Get more out of the Marketplace.

Add more than one salesperson to your account

If only one person at your company can log in, you risk missing solicitations any time that person is on vacation, out sick, or simply busy with other work. Add at least one backup user.

Site administrators can add salespeople by clicking Manage Users in the left-hand side menu and following the instructions. The whole process takes less than two minutes per user.

Review your commodity and service codes regularly

Commodity codes are the filter that determines which solicitations you get notified about. If your codes are incomplete or outdated, you’ll miss opportunities you’d otherwise want to bid on.

We add new codes on a quarterly basis as the Marketplace expands, so log in periodically and confirm your selections still match the work your company does today.

Use a current version of Microsoft Office

Buyers sometimes attach solicitation documents in the latest Microsoft Office formats. If you can’t open an attachment, email the buyer directly and ask them to provide an addendum in an earlier version.

Whitelist our notification email address

Spam filters can block emails from the Marketplace before they reach you. Set up your email to always accept messages from support@internationaleprocurement.com so your bid notifications come through reliably.

If you use a corporate email system, you may need to ask your IT department to whitelist this address at the server level.

Keep enough space in your mailbox

If your mailbox is full, new bid notifications will bounce back without ever reaching you. Make sure you have enough storage available to receive incoming emails — particularly during periods of high solicitation activity.

Enable bid closing date reminders

You’re eligible to receive notification emails for upcoming bid closing dates issued by Housing Agencies on the Marketplace. To enable these, register in the Marketplace, download the solicitation, and select Respond Will Bid or Will Bid at the bottom of the page (the option depends on solicitation type).

Reminder emails are sent every day starting three days before the bid due date, up to the due date itself. They stop arriving once you submit your pricing or change your response to another option.

Don’t rely on smartphone email forwarding

The Marketplace doesn’t always forward communications cleanly to smartphones — Blackberries, iPhones, and other mobile email clients can drop or reformat important content. Check your email on a computer, not just your phone, especially for active solicitations.

Have your pricing ready before you start the response

When responding electronically to any online solicitation, make sure all your pricing is finalized before you begin entering it. If you stop and start an electronic response, your pricing may not save in the correct order — and on multi-lot or line-item solicitations, you can get timed out before you finish.

You’ll have a chance to review your full response before submitting, but the cleanest path is to enter all data in one continuous session.

Select the right role for construction solicitations

For construction solicitations specifically, you’ll see role options at the bottom of the bid form: General Contractor, Sub Contractor, Supplier, or Other. Select the role that matches how your company plans to participate in this specific contract.

This helps the agency understand the relationships between vendors responding to the same solicitation, and helps Sub Contractors and Suppliers find General Contractors they can partner with.

Always indicate your bidding intentions

After you’ve reviewed bid information, let the buyer know your intentions: No Bid, Might Bid, or Will Bid. This courtesy helps the buyer track who’s planning to respond and gives you better visibility on the Marketplace.

Buyers consistently report that vendors who indicate their intentions get more attention on future solicitations than vendors who go silent.

Understand how buyers find vendors

The Vendor Marketplace area, located on the buyer side, allows buyers to sort vendors by Commodity / Service codes, State, Region, and MWBE Status — or any combination of those. Upgraded vendors appear at the top of buyer searches, with Platinum-tier vendors listed first.

This means buyers can contact you directly when they only need verbal or written quotes — without ever placing the solicitation on the Marketplace publicly. Vendors with strong profiles get a meaningful share of off-Marketplace business through this channel.

Build your own lead list

Don’t rely solely on bid notifications. Active vendors who win the most contracts also reach out directly. Three steps:

1. Email each buyer to let them know you’re on the Marketplace and ready to bid.
2. Ask buyers to include you in any solicitations they may handle off the Marketplace.
3. Most vendors have access to agency-level contact information but not the specific buyer who handles a given purchase. Look up that contact carefully — and don’t email too often or you’ll end up in their spam folder.

If you’re a wholesaler or manufacturer, monitor solicitations even when you don’t bid directly

Manufacturers and wholesalers benefit from the Marketplace even when they don’t submit bids themselves. Knowing what’s being purchased lets you work with your local distributor or manufacturer’s rep to make sure your products are being specified.

For multi-product solicitations like construction projects, your distributor or rep can contact the General Contractor directly. Either way, you’ll need to review the solicitation to see whether your products are included.

Log in at least once a week

A weekly login takes a few minutes and confirms you haven’t missed any solicitations because of email issues, spam filters, or notifications that didn’t reach you. It also keeps your profile active in the system, which signals to buyers that you’re a current vendor.

Understand why buyers expand bids

Sometimes buyers send complimentary outreach emails to vendors outside their immediate region. This usually happens when they don’t have enough vendors emailed to meet the required number of bidders for a solicitation.

Once they have enough responses from local vendors, the outreach stops. The takeaway: don’t depend on receiving complimentary notices from agencies on every solicitation. Build your own list of buyers and check the Marketplace proactively.

Update your email address through customer support

If you change your email address, contact customer support to update it. Vendors aren’t able to change their primary email directly through the Marketplace — this protects your account from unauthorized changes. We can guide you through it by phone if needed.

Send us your suggestions

We’re always looking for ways to make the Marketplace more useful. If you have a suggestion — a feature you’d like to see, a workflow that frustrates you, or feedback on what’s working — email support@internationaleprocurement.com with a clear subject line and we’ll review it.

We also place buyer and supplier comments on our website to help other vendors. If you’d like to share a comment for that purpose, let us know.