The bid peddling/shopping survey

The American Subcontractors Association, Inc. and its local chapters in several U.S. cities, speaks up for sub contractors facing bid shopping and bid peddling challenges. Our business belongs to the ASA in North Carolina -- I wish there was a counterpart in Canada.

Early responses are arriving from our survey on bid shopping/peddling, and not surprisingly the majority of people who have answered so far say the problem is serious, and growing.

But one person responded in a way that shows the challenges of ethics, good client service and effective construction industry marketing. The practice described here might be more accurately described as something other than bid shopping/peddling but I think you will see how good branding/relationships (and thus effective marketing) can clash with what would commonly be thought as proper business practices. Obviously I will not say who provided this response.

Sometimes a company wants to buy only from you but can't because his purchasing agent requires bids. We will send purchasing our quote and contact other vendors we know out of our territory that sell our product to quote higher than us. They don't want the job anyways and we return favors back to them. I don't know if this is what you are talking about. I'm not sure if this is illegal but it helps everyone and makes the customer happy.

Of course, your survey responses are welcome -- and will be totally anonymous if you answer though the link off this blog.

To see the survey (and complete it if you wish) just go to the link here.