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This has not been my experience with selling to US State governments. Most (all?) are required to the take the lowest bid that satisfies their requirements, bu
by Encosia 12y ago
This has not been my experience with selling to US State governments.
Most (all?) are required to the take the lowest bid that satisfies their requirements, but they are free to craft their requirements so that only one vendor can possibly meet them.
I raise my rate when working with government entities (to account for the significant administrative overhead and lead time on payment), as compared to private companies, and still have no trouble getting POs for my asking price.
- bdcravens 12y ago...they are free to craft their requirements so that only one vendor can possibly meet them. I've been the recipient of a government (in this case, large municipal essential services department) RFP that was crafted for me.
- Spooky23 12y agoDepends on the type of purchase. Things like software usually go though a multi-state "miscellaneous software" contract. You provide a parts list, provide it to resellers on contract, and the resellers compete over the fulfillment pennies. Each state is a little different, but I would be careful about telling the world about potentially bad bids.
- Encosia 12y agoI wasn't selling a commodity product or very fungible service, so that type of bidding process wasn't relevant to these particular situations. In the end, my government clients all received great total value (i.e. relatively high unit cost, but a much lower overall cost than they'd experienced with "cheaper" vendors in the past) and consistently successful outcomes. So, I don't feel bad at all about the process we had to go through in order to secure that for them, as suspect as it may superficially seem.