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English translation: Bidder is an american term and tenderer is a british term
09:17 Feb 5, 2012
English language (monolingual) [PRO] Bus/Financial - Business/Commerce (general) / Tenders
English term or phrase:Applicant? Tenderer? Bidder?
Dear colleagues, Could you please help me to choose which is the correct term for a person/company, going to participate in a tender? Applicant? Tenderer? Bidder?
Thanks for the comment, though do note that an RFQ is a term specifically used to mean a 'call for tenders', but like I say, I rather suspect this is an AE usage; it is the preferred term of one of my major international clients, who although I actually work for the European division, do have a US parent company.
You are more generous with your time than I am! However, re a 'request for quotes', a company can ask for quotes in the UK too, however that is much more informal and not the same as a call for tenders.
I think it is over-generalising to say "most companies use ... bid and tender interchangeably' — some companies do, but those that pay attention to style in their documents will usually aim for consistency.
However, there are certain set terms where one or the other may be much more common. Ones that spring immediately to mind are 'call for tenders' (possibly a GB perspective, but I've never actually encountered 'call for bids', a term used in the US often seems to be 'request for quotes') and also 'bid bond' — again, I've not personally encontered 'tender bond'.
I can only echo exactly what BDF has said: your comment is completely wrong!
A company may issue a call for tenders/bids; a company may wish to bid/tender for the contract, and they may do so by submitting their bid/tender. They are then referred to as a bidder/tenderer.
In almost all related contexts, the 2 terms can be interchanged, with as Dalia has pointed out, a slight tendency for 'bi' to be commoner in AE and 'tender' in BE — but I would re-iterate that this is by no means hard-and-fast.
In short, a bid is when a company says to other companies: "here is my project and here are my conditions, how much are you willing to do the project for?". A tender is when a company says to another company: "I know about your project, here is how much it will cost you, and here are my conditions".
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Answers
11 mins confidence: peer agreement (net): +2
applicant? tenderer? bidder?
tenderer
Explanation: This is what the EU uses, so it's what I would use unless my client has a preferred alternative term, which they occasionally do.
JaneD Sweden Local time: 02:26 Works in field Native speaker of: English
20 mins confidence: peer agreement (net): +7
applicant? tenderer? bidder?
Bidder is an american term and tenderer is a british term
Explanation: Tenderer is a person or company that puts forward an estimate of cost (NoteThe US term is bidder.)
Example sentence(s):
The company was the successful tenderer for the project.
peer agreement (net): +2
peer agreement (net): +7
