Introduction
Public Requests allow you to share your material needs with the entire Matium Network. Once you create a request, you'll receive relevant material offers from suppliers in response, and can negotiate and confirm offers that best meet your material specifications, target price point and desired location and delivery terms.
Creating a Public Request
You must be subscribed to Matium Core to create a Public Request. To update your subscription status, Administrators can visit the Billing area under Administration in the left sidebar.
Visit Network Demand in the left sidebar and click New Public Listing in the top right corner.
Select or create a Core Need describing the material specifications you need, and the provide additional information including your target price point, location of the need, required weight, etc. You can attach any relevant documents, including pictures of the desired material or RFQ/RFP documents.
Finally, decide if you would like to run the request in an open format, as a Reverse Auction with live bidding, or in a closed format.
Closed RFQ
By default, requests will run in a closed format where bidders will not have any visibility into other bids. As a buyer, you will be able to negotiate individually on each offer at any time by countering, accepting or declining.
Live RFQ or Reverse Auction
Requests can also be run in a more open format where all bidders see the lowest qualified offer price in real-time. Additionally, once you have received an offer that you have qualified or conditionally qualified for the full weight of your request, bidders will have to bid at or below that offer price.
Receiving and Confirming Offers
Suppliers will be able to respond to your request with material offers that meet your specific needs. When viewing the details of a material offer, you will be able to see all material specifications, offer price, shipping terms, etc. You will also be able to evaluate how closely the offer matches your specific needs in the form of a material match rating.
You can then mark each offer as qualified, conditionally qualified if you need more information such as a TDS or a sample, or disqualified if it does not meet your needs. This is especially important when running a Reverse Auction because bidders will only see the lowest offer price that you have marked as qualified or conditionally qualified.
When you are ready to start individual negotiations for a Closed RFQ, or when your Reverse Auction ends, you will be able to counter, accept or decline each submitted offer. The supplier is also able to counter, confirm or cancel on their side.
Note that transactions are not considered final until accepted by the buyer and then confirmed by the supplier. Once confirmed, all contact information for both buyer and supplier will be shared with the other party.
Learn more about private material offers.