subcontractor bidding

Bid Shopping and Fair Bidding: The Ethics and Business Case for Doing It Right

Bid shopping is the practice of using one sub's bid number to negotiate a lower price from another sub after bid opening. It's widely condemned in industry ethics codes, prohibited on most public work, and creates long-term damage to GC-sub relationships. A clean bidding process produces better pricing long-term than shopping does, even though the short-term math sometimes looks like shopping wins.