What to Prepare Before Asking a Factory for a Quote

The quote you get is decided before you hit send

Factories triage inquiries all day. A specific, complete request gets routed to someone who prices real projects. A vague one gets a placeholder from whoever is covering the inbox — high enough to be safe, low enough to keep you talking.

That isn't the factory being difficult. It's what happens when a request leaves gaps and each supplier fills them differently. One assumes a cheaper grade of material. One quotes without packaging. One pads for uncertainty. The spread in your inbox reflects their guesses, not their competitiveness, and no negotiation tactic fixes a comparison problem.

The nine things every RFQ needs

1. What the product is — photo, drawing, spec sheet, competitor link, or a physical sample you'll mail 2. Material and grade — not "steel," but 304 versus 201; not "plastic," but PP versus ABS 3. Dimensions, capacity, weight, finish, color — with tolerances where they matter 4. Quantity — the first order, plus what you'd reorder and how often 5. Customization — logo, method (pad print, silkscreen, laser, emboss), placement, Pantone 6. Packaging — spelled out at each level, from the polybag out to the carton mark 7. Destination and trade term — port or door, and whether you want EXW, FOB, or DDP 8. Timeline — when you need goods landed, not when you'd like them to ship 9. Sample plan — what you want to see before production, and who pays for it

Leaving one out is fine as long as you say so. "Packaging TBD, quote unpackaged for now" is a usable instruction. Silence isn't — silence gets guessed at, and the guess ends up in the price.

An RFQ template you can copy

```text Subject: RFQ – [product], [quantity] pcs, [destination country]

Hello [name],

We are [company], a [DTC brand / retailer / distributor] in [country] selling [category]. We're sourcing [product] and would like a quotation.

PRODUCT

• Item:
• Reference: [link / attached photo / drawing / sample being sent]
• Material and grade:
• Dimensions / capacity:
• Weight:
• Color / finish: [Pantone if applicable]
• Key function or performance requirement:

QUANTITY

• First order:
• Expected reorder: [qty, frequency]
• Please quote at: [qty A] / [qty B] / [qty C]
• Your MOQ:

CUSTOMIZATION

• Logo: [artwork attached]
• Method:
• Placement and size:
• Colors:

PACKAGING

• Primary: [polybag / none / other]
• Retail: [color box / hangtag / sleeve — artwork attached, or TBD]
• Insert or manual:
• Barcode: [UPC/EAN — we will supply / please advise]
• Carton: [pcs per carton, carton marks]

COMPLIANCE

• Destination market:
• Required testing or certification: [e.g. FDA food contact, CPSIA, LFGB, CE]
• Do you have existing test reports for this item?

SHIPPING

• Trade term requested: [EXW / FOB (port) / DDP (city)]
• Destination:
• Target landed date:

SAMPLE

• We'd like a [pre-production / golden] sample before confirming.
• Sample cost and lead time?
• Is the sample cost deductible from the first order?

PLEASE INCLUDE IN YOUR QUOTE

• Unit price at each quantity above
• Tooling or mold cost, if any, and who owns the tooling
• Sample cost and lead time
• Production lead time after sample approval
• Payment terms
• Anything you assumed because we didn't specify it

Happy to answer questions before you price it.

[name, company, website] ```

That last line does more work than it looks like. Asking a supplier to declare their assumptions turns an unusable quote into a readable one, and the factories that answer it carefully are telling you something about how they'll handle your order.

The same template, filled in

Here's what it looks like for a real product rather than a category.

```text Subject: RFQ – 600ml insulated steel bottle, 3,000 pcs, USA

PRODUCT

• Item: Double-wall vacuum insulated water bottle
• Reference: photo attached, construction similar to [link]
• Material: 304 stainless steel, inner and outer, food grade
• Capacity: 600ml
• Dimensions: approx. 70mm dia x 260mm h
• Lid: screw top with silicone seal — please quote PP and Tritan separately
• Finish: matte powder coat exterior
• Color: Pantone 5477 C
• Performance: hot 12h / cold 24h

QUANTITY

• First order: 3,000 pcs
• Expected reorder: 3,000–5,000 pcs quarterly
• Please quote at 1,000 / 3,000 / 5,000

CUSTOMIZATION

• Logo: laser engraved, 40mm wide, centered 90mm from base
• Artwork attached as .ai

PACKAGING

• Primary: white polybag
• Retail: printed color box, artwork TBD — quote as placeholder
• Carton: 24 pcs, marks to follow

COMPLIANCE

• Market: USA
• FDA food contact required. Existing report acceptable if current.

SHIPPING

• FOB Ningbo
• Target landed: 15 October

```

A supplier can price that in one pass. A photo and "how much for water bottles?" cannot be priced at all — it can only be guessed at.

What the unit price usually leaves out

The number at the top of a quote is rarely the number you'll pay. Ask about these before you compare anything:

• Tooling and molds. Often quoted separately or not at all. Ask the cost, the lead time, and who owns the tooling if you leave — that last one matters more than buyers expect.
• Sample cost. Usually charged, often refundable against the first order, almost never mentioned unless you ask.
• Packaging. Frequently excluded by default. A retail box can move a unit price meaningfully on a low-cost item.
• Testing and certification. Lab reports cost real money and take real weeks. If your market requires them, they belong in the quote, not in a surprise email later.
• Inland freight and export documents. Buried inside FOB, visible and separate under EXW.
• Payment terms. Not a price, but 50/50 versus 30/70 changes what the order costs you in cash flow.

Quote it the way you'll compare it

Three trade terms cover most sourcing:

EXW — the price at the factory door. The lowest-looking number and the most work for you: inland freight, export clearance, ocean freight, customs, delivery.

FOB [port] — the factory delivers to the port and handles export clearance. This is the usual default for comparison because it isolates what the factory actually controls.

DDP [your city] — everything to your door, duty included. The easiest number to check against your target landed cost, but it bundles freight into a price you can't audit line by line.

None of them is the right answer. The rule is just to pick one and ask every supplier for the same one. An EXW quote sitting next to a DDP quote is not a comparison, and it's one of the most common reasons buyers conclude a factory is expensive when it isn't.

Version the RFQ

One habit separates organized buyers from everyone else. When a detail changes after the first replies come in — and it will — update the document, mark the version clearly, and resend it to every candidate. No factory should be quoting from a stale request.

Quotes built on different versions of the same brief are the quiet cause of half the confusion in supplier comparison.

Before you accept a number

Five questions to send back with every quote you're taking seriously:

1. What did you assume because we didn't specify it? 2. What is excluded from this price? 3. What would change the MOQ, the cost, or the lead time? 4. Can you make a sample to exactly this spec, and when? 5. What else do you still need from us?

Answers to question one are the most valuable thing in the whole exchange. They tell you where your brief was thin, which means the next round of RFQs is better than this one.

How Funda helps here

We build RFQs with clients, send the same brief to every candidate, and then do the unglamorous part — chasing the assumptions, normalizing quotes to one trade term, and getting the numbers into a form you can actually lay side by side.

This is the opening step of how the sourcing process works. It connects directly to reviewing factory quotes and the sample approval checklist — and if your inquiries aren't getting replies at all, that's a different problem, covered in why suppliers may not reply to a sourcing inquiry.

The short version

A good RFQ is a comparison tool, not a price request. Give every supplier the same complete information, insist they declare what they assumed, normalize everything to one trade term, and then compare more than price — assumptions, questions asked, sample plan, and how the factory handled the exchange.

That one discipline does more for supplier selection than any negotiation tactic.

Ready to send it? Start a sourcing project — send us the product details and we'll build an RFQ that comes back with quotes you can actually compare.