For foreign trade professionals, mastering the art of quoting is essential for success in the industry. The quotation process determines whether your inquiry can translate into a confirmed order. Here, Tendata introduces a quoting technique—using trade data to view the purchasing prices of buyers, adjusting your quoting strategy to expedite order conversion!

1. Understanding the Concept of Quoting

Quoting is not merely presenting a price list; it's an interactive process with the client. Therefore, before providing a quote, it's crucial not to rush into pricing. Instead, understanding the client's background, strength, sales model, etc., is imperative—creating a customer profile. During this process, detailed insights into the client's product requirements, packaging needs, and desired quantities are essential and can be communicated via phone or email.

Many foreign trade professionals spend considerable time on this process. However, savvy individuals have mastered the technique of saving time by utilizing trade data to understand buyer requirements. By inputting the buyer's name into Tendata's trade data, you can instantly access the buyer's historical purchase prices, background, other suppliers, past purchase quantities, and more.

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For those who haven't mastered this technique, it requires familiarity with product terminology, fluency in the local language for effective communication, preparation for potential client inquiries, and conducting internet searches for possible client needs. However, trade data condenses your preparation time to just an hour. By reviewing customer trade data, you can save up to 200% of your time!

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2. Adjusting Quotes Based on Market Positioning

When determining quotes, adjustments need to be made based on the positioning in different markets. For example, when dealing with the UAE market and the Filipino labor market, finding a balance between price and quality is crucial since these markets are entirely different. For many clients, such as those in the United States, if they have confidence in us, they won't mind a price increase of 5% or 10%. They can resell our products at a higher price, with this difference being just a small part of their profit. As one of my clients said, "It's like buying insurance, as long as he feels the cost is justified."

However, if your price is 30%-50% higher than the customer's past purchase price, and the quality is similar to what other suppliers offer, it's evident the customer won't consider your product. This is especially true for price-sensitive industries like the chemical industry, where a difference of 0.1 USD may be the key to closing a deal. This is where trade data comes in handy—you can conduct customer background checks directly, understand the customer's price acceptance level, and view other suppliers' quotes, giving you clarity on your pricing strategy. Tendata's trade data provides you with supply chain analysis, enabling you to quote with precision.

>>View Supply Chain Analysis of Trade Data<<

3. Follow-Up and Quotation Finalization

The follow-up process requires continued strengthening of communication with the client while understanding their operational rules, procurement plans, and sales strategies. For instance, we can inquire about the timing of placing orders. If the response indicates that they've reported to their boss, we can understand their decision-making process. If they say there's no rush and they may consider it later in the year, we can infer their procurement schedule. In conclusion, this information is valuable, and even if the customer doesn't place an order, these experiences remain useful when dealing with the next client.