You submit your bid from the Submit Bid tab on the tender page. In the portal, click the tender on the Tenders screen. After you bid, the tab's name becomes My Bid.
The Tender Details tab shows the bid deadline, the ceiling price if any, the required bid validity period, the bid bond requirement and the evaluation criteria. Addenda and frequently asked questions are there too; if something changes during the tender, you learn it there.
In a tender with pre-qualification
To be able to bid, you first need to answer the questions in the Prequalification tab and be approved by the buyer. When you are approved, you receive an email and the bid form opens.
Filling in the form
- Currency. If the buyer allowed more than one currency, choose from the Bid Currency list. If not, you bid in the tender's currency.
- Item prices. Enter a unit price for each item; the item amount and the Total Bid Amount are calculated automatically. If the tender allows partial bids, mark I will not bid on this item for an item you will not price. You must price at least one item.
- Commercial terms. In the Commercial Terms section you can enter payment terms (days, 0 for cash), delivery time (days), whether shipping is included in the price, and warranty (months). None of them is mandatory; what you enter appears next to your price in the buyer's bid table. Click the selected shipping option again to clear it.
- Bid conditions. If the tender requires it, enter your bid's validity period in the Bid Conditions section. The period counts from the bid deadline and cannot be less than the number of days the buyer requires. If a bid bond is required, enter the amount, the issuing bank, the letter number and the bond's expiry date. The bond must cover the last day your bid is valid.
- Note (optional): your remarks about delivery or your bid.
- Documents. Add documents such as data sheets, catalogs or a scan of the bond letter with Choose File: PDF, Word, Excel or image; up to 10 files, 10 MB per file. ZIP is not accepted.
- Click Send Bid. When you see the "Bid sent" message, your bid has been delivered.
Ceiling price
If the tender has a visible ceiling price, it is shown above the form, and if your total exceeds the ceiling the bid cannot be sent. If no ceiling is shown, there is no amount limit applied to you.
After sending
- Your bid is sealed: until the bid deadline, no one can see it, including the buyer.
- Until the bid deadline, you can update or withdraw it from the My Bid tab. Details: Updating and withdrawing a bid.
- If you forgot to add a document, you can add and remove documents in the bid documents section of the My Bid tab until the round closes.
- When time is up and the bids are opened, you receive a "Your Bid Is Under Evaluation" email. If the buyer starts a new round or the tender concludes, you receive an email too.
Common situations
It says your bid was received but the documents could not be uploaded.
Your bid reached the buyer; only the documents could not be uploaded. Click Retry Documents, or skip with Continue and add the documents later from the bid screen.
The button says "Time is up".
The bid deadline has passed and no bid can be submitted in this round. If the buyer starts a new round, you will receive an email.
I get a warning that no unit price was entered for an item.
There is an item you did not price. Enter the price, or, if the tender allows partial bids, mark that you are not bidding on that item.
The file does not attach.
Check the file type (PDF, Word, Excel, JPG, PNG, WEBP) and size (up to 10 MB). ZIP files are not accepted; add documents separately.
Tell us what you see on screen and we will look at it together.