How to bid on GeM, step by step
Bidding on GeM is not like bidding on a state e-procurement portal, and the difference catches people out. On a tender portal you download a bid pack, price it, and upload a sealed bid — you can bid on anything you can see. On GeM you can only bid in categories where you already have something listed. Most first attempts fail not at the bid stage but before it, because the groundwork was not done.
This guide goes in order: what has to be true before you can bid at all, then the bid itself.
Part 1 — before you can bid on anything
1. Register as a seller, and finish registering
Signing up is the easy part. What stops people is the profile that follows: PAN verification, bank account, GST details where they apply, and the organisation details matching the entity that will raise the invoice. A half-finished profile lets you browse and not much else.
The registration must be in the name of the entity that will hold the contract. A certificate or registration in a proprietor's personal name does not cover a partnership firm bidding separately — the same trap as MSME registration.
2. Get your status validated on the portal, not just on paper
If you intend to claim MSE or startup benefits, the status has to be validated online in your GeM profile. Uploading a Udyam certificate into a bid is not the same thing, and buyers routinely reject the claim when the profile does not carry it.
One detail worth knowing before you count on an EMD exemption: under the MSE category the exemption runs to manufacturers for goods and service providers for services. Traders are generally excluded. A reseller claiming MSE exemption on a goods bid is the single most common version of this mistake.
3. List your product or service in the right category
This is the step that has no equivalent on a tender portal. GeM is a catalogue first, and a bid is visible to you only if you have a listing in the bid's category. If your product is not on the catalogue, there is nothing to do with a bid you can see.
Listing means choosing the category, then filling the technical parameters that category demands. Categories have mandatory parameters, and the values you enter are what the buyer's technical filter matches against later.
4. If you are reselling, get the OEM authorisation first
If you did not manufacture the item, the manufacturer has to authorise you on GeM before you can offer their product. That authorisation comes from the OEM's own dashboard, and it is the OEM's action, not yours. Chasing it after a bid has opened rarely works.
5. Check whether vendor assessment applies
Some categories require an assessment before you can participate. Find out whether yours does before you plan around a bid deadline, because it is not a same-week process.
Part 2 — the bid itself
6. Find the bid
Bids appear under the bid search on the portal, and the ones that matter to you are the ones in your categories. Filter by category rather than browsing everything — most of what you can see, you cannot bid on.
You can also find GeM tenders on this site alongside the other portals, which is useful if you are watching several at once, but you bid on GeM itself.
7. Download the bid document and read the ATC first
A GeM bid document has standard terms and then Additional Terms and Conditions the buyer has added. The ATC is where the real conditions live: delivery period, consignee locations, inspection, documentation, past-performance requirements, and anything unusual.
Read the ATC before you look at the price. Most bids that get rejected were lost here, not on price.
8. Work through the checklist that decides whether to bid
- The technical parameters. Compare them against your listing, parameter by parameter. A mismatch on a mandatory parameter is a rejection, not a negotiation.
- Delivery period and locations. Delivery time is treated as the essence of the contract. Multiple consignee locations can change your cost completely.
- EMD and ePBG. Whether earnest money is required, how much, and whether a performance guarantee follows. Both are set per bid; read the figures there rather than assuming.
- Whether you qualify for exemptions, and whether your profile actually carries them.
- Any bid participation fee. GeM charges one on bids above certain values. The amount is shown against the bid — check it there, because the slabs change.
9. Prepare the documents before the last day
Whatever the ATC asks for: the Udyam or NSIC certificate if you are claiming a benefit, OEM authorisation, past-performance proof, test certificates, GST documents. Scanned, legible, and named so a stranger can tell what each one is.
10. Submit the financial bid
Price it on the whole cost, not the unit cost: delivery to every consignee location, the cost of EMD sitting blocked, the cost of a performance guarantee for its full duration, GST, and the real chance of late payment.
Submit with time in hand. The deadline is hard, and nobody at GeM can reopen it for you.
11. If it is a reverse auction, know the rules before it starts
A reverse auction runs in two parts: technical first, then the financial round, and only sellers who clear the technical stage are invited to bid in it.
In the auction you reduce your price in decrements. The decrement rules for that specific auction are shown on the RA participation page — read them there rather than relying on anything written elsewhere, including here, because GeM has revised them more than once.
Decide your floor before the auction opens and write it down. The entire design of a reverse auction is to get you below it.
12. After the result
The buyer decides technical and commercial acceptability. GeM itself has no role in evaluating bids, so an evaluation dispute is with the buyer, not with the marketplace.
If you win, what happens next — delivery, receipt certificates and payment — is covered in getting paid on GeM.
The mistakes that cost people bids
- Bidding in a category where the listing does not actually match the parameters.
- Claiming an MSE exemption as a trader, or with a profile that was never validated.
- Reading the standard terms and skipping the ATC.
- Leaving OEM authorisation until after the bid opened.
- Pricing the unit and forgetting delivery to six consignee locations.
- Treating a reverse auction as something to work out while it is running.
The short version
Most of bidding on GeM happens before the bid: register properly, get your status validated on the portal, list in the right category with parameters that match, and sort out OEM authorisation early. Then read the ATC before the price, check your parameters line by line, price the whole cost rather than the unit, and go into a reverse auction with a floor you decided in advance.