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Reverse Auctions Return

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the that-old-thing? dept

Mon, Apr 28th 2003 12:43pm — Mike Masnick
During the waning days of the boom years, it seemed like everyone had a B2B strategy for letting companies use "reverse auctions" to get supplies. There were all sorts of wild predictions about how thousands of these reverse auction marketplaces would thrive in the coming years. Then, the money stopped flowing, and most of those marketplaces (or companies that built them) shut down. Now, like so many things from the boom years, the good ideas that got overhyped to death, are starting to peak through. For example, the Navy says it's saving millions of dollars using a reverse auction process to have suppliers bid on contracts. My first though on hearing this was that it sounded like a terrible idea - since there should be more than just price that goes into these types of buying decisions (do you really want the cheapest air craft carrier or the best air craft carrier?), but it sounds like they're only using the system for very clearly definied commodity items, where price is really the only distinguishing factor.
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  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 28 Apr 2003 @ 2:30pm

    No Subject Given

    I like reverse auctions. The problem is that most of them are poorly orchestrated, and poorly executed. And the ones that are well put together are slow, with asshole owners. Rentacoder.com is a good example of this. I would work with them if they hadn't become such pricks.

    [ link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    J.D., 28 Apr 2003 @ 7:06pm

    No Subject Given

    I dislike reverse auctions (at least in my field - construction).

    There are quality contractors that deserve to be paid for their overhead and minimal profit, but this system is designed to reward those who are either fly-by-nights or who aniticipate getting change orders and running up the price post-bid by inflating their costs after they get the job.

    And, as another poster mentioned, the bids were poorly run and adhere to no particular standard.

    [ link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 29 Apr 2003 @ 6:35am

    Re: No Subject Given

    kill kill kill

    [ link to this | view in thread ]


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