Business-to-business online reverse auctions: a literature review and a call for research

Abstract

Business-to-Business (B2B) online reverse auctions are one of the major competitive considerations for companies in their search for opportunities to reduce purchasing costs. Virtually every major industry has begun to use online reverse auctions on a regular basis; examples include General Electric (GE), General Motors (GM), Motorola, Boeing, Conoco-Phillips and Dell. The business press is replete with articles encouraging the use of online reverse auctions, drawing primarily on the experiences of individual organisations. Only recently has research on online reverse auctions been presented at academic conferences and journals in the supply chain, marketing, management and purchasing fields. The paper at hand examines, based on extensive critical literature review, the actual online reverse auction discussion and calls for more supply chain management research within the field.