getting quotes

[Krusscher]

I worked in industrial as a technician for most of my career and never really had to get quotes but now I work for a state college and need to get quotes for projects and I just want to know the proper way of going about that without upsetting the sales person who I have to reject there quote. I already had a issue with one of our vendors after I asked him to quote a lighting project at the beginning of November and I needed to get started on it when kids were on xmas break at the end of December. I contacted him a few times through November and he stopped responding so I went to another warehouse a few weeks before xmas break and they came out and looked at the project and got me a quote within a few days and I got them. Sometime in mid December I saw the original sales person when I was picking up parts and he told me he would work on the quote soon. Instead of him wasting his time I told him I already had ordered the lights from someone else and then he just walked away.

Fast forward to beginning of February I asked bot places to quote another lighting project and the guy that I turned down for the last project told me he wasn't going to bother because the other warehouse had already "sold me a better mouse trap" what ever that means. I ended up explaining to him what happened and I understood that the holidays can be busy. I got him to quote the project and his quote actually looks better then the others warehouse but now I am afraid if I go with his I am going to have issues with the other warehouse.

I thought sales people were used to rejection but I guess I was wrong or I just did it completely wrong lol. Would it be wrong of me to go to the other guy and see if maybe he could make some adjustments to see if he could get his price down since I would rather use him?

 

[readydave8]

Would it be wrong of me to go to the other guy and see if maybe he could make some adjustments to see if he could get his price down since I would rather use him?

Would that be called bid shopping? I know I don't like it when I'm on other end

 

[petersonra]

He is using guilt as a sales tactic. Don't let it work on you. It is not personal, just business. If your business is so unimportant to him that he can't be bothered to quote it in a reasonable time frame, you don't want to be doing business with him anyway.

Now, I will tell you this. Negotiated pricing is almost always a better way to go than getting bids. But this is not something you likely have any authority to engage in. It would need to come from your purchasing people.