Sourcing Events Types for Suppliers
Coupa's sourcing event types explained.
Coupa offers three types of sourcing events depending on how buyers select suppliers: spot buy, RFx Events, and auction type events.
Sourcing event types by selection criteria
Spot Buy
A Spot Buy event is a simple setup to collect bids on one or a few items for immediate settlement, i.e. a direct buy without a contract. Spot buy is used for instance to cover urgent demand when capacity of the contracted supplier is short, or for commodities where the price fluctuates with time on a short time range, for instance raw materials like oil, gold or electric power.
RFx events
These events are meant to collect information and prices. There are three possible RFx events:
- Request for Information,
- Request for Quote
- Request for Proposal
RFx events can also be combined with an auction in the same event. In this case, the RFx is referred to as the pre-bidding phase.
Request for Information (RFI)
RFIs are used to collect qualitative information that will support the buyer’s selection process, e.g. information about services, capabilities, operations, geographical coverage, security or quality standards, etc. that you as a supplier may offer, or details for products or services where pricing is non-negotiable or irrelevant to the purchasing decision.
The information is collected through Forms or Attachments.
Request for quote (RFQ)
When the buyer wants to ask the market for prices for a set of items and/or lots, they flag the event as an RFQ.
Request for proposal (RFP)
When a buyer wants to collect both prices (as in an RFQ) and additional general information (corresponding to an RFI) about you as a supplier or the commodities to support their decision in the same event.
Auction type events for competitive bidding
In a true auction, the winning bid is the awarded one on that item. The timeline of an auction type event may range from days to hours or less.
Auctions type setups may be used for events in which the price is the major or sole decision parameter and the cost and risk of switching supplier is low, e.g. for exchangeable consumables or spot buy situations.
Auctions may also be used as a final step in a larger sourcing event to have the short-listed suppliers compete on price only when all other decision parameters have already been locked down in RFx rounds.
English Reverse Auctions
English Reverse Auctions have one buyer and many suppliers.
Suppliers will bid against each other to drive their prices down and the lowest bid at the end of the auction is marked as the winner.
To ensure that the price develops in a fair and efficient way, bidding rules are applied to prevent increases or too small improvements of the offered prices.
Dutch Reverse Auctions
Dutch Reverse Auctions are clock auctions controlled by the buyer, who sets a low price. As soon as the auction starts, the price is continually increased with time by a pre-set amount. The supplier to first accept the call-out price is marked as the winner.
Reverse Japanese Auction
The Japanese auction type is also a clock auction. The buyer sets a start price which is higher than the expected buying price and the suppliers have to accept the call-out price in each step. The last remaining active bidder is marked as the winner. The model is similar to an English auction, but may be more efficient since the participants have to be active to be allowed to stay on.
For more information, see Sourcing Events Types for Suppliers.
Sourcing events by privacy settings
Buyers can set the visibility of their sourcing events according to the participation they expect from suppliers, as detailed in the table below:
| Privacy type | Definition |
| Public sourcing events |
Events that are open for all suppliers that may be interested - everyone can view the event and participate. |
| Private sourcing events | Events that can be seen only by invited supplier companies. |
| Hidden sourcing events | Only specific users from the supplier company can participate in these events. For more information, see Supplier Access and Participation in Hidden Sourcing Events from the CSP. |
For more information about accessing events, see View Sourcing Events in CSP.
For a high level walkthrough of steps and references to participate in sourcing events, see A Suppliers Guide to Coupa Sourcing.
For a detailed description of event pages, sections and fields, see Participate in a Sourcing Event.
For more information about posible event statuses in your events, see Sourcing Event Status for Suppliers.
For frequently asked questions about sourcing events, see Sourcing FAQ.