Bag RFQ Template: 15 Fields Every Buyer Should Fill Out

The reason an RFQ works as a form is that a quotation is arithmetic, and arithmetic needs inputs. Every field on the list below is an input to somebody else's calculation: quantity sets the material buy, the material direction sets the largest cost line, the destination sets the Incoterm and the documents, the testing list sets the laboratory spend. A field left out is not a neutral omission; it is an assumption made by the person doing the arithmetic.

That is why the same bag can come back at two different prices from two honest quotations. Neither side has been dishonest. One filled in a stock shell where the other assumed a coated one, and the difference is a material line rather than a margin.

Why Is an RFQ a Form Rather Than a Message?

Because a message has to be read and a form has to be completed. A buyer writing "please quote 500 cooler bags" has not said what the insulation is, what the liner is, whether the seams are welded, what the closure is, or where the bags are going. Every one of those is a question, and a question in a message becomes an email thread rather than a number.

There is a second reason that matters commercially. A form creates a record of what was asked, which is what makes the quotation defensible later. When the price moves — and it will, at some point — the RFQ is the document that says which of the fifteen inputs changed and which did not.

What Are the First Five Fields and Why Do They Come First?

Identity, description, quantity, target price and drawing status. The first four are trivial and the fifth is the one that decides everything else. A buyer who has a finished tech pack sends it with the RFQ and gets a real number. A buyer who has a sketch sends the sketch and gets an indication. A buyer who has neither sends a description and gets a range.

The target price field is the one buyers resist filling in, and it is the most useful one on the form. Stating a target does not weaken the buyer; it tells the other side which construction directions are worth costing. Without it, a quotation is built to a specification the buyer may not be able to sell at.

How Do You Write the Material Direction Without a Finished Pack?

Give a direction and an acceptable range rather than a single specification. "600D polyester, PU coated, or a comparable coated shell at a similar weight" tells the other side what class of material to cost and leaves room for a suggestion. "Polyester" tells them nothing and "600D" tells them one number out of four that matter.

Where a physical reference exists, say so and send it or name it, and mark which parts of it are the ones that must be matched rather than approximated.

Where the buyer has a physical reference, say so and send it or name it. A reference bag is worth more than a page of description, because it carries the hand, the weight and the construction at once. Where the reference is a competitor's product, mark which parts of it are the ones that matter.

Why Does Quantity Need Splitting by Colourway?

Because one style is not one buy. A 500-piece order split across two colourways is two dye lots, two sets of trim, and possibly two material purchases that each clear a minimum. Price breaks are applied per style and colourway, not per order, and the RFQ has to say how the total splits.

This is also where MOQ is decided. At 500 pcs per style and colourway, an order of 500 split four ways does not meet the minimum in any of the four. Stating the split on the RFQ lets that be addressed at quotation rather than at order.

How Do Testing and Compliance Belong on an RFQ?

As a list of named standards and documents, because laboratory testing is a real cost and a real lead time. A buyer who asks for a restricted-substance statement is asking for a document that has to be produced and paid for; a buyer who asks for a colourfastness grade is asking for a test that has to be booked.

Name the market as well as the standard. REACH is a European Union position, Proposition 65 is a California position, CPSIA applies where the product is a children's product, and a GRS transaction certificate is what supports a recycled-content claim. Each has a different cost and a different document behind it.

What Should the Response Deadline and Format Ask For?

A date, a named recipient, and a format: a unit price at a stated quantity and Incoterm, a material list, a sampling schedule, a bulk window, and the assumptions the number rests on. That last item is the one that matters most and the one buyers never ask for.

Asking for the assumptions converts the quotation from a number into an argument. A price that says "based on a 600D shell, a stock black hardware set, and a 500-piece single-colourway buy" can be checked against the RFQ in five minutes. A price that says "USD 4.80" cannot be checked at all.

How Does Destination Change What the RFQ Must Say?

Destination sets the Incoterm, and the Incoterm sets what is in the price. FOB Xiamen puts the goods on the vessel and stops; CIF carries them to the destination port; DDP carries them to the door and includes the duty. Three quotations on three different rules are not comparable until they are put on one.

The RFQ should therefore ask for the Incoterm explicitly, with the named place written under the Incoterms 2020 rules — FOB Xiamen rather than FOB China — and should ask for the freight and duty layers to be shown separately where the rule includes them. The Incoterm decision tool walks through which rule fits which buyer.

What Does the Inspection Field Actually Commit?

A level, a standard, a sample plan and who pays. AQL 2.5 at General Inspection Level II under ISO 2859-1 is the standard position, and naming it on the RFQ means the inspection is booked as part of the programme rather than argued about at the end of it.

Where the buyer wants a level other than 2.5, the RFQ is the place to say so, because the level changes the sample size and therefore the cost of the inspection. A plan at 1.5 with a weak defect list is looser in practice than a plan at 2.5 with a real one, and the comparison is set out in the AQL 1.5 against 2.5 note.

What Happens After the Fifteen Fields Are Filled?

The RFQ goes out with the pack where there is one, and with the sketch where there is not. What comes back is a unit price at a stated quantity and Incoterm, a sampling schedule of 6-10 working days, a bulk window of 35-50 days from written sample approval, and a list of assumptions. Those four things together are a quotation.

The next step is to check the assumptions against the fifteen fields, line by line, and correct any that do not match. That check is the whole point of having filled the form in: it turns a price into something that can be argued with on paper rather than on the telephone.

What Does a Finished RFQ Cover on One Page?

Short, and shorter than most buyers expect. A quarter page of identity and commercial terms, a line per input, and the pack or the sketch attached. The document that takes two hours to write is usually the one that tried to describe the bag in prose instead of attaching the pack.

The test of a finished RFQ is whether somebody who has never met the buyer could price from it without asking a question. If the answer is yes, the fifteen fields are done. If the answer is no, whichever field they would have asked about is the one still missing.

How Should the RFQ Be Kept After the Quotation Arrives?

With the quotation, as one record. When the second run is quoted twelve months later, the original RFQ is the fastest way to work out what changed: a different quantity, a different material, a different Incoterm, or a different exchange rate. Without it, the comparison is done from memory and the memory is usually kind to the buyer.

A programme that keeps its RFQs also keeps its arguments. Where a price moves on a repeat, the RFQ says which input moved, and that is the difference between a negotiation and a dispute. The development calendar note explains why those inputs move the date as well as the price.

There is a version control point buried in this that is worth stating plainly. The RFQ that produced the accepted price is a document with a date on it, and so is the pack revision it was issued against. Twelve months later, when the second run is quoted, those two dates are what tell the buyer whether the two are being compared on equal terms.

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