Eligibility rules
Deciding who may bid — bidder type, track record, compliance signals and geography — and why every rule you add is a trade between risk and the number of prices you receive.
Every eligibility rule is a trade. It removes a category of risk, and it removes bidders. Both halves are real, and the second one is the one hosts forget.
A tender whose rules only your existing supplier satisfies has not been competitively tendered. It has been justified.
What you can require
Who may bid at all
Other businesses, sales agents, or both. A sales agent bids on behalf of someone they represent; whether that suits you depends on whether you want to deal with the principal directly.
Track record
| Minimum business age | How long they have been trading |
| Minimum completed engagements | How much they have actually finished here |
| Minimum rating | Their standing, out of five |
These are the rules to be most careful with. Every one of them excludes a new entrant who might have been your best price — and each is a proxy for reliability rather than a measure of it.
Rating and engagement minimums compound
Requiring a high rating AND a long history AND many completed engagements can leave a bidder pool of nearly nobody. Set one meaningfully rather than three defensively.
Compliance signals
Verified facts about a business rather than claims by it:
| Legal registration | The entity exists and is registered |
| Tax identification | Registered for tax |
| Export registration | Cleared to export |
| HS code declared | Customs classification stated |
| Quality certification | Certified to a quality standard |
| Data protection | Meets data protection obligations |
| Labour compliance | Meets labour obligations |
| Environmental compliance | Meets environmental obligations |
Require the ones your requirement genuinely needs. An export registration requirement on a domestic supply tender excludes suppliers for no reason.
Where they are
Market mode — domestic, export or global — sets the frame. Then you can allow specific countries, restrict specific countries, or both.
A country cannot be in both lists; the form will not let you save a tender where it is. Which sounds obvious and is a genuinely common mistake in a long list.
What they do
You can restrict to particular categories and industries, so a tender for industrial fasteners is not answered by a general trading company that lists everything.
Tell the ineligible why
There is a note shown to businesses who do not qualify, and it is worth writing.
A supplier who is told "this tender requires export registration" learns something and may come back qualified. One who simply cannot bid, with no explanation, concludes the platform is broken or the tender was wired.
How to set them
Start from the requirement, not from anxiety
Ask what would actually make a bidder unable to deliver this. That is a rule. "It would make me more comfortable" is usually not.
Prefer verified signals to proxies
A compliance signal is a checked fact. A minimum age is a guess that older means safer. Where a signal exists for the thing you care about, use it.
Count who is left
If you cannot name three businesses who would qualify, the rules are too tight and you will get one bid, or none.
Write the note for the ineligible
One sentence. It is the difference between a supplier who improves and a supplier who leaves.
The rule about rules
Eligibility is set before bids arrive and cannot be adjusted after you see who bid.
That constraint is the point. It is what separates a tender from a shortlist you constructed backwards from the answer you wanted.
Building a tender
The five sections of a tender — basics, specifications, eligibility, budget and publishing — what each is for, and the fields that decide whether bids come back comparable.
Budget and payment
Whether to show your budget, what each visibility option actually does to the bids you get, and how the pricing model and payment terms shape what comes back.