Reading a buyer's enquiry and working out what it actually asks for

This page teaches a merchandiser how to read a buyer's enquiry and work out exactly what it is asking for, before any price is built

This page teaches a merchandiser how to read a buyer's enquiry and work out exactly what it asks for, before any price is built. This lesson mainly teaches information: what an enquiry contains, what it leaves out, and how to turn a loose message into a clear, answerable list. At work, an enquiry rarely arrives as a finished specification. A buyer sends a message with some facts filled in and others left blank, and asks for a price. A factory that costs before reading the enquiry properly ends up quoting the wrong product or quantity.

Delta Garments receives enquiries from several kinds of buyer, export and domestic, new and established. Northline Apparel, an export buyer with its own shops, sends a new-season enquiry for a basic cotton T-shirt: a short message naming the product, a rough quantity, and little else. Mona, the merchandiser, cannot cost this yet. She reads the enquiry line by line, marks what is stated and what is missing, and turns the gaps into specific questions Northline Apparel can answer quickly. This lesson teaches that reading skill, since every quotation later in this course depends on getting it right first.

What you need, and what this lesson does not cover

You need: no earlier lesson. General familiarity with a purchase order's usual contents, covered in Track 1, is useful but not required.

By the end of this lesson you can:

• list the facts a complete enquiry must state before it can be costed;
• separate what an enquiry states from what it only implies;
• turn a missing fact into one specific, answerable question to the buyer;
• recognise when an enquiry is a firm request for a quotation and when it is only a general price check;
• record an incoming enquiry's own facts in a standard format before costing begins.

Not covered here: turning the read enquiry into a costed price (lesson 1.2); setting the quotation's own validity, MOQ and lead time (lesson 1.3); presenting the finished quotation and answering the buyer's first questions (lesson 1.4); tracking many enquiries at once across a full order book (lesson 1.5).

Words you will meet in this lesson

A complete enquiry states product, quantity, and rough timing; a factory that costs before confirming all three is costing on guesses

An enquiry can only be turned into a real price once three things are known: what product is being asked for, roughly how many pieces, and roughly when the buyer needs them. A factory that starts costing before all three are confirmed is not quoting the buyer's actual order; it is quoting its own guess of what the buyer meant. Reading an enquiry is the work of checking these three things against what the message actually says, not against what a similar past order looked like.

The shapes an enquiry takes across export, domestic, and different buyer types

Northline Apparel's enquiry names a T-shirt and a rough quantity, but leaves the exact specification for Mona to confirm

Northline Apparel sends Delta Garments a short enquiry for its next season: "Basic cotton T-shirt, similar to our usual style, about 15,000 pieces, need pricing for a new-season order." The message names the product family and a rough quantity, close to Order A's own fixed 15,000 pieces, but it does not state the exact GSM, the size ratio, or the delivery week. Mona reads the enquiry against what a complete specification needs and marks three gaps: the exact fabric weight, the size breakdown, and the target delivery date.

Once Mona's three questions are answered, the enquiry becomes a full specification matching Order A's own fixed figures, and only then does lesson 1.2 begin building a costed quotation from it.

Counting how many of the enquiry's required facts Northline Apparel's first message actually states

Mona checks the enquiry against a short list of five facts a complete specification needs: product, fabric weight, size ratio, quantity, and delivery date.

Four steps to read an enquiry and confirm what it actually asks for

1. List the facts a complete specification needs: product detail, fabric, size ratio, quantity, and delivery timing.
2. Mark each fact as stated, implied, or missing against the buyer's own words, not against a similar past order.
3. Turn every missing or implied fact into one specific, answerable question, naming the exact figure you need rather than asking the buyer to "send more details".
4. Record the confirmed specification in the tracker only once every question has a clear answer from the buyer.

A common mistake is filling a gap in the enquiry with an assumption from a past order instead of asking the buyer

A common mistake is filling a gap in the enquiry with an assumption carried over from a past order, rather than asking the buyer to confirm it. Northline Apparel's new-season enquiry looks similar to Order A, so it is tempting to assume the same 180 GSM fabric and the same 1:2:2:1 size ratio without asking. A new season sometimes does carry a small change: a slightly heavier fabric, a different size ratio, or an earlier delivery week than the previous order.

This mistake costs real time and money when it goes unnoticed. A quotation built on an assumed specification that turns out to be wrong has to be redone from the costing stage onward, once the buyer points out the mismatch, delaying the whole enquiry by the days it takes to requote. Asking one short, specific question at the reading stage costs Mona a few minutes; reworking a wrong quotation later costs the days it takes to notice the error, requote, and resend.

• A complete enquiry states product, quantity, and rough timing before it can be costed.
• An RFQ is a formal enquiry, often a spreadsheet, sent to several factories at once.
• A firm enquiry has a real order behind it; a general price check does not.
• Every gap in an enquiry becomes one specific, answerable question, not a general request for "more details".
• Never fill a gap with an assumption from a past order without asking the buyer to confirm it.
• Record the confirmed specification before costing starts, so the quotation matches what the buyer actually asked for.

Northline Apparel's enquiry names "about 15,000 pieces" with no exact quantity and no delivery date stated

Northline Apparel sends Delta Garments its new-season enquiry: "Basic cotton T-shirt, similar to our usual style, about 15,000 pieces, need pricing for a new-season order." No exact fabric weight, size ratio, or delivery date is stated anywhere in the message.

• The enquiry names a product family but not an exact fabric specification.
• The quantity is written as "about 15,000 pieces," not a fixed number.
• No delivery date or delivery week is stated.
• Northline Apparel is an established buyer with a long order history with Delta Garments.

Should Mona cost the enquiry now using Order A's own fixed 15,000 pieces and 180 GSM fabric, or should she send clarifying questions first? Decide before opening the answer.

Enquiry-to-quotation tracker: recording each enquiry's stated facts, gaps, and confirmed specification

Open the course workbook's Enquiry Log sheet. For each new enquiry, enter what the buyer's message states for product, quantity and timing, mark which of these three are missing, and record the clarifying question sent for each gap.

Download the full working sheet, with Northline Apparel's enquiry already filled in, from the link on this course's page.

Download the Enquiry-to-quotation tracker (Excel)

Lesson 1.2: Building a costed quotation from an enquiry's own specification

You now know how to read an enquiry and list what it asks for. The next lesson turns that list into a costed quotation, line by line, from Northline Apparel's own point of view. Back to the course map