Alan Buxton’s e-Sourcing Place

Here are some items that popped into my google alerts recently for reverse auction:

• A lowest unique bid wins gambling site. Their press release appears to be deliberately confusing given that talks about reverse auctions, procurement auctions and e-sourcing before diving into their  gambling piece. They even go so far as to claim that “The legality of low unique auctions has been proven by the American, British and the Danish governments who are all using the low unique auction concept [for awarding procurement contracts].” (No they’re not, they’re using reverse auctions – they aren’t using gambling sites)
• Forwards Dutch Auctions for mobile gear

I know some of you will consider this is just me quibbling over semantics but this is pretty important. Surely buyers need to know their auction types to be able to run effective sourcing projects. Just like they need to know their DDP from their FOB. I get really riled when people use the same term to mean completely different auction types. How many buyers would know that this auction here is not a reverse auction at all but is a forwards dutch auction?