National hotel chain uses reverse auction to purchase guest room furniture

Friday, April 8, 2011

National hotel chain uses reverse auction to purchase guest room furniture

A large national hotel chain partnered with eBridge to purchase items for a room renovation project.  The first purchase was for furniture (casegoods) in king, queen and double guest rooms.

First, eBridge’s worked with the hotel’s purchasing team to modify the specifications to complement the reverse auction process.  Next, eBridge received a list of preferred suppliers from the hotel group.  To increase competition the bid, eBridge’s sourcing team recruited additional qualified participants.

Once the suppliers were approved by the hotel group, eBridge conducted one-on-one tutorials for each supplier.  In every event with eBridge, suppliers have the opportunity to ask questions throughout the process and receive a personal tutorial to make sure they are comfortable with the system and ready to compete.

During the live event, the three suppliers placed a total of 63 bids on the three line items.  First place changed hands 12 times, and at the conclusion of the event, first and second place suppliers were separated by a mere 0.026%, indicating true market value was achieved.  The final low bid was 17% below budget!