Reserve feedback

Reserve prices

A reserve price is the highest price you, as a purchaser, are willing to pay for a good or service. Reserve prices can insulate you from unfavorable bidding outcomes, filter out uncompetitive bidders, and if leveraged correctly, increase competition.

Adding a reserve column

Sourcing Optimizer provides different methods for providing reserve information and feedback to bidders. If you want to directly provide the reserve price to bidders, you can easily configure a standalone column in the bid sheet containing the reserve price for each lot.

You can create and populate the reserve column offline in the bid sheet using Excel and then upload the bid sheet, or create and populate the column within Sourcing Optimizer on the Columns tab.

For additional information, see Columns tab and Adding an input column.

Reserve prices column in the bid sheet
Figure 1. Reserve prices column in the bid sheet

A reserve prices column must be a purchaser-input, numeric, mandatory column. You must enter a value for each lot.

This method is effective for plainly communicating the exact price that bidders must meet or be lower than to be in consideration for winning lots. However, it may not be the best method for fostering competition in your event.

Reserve met feedback

Sourcing Optimizer offers alternative approaches for reserve-based feedback that leverage the reserve price information, rather than directly disclosing it. Reserve met feedback offers a practical and simple means of communicating to bidders if their bids, or any bids, have met the reserve price for each lot, without explicitly stating the exact reserve prices for each lot. A blue and gray, color-based system indicates to bidders if the reserve for each lot has been met; blue indicates that the reserve has been met and gray indicates that the reserve has not been met.

Reserve met feedback — Bidder view
Figure 2. Reserve met feedback — Bidder view

The feedback provided to bidders can be based on their own bids meeting the reserve or any bid meeting the reserve.

Before configuring reserve met settings, you must first assign the Reserve column role to the reserve prices column in your bid sheet. If you are using reserve met feedback, ensure that you configure the reserve prices column to be hidden from bidders so that they cannot see the actual reserve prices.

For additional information, see Assigning a column role, Adding a feedback column, and Editing a column.

Assigning the Reserve column role

  1. Go to Design > Bid Sheet.
  2. Click the Columns tab.
  3. In the Column roles area, click Assign roles.
  4. Under Reserve, select the column with the reserve prices.
  5. At the top of the page, click Save changes.
Assigning the Reserve column role
Figure 3. Assigning the Reserve column role

Reserve met on own bid

You can configure the reserve met feedback to indicate whether or not an individual bidder's bid has met the reserve. This enables bidders to see on which specific lots they need to improve their bids to meet the reserve. This approach isn't as direct and transparent as providing a standalone column with the exact reserve prices, and can incentivize bidders to improve their bids without knowing precisely by how much they need to lower their bids.

Also, knowing on which lots their bids have met the reserve allows bidders to focus on lots where their bids have not met the reserve.

To configure reserve met feedback for each bidder's own bids, complete the following steps:

  1. Go to Design > Bid Sheet.
  2. Click the Columns tab.
  3. In the Add a column area, next to Feedback, click add.
  4. Under Feedback type, click Reserve met.
  5. Enter a column name in the Name field.
  6. Optional: Enter a column description in the Description field.
  7. Select where in the bid sheet you want to place the column from the Placement list.
  8. Under Visibility, click Visible to bidders.
  9. Under Bid source, click an option for when the feedback is updated. The feedback can be updated after each round or after each bid.
  10. Under Bid feedback status, click Own bid.
Reserve_met_-_Column_Configuration.png
Figure 4. Configuring reserve met feedback for bidder's own bid

Reserve met on any bid

You can also configure reserve met feedback to indicate if any bid has met the reserve. This approach further obscures direct reserve price feedback and only communicates to bidders that at least one bidder's bid has met the reserve or that no bids have met the reserve. Knowing that a bid has met the reserve but not whether their bid has met the reserve may lead bidders to improve their bids.

Bidders can see which lots do not have bids that have met the reserve. This feedback configuration may also incentivize bidders to target lots on which the reserve has not been met.

To configure reserve met feedback for any bid, complete the following steps:

  1. Go to Design > Bid Sheet.
  2. Click the Columns tab.
  3. In the Add a column area, next to Feedback, click add.
  4. Under Feedback type, click Reserve met.
  5. Enter a column name in the Name field.
  6. Optional: Enter a column description in the Description field.
  7. Select where in the bid sheet you want to place the column from the Placement list.
  8. Under Visibility, click Visible to bidders.
  9. Under Bid source, click an option for when the feedback is updated. The feedback can be updated after each round or after each bid.
  10. Under Bid feedback status, click Any bid.