GSA eBuy serves as a $10B per year bidding bulletin board for the federal government. The federal government puts on eBuy bids and projects they are looking to procure or accomplish and the GSA Schedule holders in that SIN are then allowed to place bids on those procurements. You must have a GSA Schedule and be in the particular SIN/industry for the procurement in order to have access to view the procurement. These procurements are invisible to all other firms. This tool was created to bring versatility and ease to online procurement. By using eBuy, federal purchasers can get quotes on commercial products/services/solutions, seek information, find supply sources, obtain complicated needs by attaching work statements, request items of high value, enjoy secure business transactions and set up a Blanket Purchase Agreement pricing.
37.7% increase in eBuy RFQs from 2014 to 2015. (99,219 eBuy RQFs in 2015; 72,014 eBuy RFQs in 2014)
The Average Size of an eBuy Purchase is $129,900 which is under Simplified Acquisition Threshold of $150,000 (federal purchases between $3,500-$150,000 are set-aside for small business) and, therefore, most of eBuy procurements are set aside for small business.
There is low competition for eBuy RFQs. The average number of responses is 3.1 giving a firm virtually a 1 in 3 chance of winning any given eBuy bid.
eBuy has exceptionally high levels of activity in the federal governments 4th Quarter (Jul-Aug-Sep). This is due to the use it or lose it philosophy federal agencies take with their annual budgets. Therefore, GSA eBuy is an important tool for federal vendors to monitor to take advantage of 4th quarter spending. Over 50% of eBuy procurements for the year are in this 4-month period.
