Online Multivariable Auction: where is it used?

Why Online Multivariable Auction?

What if you want to buy a product or service at an online auction, but don’t want the price to be the only criterion of winning? What if, for example, quality, quantity, or warranty concerns you no less than the price? Regular single-variable auctions are not really convenient here. And here comes Online Multivariable Auction, which will help to solve the problem. Let’s find out why it is the best solution by looking at its features:

• Multivariability - This is the main feature that distinguishes Online Multivariable Auction from other auctions. It allows the Buyer to select the optimal Supplier by more than one attribute;
• Effort-saving - In Paper-Based Multivariable Auction, the Buyer needs to evaluate all the given data on attributes from different Sellers to choose the winner, which will take a lot of effort to complete. In Online Multivariable Auction, the system evaluates all data for the Buyer and offers a Supplier who best fits all the criteria and who becomes the winner;
• Time-Saving - As the system of Online Multivariable Auction does all the work for the Buyer, it requires less time for the evaluation than if the person does the same task;
• Transparency - The bidding is fully transparent and an Observer can view the auction process to ensure its transparency.

What is Online Multivariable Auction used for and how does it work?

This auction is often used to buy and sell Energy Services Contracts (ESCO) as well as other products and services where the main focus is on various different attributes instead of only one attribute (e.g. price only). Mostly Online Multivariable Auctions are used for business-to-government procurement. Now let’s see how it works.

The government wants to purchase renewable energy for a reasonable price for a short period of time from one of the Supplier Businesses out there. So the government creates an online auction. But they do not want the auction to evaluate the winner only based on the lowest price, they want a minimum of 3 units of a product of high quality, and with a long warranty for example. Here come multiple criteria that are available only in Online Multivariable Auctions. The government makes a tender proposal and Suppliers submit their bids. Let’s look at a table below with the information from suppliers.

It will take so much time to decide the winner in person with a bunch of various information like that, won’t it? But not to worry, the system in Online Multivariable Auction will do it for you. It evaluates a specific auction formula that will propose the best solution after calculating all criteria. And after getting a winner from the system you can easily go on to signing a contract without any time-consuming troubles. We offer you our software for Online Multivariable Auction implemented in the Prozorro system, which you can even customize to fit your requirements better. Contact us to try it out!