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Cost To PurchaseReverse auctions have been successful in helping buyersreceive the lowest priced fixtures on the market. This initialinvestment seems to be the most important purchase decisionfor buyers of national accounts, who are purchasing hundredsor thousands of fixtures in bulk to be used in multiplefacilities. However, this limited-focus buying decision maystill cost buyers more in upfront costs than they realize sincethe information provided in the reverse auction cannot providea true comparison of products.To determine purchase price, buyers must calculate thenumber of fixtures needed. However, buyers that use alighting photometric layout created byone lighting manufacturer and assumethis calculated quantity will work forall manufacturers’ products run therisk of being dissatisfied with the lightingperformance. What buyers don’trealize is that although two fixturesmay seem to have the same specifications,the lighting photometric performancedictates how many fixtures willbe required to maintain performancelevels. In turn, a better performing fixturewould allow installers to space fixturesfurther apart, resulting in theneed to purchase fewer fixtures, whichreduces purchase costs.For example, in a 500,000 sq. ft.retail distribution center, a buyer mayreceive prices on two 400 W MetalHalide aluminum reflector high bay fixtures.Fixture 1 features a round reflectorpriced at $.09 per sq. ft. to purchase,while Fixture 2 features a highly engineeredfaceted elliptical reflector, pricedat $.11 per sq. ft. to purchase. With thelimited information provided in thereverse auction, uninformed buyerswould believe that with the $.02 pricedifference, Fixture 1 would be the bestpurchase, saving $10,000 in purchasecosts. However, what this process doesnot reveal is that due to the superiorphotometric performance, the ellipticalreflector actually requires 25 percentfewer fixtures to provide the same illumination.(See Figure 2).Another factor in the cost to purchasea lighting system is the cost oflabor to install the fixtures. A reverseauction usually does not considerinstallation cost and therefore may notprovide the owner with a realistic cost.Fixtures that feature easy-to-installbrackets can reduce set-up times andlower installation costs. For instance,fixtures have been designed for nationalretailers to reduce their cost to install by 50 percent, whileincreasing their initial cost by only 10 percent. In a reverseauction, the owner would never have the opportunity torealize this substantial savings and consequently, would notbe able to take advantage of a greatly improved return oninvestment.Thomas Lighting is working with several national retailersto upgrade their existing fluorescent lighting systems with anew retrofit fixture that makes older retrofit kits obsolete. Areverse auction might eliminate this new technology becausethe new fixture does not comply with the old technologyspecification. The end-user would have no chance to realizewww.iesna.org