Tips for Sellers

If you are new to the ForgeFinder, Inc. site, here is all that is necessary for you to join us:

1. First, take only a few moments to Register with ForgeFinder, Inc., which will enable you to participate in our auctions. If you have already registered, you may proceed to pargraph 2. If you have not registered, please realize that your registration must occur before you will able to enter the site and view or respond to RFQs. Registration is not complete, and you will not be granted entry to the Site for any reason, unless and until you have "agreed" to the ForgeFinder Seller Agreement at the end of the registration process. To avoid unnecessary delays in gaining access to the Site, it is recommended that you print out and review a copy of said Agreement prior to commencing the registration process. Please remember the screen name and password that you have selected and do not share either with anyone, as they are your keys to accessing and participating in Site auctions. If you forget your screen name and/or password, you may click the Password Reminder link on the login page to email your password to your registered email account, or you may e-mail us at help@forgefinder.com and we gladly will pull your records and send you the needed information.

2. At the end of the seller registration form is a Seller Agreement. This Seller Agreement says, among other things, that you will pay the Site a commission in the event that you are the successful bidder on any given request for quotation (“RFQ”). The Seller Agreement contains the other terms and conditions that are legal requirements for ForgeFinder, Inc. site use. You can print out a copy of the Seller Agreement for an off-line review, and you can get to it now by clicking here: Seller Agreement. A copy of the Seller Agreement must be signed and forwarded to us at 8713 Digges Road Manassas, VA 20110, prior to participating in any auction. The executed copy of the Seller Agreement may be faxed to us at 703-530-8172, but participation in an auction is contingent upon receipt of an executed original copy in our office. ForgeFinder, Inc. will notify you of our receipt of the document. Any questions you have can be answered by calling us at 1-703-530-8171.

3. Once successfully registered with ForgeFinder, Inc., you can go to your own personalized seller home page. Your seller home page will allow you to track, in real time, all of the bidding opportunities that exist on the Site. It also will permit you to track the bids you have entered, review the bids submitted by others and monitor all of the action from your desk. When a new RFQ hits the Site, you will be able to access it immediately from your seller home page.

4. Please note that multiple individuals from the same selling forge shops can maintain seller home pages with ForgeFinder, Inc.. It is your own responsibility to make sure that you are not bidding against yourself on RFQ opportunities! We recommend that internal controls be established to coordinate your company’s bidding by assigning screen names and disseminating assignments to your entire in-house sales staff. We strongly recommend that each user on ForgeFinder, Inc. has his or her own individual account.

5. There is no requirement to bid on any or all of the RFQs posted and the decision to bid and when resides solely with you. You set the prices, delivery dates, and general terms and conditions of your offer to perform the forging work. If you need additional information to properly respond to an RFQ, you can request such information through the Site. When looking at new RFQ opportunities, be sure to note when the buyer has determined that the bidding on their particular RFQ will end. Like the traditional RFQ buying/selling process, buyers specify the submission due date for a response to a particular RFQ and the same is true for a RFQ posted on the ForgeFinder, Inc. Site. Buyers can close an RFQ auction early on the Site if they get the price or delivery terms they need, if they get orders from their management to place the order immediately, or for any other reason. Finally, buyers may decide not to buy any forging pursuant to a particular RFQ. Rather, they may be simply trying to obtain a price quote for a bid that they are preparing.

6. The Site has a feature that allows you to place a self-adjusting bid. Specifically, once this type of bid is placed by you, your offer of a selling price will be automatically lowered if a lower price is entered by a competing seller. You can set a floor that your bid won’t go below.

7. You always are in control of your RFQ responses and you can amend your bid to become more competitive. There are no limits to the number of bids that you can enter for a particular RFQ. The ForgeFinder, Inc. site provides you with the ability to place multiple bid variations for a single RFQ. For example, in response to a particular RFQ, you might indicate that the price is “x” if delivery is required in six weeks. Thereafter, you can submit a second offer indicating that your price for the same item is “y” if delivery is required in four weeks. Alternatively, you can “no quote” the RFQ if you simply cannot meet the required delivery schedule, but still offer a price if the delivery schedule is flexible. The opportunity for you to vary your offers is limitless.

8. Prior to submitting a bid, carefully review your bid. You are making an offer to sell like the myriad other offers that you have made before, except this time it is online. ForgeFinder, Inc. specifically disclaims all responsibility for improper bids. Specifically, this means do not bid on projects that you do not have the ability to perform and do not participate in auctions in which you have no intention of performing. We anticipate that buyers will, and we will actively encourage them to, report the actions of sellers who abuse their Site privileges.

9. Your competition will be able to see your proposed terms of sale and you will be able to see your competition’s sales offers.

10. Once a particular auction closes, a notice will be automatically sent to all of the bidders who participated.

11. Buyers will not know the identities of the sellers who placed bids on their RFQs until they affirmatively choose to have the Site reveal the names of the bidders. You will know when buyers have taken this step, because a second e-mail will be sent to your attention by the Site notifying you that the buyer has decided to take the next step in the buying process.

12. A seller might get the business even though they are not the low bidder or offering the best delivery date. As is the custom in the forging industry, having the best price and/or delivery terms does not always guarantee that a forge shop will get the work that they are pursuing. Rather, because ForgeFinder, Inc. has been structured to parallel the forged metal buying process, a buyer is free to choose a forging supplier from any of the companies that have placed bids, regardless of their place in the bidding order.

13. When a buyer selects the winning bidder, all participants in the auction will receive an e-mail notifying them that the auction is complete and that a seller has been selected. It is then up to the buyer and seller to consummate the transaction off-line.

14. Once you are selected as the winning bidder, you are required to forward payment to the Site under a predetermined schedule, which is generally 30 days after the delivery date established in the buyer's RFQ.

15. Failure of a seller to pay the Site in a timely manner for the work performed pursuant to opportunities generated by the Site will result in immediate, and potentially permanent, removal from the Site.

 


The Top Ten reasons forge shops should use ForgeFinder, Inc.’s digital marketplace are:

(1) To gain immediate access to a new and enormous global customer base, pervasive both in scope and depth.

(2) To reduce sales costs. ForgeFinder reduces bureaucratic indigestion and outside sales forces with their attendant five percent (5%) commission on sales. This permits a sales force to work on business issues instead of administrative matters. As a bonus, RFQ responses are posted free.

(3) Reduced marketing costs by having to spend less on marketing to obtain new accounts. ForgeFinder, Inc. sells knowledge and knowledge sells.

(4) To identify for them where to shine the light and enable them to concentrate their sales force with laser-like focus on projects that they are best suited to perform, mandated by their core competencies, equipment and experience.

(5) Time savings. ForgeFinder, Inc. will save a tremendous amount of valuable time in locating customers, receiving and responding to customers’ RFQs and will automatically receive urgent e-mail notification whenever a RFQ is posted. Time is money.

(6) ForgeFinder permits a transition to a paperless environment. Currently, vital information a forging supplier needs to access is effectively hidden by an over-abundance of unnecessary papers. As a web-based clearinghouse, ForgeFinder will greatly reduce paper requirements, particularly in receiving and responding to customers’ RFQs.

(7) Reduce errors. Problems of lost or unreadable faxes will become an endangered species and responses to RFQs will be received and seen immediately by buyers. The erasers on the forge sellers’ pencils will serve only as ballast.

(8) Enhanced record keeping. An automated audit trail of each and every RFQ process will be maintained. Following submission of a response to an RFQ, our home page will maintain a digital record of all quotes submitted. This database will be accessible to forge shops wishing to respond to supplemental quotations when the same customer seeks to purchase the same item later. Unsuccessful forge shops during the first quoting cycle can review their competitions’ quote prior to bidding on the second opportunity.

(9) Increased competitive position. Qualified forge shops with the best prices and delivery schedules can secure business instantaneously on the site.

(10) Ability to select premium customers to service. As all customers are not equal, it will enable forge shops to immediately identify eclectic customers’ RFQs and aggressively pursue those opportunities.