Auctions worth crores were running on someone else’s platform

Every auction went through someone else’s platform

Taabi builds logistics software for enterprises, and our transport platform, Taabi TMS, already ran freight auctions. Then an enterprise’s procurement team came to us. They run auctions to buy materials, where vendors bid the price down, and to sell them.

Before Taabi Procure, a single auction looked like this:

Days of back-and-forth between three parties, before the first bid

That left the team with four problems:

We showed them our freight auction, relabelled

V1: the relabelled freight auction we showed the procurement team

One live auction. Four rules.

Later, we sat in on a live auction the procurement team ran on the third-party platform. Four things stood out.

Flow first, screens second

After the live auction, the PM and I worked out the flow before any screens. Our first pass put the whole setup on two long pages.

01

Every site and material gets its own child auction

Instead of

One auction with a single starting price and bid gap.

Because

Materials don’t share a price, a unit or a bid step. Rubber trades per ton, flaps per piece.

What it changed

One setup for the whole event, while each child auction runs on its own timer, leaderboard and L1.

One setup, three child auctions, each priced in its own unit

02

Vendors are invited per material, and choose what they bid on

Instead of

Sending the whole auction to every vendor.

Because

No point inviting a vendor who doesn’t supply it, and one who does may not want to bid this time.

What it changed

The team invites only relevant vendors. Vendors tick what they’ll bid on, and how much they can supply.

03

Setup became 7 short steps, one decision each

Instead of

Two long pages that held every setting at once.

Because

Nobody could tell what to do next, and every material needed its own price and bid gap.

What it changed

Pricing first, then timing, rates and a final check. Each step does one thing.

2 long pages → 7 short steps

1. Before · 2 long pages
2. Page 1
3. Page 2
4. After · 7 steps
5. Step 1 of 7

7 steps

Page 1 held the auction model, the price source, and every site, material, vendor and starting price.

The final steps

Step 1: Auction type, and whether vendors share one starting price or start from their own

1. Step 1: Auction type, and whether vendors share one starting price or start from their own
2. Step 2: Materials and vendors, site by site, each material with its own starting price and bid gap
3. Step 3: Each vendor’s starting price, material by material, typed in or bulk uploaded
4. Step 4: Ranking rules, in a step of their own
5. Step 5: Timing and extension rules, once the pricing is set
6. Step 6: Past rates for each material, optional, to compare the bids against
7. Step 7: One last check of every rule, material and vendor price before publishing

Two ideas we cut

Sequential auctions

The idea

Run child auctions one after another, each starting when the previous one ends.

Why we dropped it

Child auctions could end early or run late, so start times kept shifting and vendors could miss theirs. We kept simultaneous only.

Proxy bid

The idea

The enterprise places an anonymous bid so vendors keep competing without knowing who moved the ranking.

Why we dropped it

An auction runs on trust. Vendors need to know every bid comes from a real competitor, and a hidden enterprise bid would break that.

Watch every auction as it runs

01

Multiple auctions

Every child auction gets its own card: the material, the site, the lowest bid, the time left, bids received and how many vendors responded.

02

Tabs experience

Opening a card keeps the auction’s details on top, with five tabs below: time-wise bids, vendor leaderboard, extended details, participants and audit logs.

03

Bid history

Clicking a vendor on the leaderboard opens their bids in a side sheet: every amount with its time and IP, and a bid summary.

Know your rank at a glance

Once they’ve picked their materials, vendors bid from one page, with a card for each child auction, grouped by site. Each card shows their rank or band, the current L1 rate, their last bid, the material and the charge unit.

Messages and collusion alerts, inside the auction

Messaging

From research: communication should stay in-platform

The team can message one vendor or broadcast to all of them. Messages stay short and simple.

Vendors pick the child auction before they write, so every message lands on the right auction.

IP conflict detection

From research: anti-collusion and audit trails matter

The platform flags vendors bidding from the same IP, a common sign of collusion, while the auction is still running. In the pilot, it caught two vendors.

What vendors told us after the pilot

From approved RFQ to live auction, in one step

Status: Under dev

An RFQ, or request for quotation, is where vendors send their prices before an auction starts. An approved RFQ will turn straight into an auction, carrying over materials, vendors, pricing and rules. No re-entering data, and faster setup.

What it taught me