Electronic marketplace. The step-by-step instruction on the example of typical electronic marketplace

Main determinations and terms

The Electronic Marketplace (EM) – the hardware-software complex providing interaction between the organizer and bidders at all stages of the conclusion of the transaction in the online mode.

Monobrendovye / corporate ETPs are used by the enterprises only for own purchases.

Third-party/external/independent ETPs allow the supplier to participate in biddings of the different companies.

• The customer — the physical person or legal entity conducting procurement.
• The operator of the platform — the organization which possesses the rights to use ETP.
• The organizer of biddings — the person holding the auction for this purchase. The customer or the physical person or legal entity involved by the customer can act as the organizer of biddings.

The tender or biddings — a competitive form of selection of offers on delivery of goods, rendering services or execution of works on the conditions which are in advance announced in documentation, in the stipulated terms on the principles of competitiveness, justice and efficiency. The contract is signed with the winner of the tender — the participant who submitted the proposal conforming to requirements of documentation in which the best terms are offered. The term "tender" used in the daily speech can be as an analog of the terms "tender" or "auction", and other procurement procedures.

The bidder the legal entity or the individual registered on marketplace, submitting the application for participation in biddings and making price/not price offers.

The Electronic Document (ED) — the document in which information is provided in an electronic digital format.

The Electronic Signature (ES) — the detail of the electronic document intended for identification of the person who signed the electronic document is also full replacement (analog) of the sign manual in the cases provided by the law.

Trade procedures and features of participation in them

Electronic marketplaces can offer tens of trade procedures for purchase execution, many of which are only types of traditional auctions, tenders and requests for proposals. The customers getting under action 223-FZ independently define types and an order of holding all procedures applied in their purchasing activity in the Regulations on purchases. But, as a rule, all biddings take place in several stages:

• notification on tendering,
• submission of requests,
• opening of envelopes,
• consideration and assessment of requests,
• summing up.

Auction — a competitive method of tendering where the right to signing of the contract will belong to the participant who will offer the bottom price. The main stage of holding the auction are biddings when participants in real time submit the price proposals. According to the Civil Code of the Russian Federation after summing up an auction the customer (the organizer of biddings) is obliged to sign the agreement with the winner of an auction.

Many suppliers prefer auctions just because participation in this procedure costs them rather cheap — sent the request, bargained to a certain level, won or not. On the other hand, as in an auction the only selection criterion of suppliers — the price, this price as a result of biddings can strongly fall therefore the supplier should look critically at the starting price of the contract and to determine for itself in advance minimum reasonable price.

Tender — a competitive method of purchase from the submission of price offers closed by a form. The bidder who offered the best terms of agreement performance becomes the winner in tender. For participation in tender suppliers submit applications with the price offer and characteristics according to the tender documentation. Among selection criteria of suppliers there can be a price, delivery date, guarantee period, volume of warranty obligations, qualification of the participant, functional and quality characteristics of goods, etc. The participant who will gain the greatest number of points based on assessment of requests the tender (tender) committee becomes the winner. According to the Civil Code of the Russian Federation after completion of the procedure the organizer is obliged to sign the agreement with the winner of competition.

Request for proposals — the procedure similar to tender, but not obliging the organizer of biddings to signing of the contract with the winner. As well as in tender, the organizer estimates the submitted applications on the basis of several criteria according to an established procedure of assessment. The organizer of biddings has the right to cancel holding a procurement procedure at any stage and also can refuse signing of the contract with the winner of the complete procedure or sign the agreement with any supplier.

Quotation request — the same, as tender, but a set of criteria for determination of the winner only one — the price. In turn, such methods of purchase as request for quotations or a quotation request of the prices, are created for the purpose of obtaining the lowest price offer or monitoring of the prices. Unlike an auction or tender, request for quotations is not biddings. As well as in a case with request for proposals, the organizer of biddings is not obliged to sign the agreement with the participant who offered the best terms, i.e. the price.

Such procedures as requests for proposals and especially tenders, depending on complexity of selection criteria, can involve big costs from the supplier. Nevertheless requests for proposals can be more preferable as provide to the customer more freedoms in the choice of the winner for suppliers.

Also with rather low overheads the framework agreement assuming that the supplier during the certain period will be provided with the order is among procedures. The framework agreement usually defines general options of delivery: nomenclature, minimum and maximum delivery scope, borders or formula of the price, delivery condition. Specific deliveries are performed on the basis of requests of the customer to the supplier.

It is also necessary to understand features of the prequalification (P) of suppliers which means conformity assessment of the supplier to requirements imposed by the customer, for example, to product quality or reliability of the supplier. Prequalification can be carried out as before submission of requests by suppliers for a particular procurement, and separately, for example, at a stage of registration for ETP. Usually separate PKO is implemented on monobranded electronic marketplaces and can be one of signs that the customer is interested in long cooperation with suppliers.

Electronic signature

As a rule, electronic marketplaces demand from the users of existence electronic signature (EDS) which needs to be registered in a personal account of electronic marketplace. Unsigned today only some commercial platforms which do not have relations to the state order work and 223-FZ. According to Federal law No. 63-FZ "About the electronic signature", the EDS needs to be purchased in the accredited certification center. The acquisition value of the digital signature certificate averages from 2 to 6 thousand rubles a year. For use of the electronic signature of the supplier in the system of ETP on the computer of the user the corresponding software which installation instructions usually provide certification centers should be set.

The electronic signature is a file set which can be stored as on normal carriers (a diskette, a CD disk, the memory card), and on protected (token). In turn, the electronic signature is an analog of the sign manual therefore its safe storage needs to pay special attention. The third parties cannot transfer keys of the electronic signature or to copy the EDS on devices which constant physical control cannot be provided.

Work of the supplier for ETP from the registration moment before participation in biddings

1 step — registration for ETP (accreditation)

For work in a system on behalf of the company the supplier needs to undergo registration procedure on electronic marketplace.

Normally it is the standard procedure. It is required to think up the login and the password (not less than 8 characters with alternation of letter cases of the English alphabet and use of digits are desirable). The password is more difficult, the more reliably the account is protected from unauthorized access. Further it is necessary to confirm the e-mail address via e-mail and to load a necessary document package.

For example, the operator of ETP can request the following list of documents:

• registration application;
• the copy of the extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, valid on the date of submission of the registration application (for legal entities), the copy of the extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs, valid on the date of submission of the registration application (for individual entrepreneurs);
• copies of constituent documents (for legal entities), copies of identity documents (for individuals);
• data on the taxpayer identification number;
• copies of the documents confirming the head's powers (for legal entities).

It is important to note that all these documents should be certified by the electronic signature. Having checked a packet of the documents loaded by the user, the operator of ETP (or other responsible person) makes the decision on confirmation registration/failure and notifies on it the applicant. Can refuse, for example, cases of representation by the user of the documents which are not conforming to the requirements set to them, or containing unreliable information. The term of consideration of documents averages from 1 to 5 working days.

2 step — acquaintance to a personal (worker) office of the user

Having successfully undergone registration procedure, the supplier gets access to personal / a study of the user of ETP (our user — IP Borodin Pavel Terentyevich). The study can contain personal information about the supplier, the history of his biddings, messages, the interface for submission of requests for biddings, the register of requests, etc.

Let's dwell upon some sections of the personal account. In the Messages block it is possible to look at all notifications, messages received by the supplier on the platform. For example, messages from technical support service or the notification on approach of important events in biddings, relevant for the supplier.

On the Setup of Messages page the user selects about what events on ETP he wants to receive adequate notices.

Notifications can come both to a personal account of the user, and to e-mail or to the mobile phone by means of SMS messages.

On the My Organization page the main information on the company, such as contains: name of the organization, TIN/KPP/OGRN, address and contact telephone numbers and also other documents of the organization. There are blocks with the list of staff of the organization (several representatives of one supplier company can work for ETP). The user with a role "the administrator of the company" can see the list of all staff of the company registered on ETP and add in need of new.

In the section Biddings the list of the auction held on the platform and nakhoyashchikhsya in a certain status is available to the user (did not take place, ended, order taking, etc.). For quick search it is possible to use filter set and also sorting, for example, as biddings, by date, on categories, etc.

The section of "The application for participation in biddings" — requests of the supplier, also with a possibility of quick search remain here.

For convenience of using also the section "My biddings" where only biddings in which the supplier takes part are displayed is submitted.

Special attention is deserved by the block with "tiles" in the right part of the page, each "tile" can be highlighted in red color, drawing attention of the user to sections of the personal account in which his participation is required. It is very convenient and excludes an opportunity to miss important action or the notification.

Each lot can have the following statuses:

• The notification is published – the notification is placed on the platform, date and time of the beginning of order taking did not come;
• Order taking — order taking for participation in bidding is open, participants can submit applications for participation;
• Order taking is complete — order taking for participation in bidding is ended, participants cannot submit applications for participation;
• Opening of envelopes — the stage of opening of envelopes began, the organizer of biddings decrypts the submitted price proposals;
• Determination of bidders — order taking for participation in biddings from participants is complete, the organizer of biddings considers requests;
• Participants are defined – consideration of requests on bidding took place, the list of the allowed participants is defined;
• There are biddings — the period of submission of price offers began, participants can stake;
• Summing up — biddings are ended, the organizer of biddings sums up the results;
• It is complete — biddings are complete, the winner is selected;
• The agreement is signed — biddings are complete, the agreement is signed with the winner;
• Took place. The agreement is not signed — biddings are complete, the agreement is not signed with the winner;
• Did not take place — biddings are finished, applications were not submitted or only 1 application was submitted;
• Did not take place. The agreement is not signed — biddings are finished, only 1 application was submitted, the agreement is not signed with the winner;
• It is cancelled — biddings are cancelled by the organizer;
• It is replaced with the new version — bidding was edited by the organizer after the beginning of date of order taking.

Step 3 — the choice of a tariff plan (during the work on multibrand ETPs)

For participation in biddings on multibrand ETPs the supplier company (in most cases) should enter a subscription fee or single payment according to the selected tariff plan. Each tariff plan has different requirements for its connection including on a set of documents which need to be provided to the operator. It is possible to look at rates with explanations directly on that platform where the supplier is going to work.

Alternative of subscriber services on some platforms is payment of commission fees. For example, when the commission fee is levied from the winner of purchase and makes some percent from the price of the agreement (lot) or the commission fee is established equal to the size of a guarantee fee of purchase (providing).

It should be noted that not each electronic marketplace requires from suppliers a subscription fee or the commission from the winner. In particular, the lack of a subscription fee is one of advantages monobranded (corporate ETPs).

Step 4 — participation in biddings

So, we will show on an example how to take part in the request for quotations which interested us on the lot "Construction brick". We select the necessary bidding from the list and we visit the page of information on biddings.

On the page of information on biddings we select lot interesting us.

On the page of lot we see two buttons — "Create the Application for Participation" and Ask a Question. The second button allows the supplier to address directly the organizer of biddings for refining of these or those parts of purchase.

We create the application for participation, specifying the price offer. In a system hints which help the supplier work and exclude possible errors. Submitting the application for lot, it is also necessary to attach a number of documents, including obligatory. The supplier can also add additional documents on the discretion.

At the same time and in general during the work with electronic marketplaces it is necessary to be extremely attentive not to make technical mistakes, for example, accidentally to attach the uncoordinated version of this or that document (having got confused in versions), to make a typo in the price offer. Undoubtedly, features of electronic document management will demand from the supplier of finding of certain skills and IT culture. Therefore those employees who will directly work with electronic marketplace should be trained in advance. In open access the set of useful recommendations of how effectively to work with electronic documentation including as it is better to store files is published today as to call them, etc.

It is important to know that among requirements which are imposed by the customer to the provided requests there can be special requirements to document creation, and requests which are not conforming to these requirements can be rejected from participation in biddings.

Summing up a procurement procedure happens at the scheduled time: "Date and time of opening of envelopes" in the section "Information on lot". The supplier receives the notification on summing up and can study the corresponding final protocol.

As we see: "Biddings are recognized cancelled for the reason: only one applicant is recognized by the bidder. But at the same time the decision to sign the agreement with the only participant – IP Borodin Pavel Terentyevich is made". Thus, the customer will purchase a construction brick from us.

The "request for quotations" procedure in which we participated is one of the simplest and low-cost procedures for the supplier which does not provide either ensuring participation or agreement performance, or long trade procedures with dotorzhkami / rebiddings, difficult competitive struggle with strong falling of the price.

It is also necessary to consider that not all customers are respectable and the risk of failure of the transaction is practically present at this or that stage always. Therefore it is desirable to study the potential buyers beforehand. So, can be useful to look how at the interesting customer the situation with judicial proceedings is and whether always he brings the purchases to agreement signature, etc.