or ItemBid lots into a FlexBid lot even when you are NOT soliciting percentage discounts. To use the FlexBid feature in this way, create the FlexBid lot, select the constituent lots, and check the "Do Not Open" check box. With this set-up, the lot will never open for bidding but will show real-time rankings.

Other rules and behavior regarding FlexBid lots are:

FlexBid is an advanced optimization feature that allows the creation of "packaged" lots to allow the bidders to bid more competitively than on the constituent lots.
FlexBid lots are not supported for forward auction projects.
FlexBid lots accept percentage discount bids and automatically calculate the total package lot aggregate bid for the bidders when the percentage bids are placed. This way, the bidders can offer a better price for the sum total of several lots than the individual lots themselves which allows for greater potential project success.
You can create any number of FlexBid lots with different lot combinations.
You can use FlexBid lots for multi-year contracts, which enables you to collect rebates and year-to-year cost savings bids.
FlexBid lots apply to Standard lots AND ItemBid lots.
Bidders must enter a bid for each individual lot referenced by the FlexBid lot before they can enter a discount for the FlexBid lot.

NOTE: For more information on how aggregate lots work in a Live Event (from a supplier point of view), see Live Event.

»To add a FlexBid lot

NOTE: FlexBid are aggregate lots referencing other Standard or ItemBid lots so you must add at least one Standard or ItemBid lot containing at least one item before you can add a FlexBid lot.

From the Create New Project or Project Properties wizard, click Next to navigate through pages to get to the Lots and Items window or expand the project in the Connections and Projects tree and click on the toolbar.
Click on the toolbar and select New FlexBid Lot to open the FlexBid Lot Properties window.

Enter information for the lot and click Finish to create the lot. See the following section for detailed information about individual fields on the page.

Fields in FlexBid Lot Properties

Lot Name: Enter a descriptive name that adequately identifies the contents of the lot for bidders during the bidding process. You may want to use a name that makes it obvious that this is an aggregate lot, e.g. Total Package.
Allow ties for first place: Place a check mark if you want to allow bidders to tie for first place. Traditionally, buyers don't want suppliers to tie bids for first place because it minimizes the competitive pressure on suppliers to continue improving their bids. However, there are some cases where it makes sense to allow first place ties for a specific lot. For example, suppliers may be willing to offer a specific lot for no charge (training, freight, installation costs, etc.), resulting in multiple vendors tying for first place with a bid of $0.

Bidders see a tie indicator when they are tied for first place.

For users who import lots and items from a spreadsheet, you can create an Allow Tie Bids column with a "Yes” indicating that tie bids should be allowed for the lot or item in that row and a "No” preventing tie bids for first place bids.

Do not open: Select this option if you want the lot to display for bidders during the Live Event but do NOT want to open it for bidding. You can get the same result by setting the start time and end time to the same time.

NOTE: This option is a powerful tool when used in conjunction with FlexRank or FlexBid. Closed lots do not open for bidding, but they can still be included in a bidder's analysis to show how they compare with their competitors. This is typically used for fixed costs, such as freight. You can also ask that final bids be submitted for unopened lots prior to the Live Event and, using Bid Management, submit the bids prior to the Live Event so bidders can compete with consideration to their bids on lots that are not open for live bidding.

Advanced: Opens the Advanced Settings window. In most cases, the default settings are correct, but you may have situations where you need to customize settings for a specific lot. Some information captured in this window is used to populate fields in the Standard Template to create Project Documents. The Advanced Settings Page contains the following tabs:

Minimum Winning Bid Decrement: Enter the minimum amount that a bidder must "beat" the current winning bid in order to be ranked as the winning bid. The amount can be entered as a value, e.g. $100.00 or as a percentage of the start price, e.g. 1% of a $1000.00 start price would force a bidder to beat the best bid by at least $100.00. The Minimum Bid Decrement (or Minimum Bid Increment for forward auctions) prevents bidders from wasting extension time by bidding down pennies at a time when, for example, the total lot value is over a million dollars. If the minimum bid decrement is set too high, it stifles competition and causes the project to end sooner than necessary leaving possible savings "on the table." If the minimum bid decrement is set too low, it lets bidders place insignificantly better bids and causes the Live Event to extend needlessly. In most cases, Iasta recommends setting the minimum bid decrement to the nominal equivalent of a percentage of the lot start price, specifically, between 0.25% to 1% of the lot value. However, if you set the auto-extension time to a relatively long period, it makes sense to have a larger minimum bid decrement.

Nominal (Monetary): The amount entered is the actual value by which a submitted bid must beat the current winning bid for the bid to be accepted.
Percent: The amount entered is the percentage of the start price by which a bid must beat the current winning bid for the bid to be accepted.

Minimum Bidder Decrement: Enter the minimum amount that a bidder must "beat" their own previous bid in order for the bid to be accepted. The amount can be entered as a value, e.g. $50.00 or as a percentage of the start price, e.g. .25%.

Nominal (Monetary): The amount entered is the actual value by which a bidder must beat their previous bid for the bid to be accepted.
Percent: The amount entered is the percentage of the start price by which a bidder must beat their previous bid for the bid to be accepted.

Packaged Lots: Iasta SmartSource lists the Standard and ItemBid lots currently in the project. Select the lots you want to include in this aggregate lot.

Use these buttons to navigate:

Finish: Saves the lot and returns to the Lots and Items Window where you can continue adding lot groups, lots, and items.
Cancel: Exits Lot Properties page without saving.
Help: Opens Iasta SmartSource Desktop Online Help.