Do all suppliers dislike electronic reverse auctions?

Abstract

Electronic reverse auctions (ERAs) are a controversial sourcing tool. While it is said to have many advantages to buyers, and even some to suppliers as well, it is also heavily criticised for damaging cooperative buyer-supplier relationships. It is often suggested that suppliers experience more disadvantages than advantages from the use of this tool and therefore many, if not all suppliers dislike ERAs. In this paper, we investigate whether all suppliers indeed dislike ERAs and we explore the relationships between supplier characteristics and supplier opinions of ERAs. We find that a small group of suppliers is actually positive about ERAs and that by far the strongest predictor of ERA opinions of a supplier representative is the supplier country. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.