Quote Request Forum?

[SYSMAN_MK]

I'm currently in the process of getting prices for some new kit and it occurred to me that now edugeek has some great suppliers connected to the community it might be useful to have a forum where members can post their requirements for a project and then the suppliers could choose to quote on said kit and PM / email a quote off to the member.

Would make getting 3 quotes a bit easier. What do others think?

[plexer]

I think that would be a good way to do things rather than have suppliers trying to undercut each other on the forums as we have had.

Ben

[marco84]

I think this would be a good idea too. It would certainly have been of use on previous projects.

[CPLTD]

Sounds good to me , gives us all a crack of the whip

[FN-GM]

Excellent idea

[rush_tech]

Yes good Idea. I have used schoolquote in the past

[OutToLunch]

I am also signed up to Schoolquote, only tried it once for a fairly big project we had going, got a couple of responses that were ok, the rest seemed to be "You don't want that, you want this." - and now despite emailing me everyday their system seems to have decided I don't exist. Oh well!

Would be great to be able to hop on here and just say "I'd like a price on 10x[specific laptop]" and see what happens

[ninjabeaver]

Yeah, it would be useful. Go for it.

[Little-Miss]

Couldnt imagine how it would work first (not got my imagination hat on today!) But from reading your posts it sounds like a pretty good idea...

[powdarrmonkey]

Yes, this is a good idea. But I think a quote request should follow some kind of standardised format (example: we want these items in these quantities, with this delivery or better) and should have a deadline associated with them. Then it's clear what's being requested, and we won't get quotes for requests from three years ago if somebody digs up an old thread.

I also think responses should be posted publicly unless there's good reason not to, to encourage competition and transparency. But this could perhaps be up to the requestor.

[Edu-IT]

Sounds like a nice idea.

[SYSMAN_MK]

Good points powdarrmonkey. Yes there should be a set of rules / format that posts should follow.

[ZeroHour]

We are working on a solution to this. More to come later (hopefully this weekend) but if its delayed to long we will make a forum.

[Gatt]

Would find thids useful too - waiting on the OK to get quotes for about 50 or 60 new PCs...

[pscott]

I don't think the quotes should be public until the dealine has passed, as whatever company quotes first, will be undercut by the next!

Would be nice for them to only be viewable by the thread starter, then they become viewable to everyone after deadline (If that makes sense!)