A fit-out tender is the process of issuing a defined scope to a shortlist of contractors and comparing their priced, programmed responses on identical terms. The comparison is only meaningful if every bidder priced the same scope, the same specification and the same handover date.
Decide what is landlord's work, what is base build and what is your fit-out. Ambiguity here is where variations are born. A one-page scope-split matrix costs an hour and saves a month.
Architectural and MEP drawings, brand fit-out manual, landlord or mall handbook, the base-build handover condition, the target handover date and the form of contract you intend to use.
One organised site visit with all bidders present, and one written Q&A circulated to everyone. Private clarifications produce bids you cannot compare.
A priced BOQ against your schedule, a dated programme, a method statement, material submittals, an HSE plan and the company/legal pack. Free-format quotations cannot be levelled.
Strip out qualifications and exclusions, add back what each bidder omitted, then compare. The cheapest raw number is very rarely the cheapest contract.
Ask each bidder which approval sits on their critical path and what happens if it slips a week. The answer tells you who has actually built in your mall before.
Check the Commercial Registration, insurance certificates and trade licence are current, and that the entity bidding is the entity that will sign.
Two to three weeks for a single retail unit with a complete document set; four or more for a multi-unit rollout or where the base-build condition is uncertain. Shorter than two weeks and you get padded, heavily-qualified prices rather than a considered bid.
Three to five. Fewer than three gives you no comparison; more than five and quality bidders discount the odds of winning and put less effort into the bid.
Different scope splits with the landlord, different assumptions about the base-build handover condition, different exclusions, and different programmes. Level all four before you rank anything.
Issue one if you have it — it forces like-for-like pricing. If you do not, ask each bidder to submit their own measured BOQ, which also shows you who actually read the drawings.
Approvals. Shop drawings, material submittals and mall or authority NOCs run in sequence instead of in parallel. Ask every bidder how they intend to run them concurrently.
We bid retail and commercial fit-out tenders across the Gulf from our Jeddah base.
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