val_shah•1d agoProlific Poster

Had a vendor tell me 'we only respond to RFPs' and it got me thinking about who holds the power in B2B deals

Was talking to a guy from a big logistics firm in Chicago last week. I was asking about a smaller project and he just flat out said they don't do custom quotes anymore, only bid on RFPs. On one hand I get it, it streamlines everything for them. But on the other hand it feels like they're shutting out smaller clients like us who don't have time to write a 20 page document for a $5k job. Who's really benefiting here? Is it them saving time or us losing leverage? Has anyone else run into a vendor that refuses to work outside of a formal RFP process?

3 comments

3 Comments

holly7091d ago

You said "it feels like they're shutting out smaller clients like us" and that's exactly what they're doing. But that's not necessarily a bad thing for them. Big logistics firms have high overhead and a certain profit margin they need to hit. A $5k project might actually cost them more in internal time than it's worth. For real, think about it - they'd have to assign a sales guy to you, probably a solutions engineer too, go back and forth on scope, then customize a proposal. That's easily 20+ hours of labor on their end before they even see a dime. RFPs let them batch that work and only compete for jobs that are big enough to justify the effort. It sucks if you're a small buyer but from their seat it makes perfect sense.

the_jake1d ago

Would they even have time to talk to you if they did answer?

theas281d ago

Last time I bid a big commercial job, the general contractor told me flat out they won't even look at a quote under 50 grand from a specialty sub. Same logic, different trade. My advice would be to find the owner or a senior ops person at one of these logistics firms and just ask them straight up what their minimum job size is. Most of them will tell you if you catch them on a slow day. Also check their website for an "RFP minimum spend" or something similar. A lot of them bury that in their vendor page. That way you know for sure if you're wasting your time or not.