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December 21, 2020 By cs

GSA proposes to standardize policies on reverse auctions

The General Services Administration (GSA) has proposed revisions to the Federal Acquisition Regulation on use of reverse auctions by federal agencies, saying that while they have been in common practice for more than 20 years, their use has been inconsistent.

In reverse auctions, multiple vendors compete with one another to win a contract by lowering the offered price.

They generally are used for acquiring commercial products and most often result in the award of a fixed price contract valued less than $150,000 to a small business, a Federal Register notice says.

The notice says GAO reports in 2013 and 2018 found that:

“Confusion exists concerning a lack of documentation about reverse auction service provider fees and their application to federal contracts;

“There is a lack of sufficient data available for agencies to verify actual cost savings resulting from a reverse auction; and

“The potential benefits of reverse auctions are not being maximized, as many reverse auctions are resulting in the receipt of only one offer or a lack of interactive competition amongst offerors.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.fedweek.com/federal-managers-daily-report/gsa-proposes-to-standardize-policies-on-reverse-auctions/

 

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: FAR, Federal Register, federal regulations, fixed price, GSA, inconsistency, reverse auction, reverse auctions, small business

May 3, 2019 By AMK

GAO: Agencies must consider information gathered by reverse auction providers

What are federal contractors supposed to do when FedBid (now Unison) requests additional information related to a proposal and the awarding agency ignores that information in its awarding decision?

GAO recently held that the agency must consider all information gathered by reverse auction providers.

In BCW Group, LLC, B-417209, 2019 WL 1398813 (Comp. Gen. Mar. 27, 2019), BCW protested the Department of Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs’ award to another offeror. The award was the result of a reverse auction conducted by FedBid, on behalf of the agency.

The reverse auction was for work related to procurement, installation, and maintenance of Promethean ActivPanels, or other similar products. BCW’s bid included a general verification that it complied with “all terms listed by the Buyer[,]” but the bid did not specifically state that it included the required one-year maintenance. At the close of the reverse auction, a representative of FedBid reached out to BCW asking the following:

Is your bid price correct, complete (meaning all items requested are included in your bid) and inclusive of all costs the Buyer would incur if your bid is selected?

In response, BCW confirmed that the price included, among other things, “once a year maintenance for 3 years on the panels I install.”

The agency subsequently reviewed the five submitted bids and chose a different offeror because BCW’s offer, although lower priced, did not specifically mention the required maintenance. The agency did not review the exchange between FedBid and BCW, where BCW confirmed that maintenance was included in its offer, because the contracting officer was “not aware that FedBid” had the post-bid exchange with BCW regarding the maintenance issue. BCW protested that its lower priced bid should have been accepted because it met the procurement requirements.

Keep reading article at: www.smallgovcon.com/gaobidprotests/gao-agencies-must-consider-information-gathered-by-reverse-auction-providers

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: bid protest, FedBid, GAO, Interior Dept., reverse auction, Unison

September 5, 2018 By AMK

GSA to close down reverse auction platform after 5 years

Look back over the last say 25 years and see if you can remember the last time an agency publicly admitted defeat with a program or project and decided to move on.

Don’t think about a contract that failed or even an act of Congress ending a specific program, but focus on a service offering that just couldn’t make it.

It’s hard to find one. Right?

This is why the General Services Administration’s decision to shut down its reverse auction tool on Dec. 31 is significant.

GSA is pulling the plug after just over five years.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsradio.com/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/2018/08/gsa-to-close-down-reverse-auction-platform-after-5-years/

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: commercial item, GSA, reverse auction, reverse auctions, simplified acquisition

September 1, 2016 By AMK

GSA’s 4th quarter buying event turns category management talk into action

Over the last few years, there has been a lot of talk about the goals of the Obama administration’s category management initiative, particularly around getting agencies to buy as one entity.

GSA logoThe first real demonstration of that concept happened earlier this month when the General Services Administration (GSA) conducted a reverse auction to set up three blanket purchase agreements for five agencies to potentially buy more than 45,000 laptops and desktops. The customers for this fourth quarter buying event were GSA’s Chief Information Office, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Defense Health Agency, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Defense Logistics Agency.

“The discounts offered by industry from the GSA schedule price list was an average up to 18.97 percent from the initial eBuy submission,” said a GSA spokeswoman. “Participating agencies provided estimates of future purchases for the fourth quarter buying event. The breakdown of how many laptops versus desktops were purchased will be available once participating agencies place their actual orders against the BPAs that are awarded.”

Keep r eading this article at: http://federalnewsradio.com/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/2016/08/gsas-4th-quarter-buying-event-turns-category-management-talk-action/

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: category management, DLA, eBuy, GSA, reverse auction, VA

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