When you receive an RFQ, you can look whether it is interesting for you. This process is called the quoting process. Questions you answer are for instance: Where is the customer located? Do I have the products on hand? Who are my competitors? When you find the request interesting, you respond with a Quote. In the quote, you state your proposed price and proposed delivery date. You could deviate from the requested amount and from the indicated time window, but be aware that the customer will select the most interesting offer. In some cases, you can make your offer more interesting by providing extra services, such as warranty, local support, or on-site installation (the availability of these services depends on the particular game you are playing). Be aware, however, that extra features cost you extra money. When submitting a quote, you also have to watch your stock at-hand, and already committed stock, as well as the confirmed orders for the coming period. When you cannot fulfill the order later on time, your customer might blacklist you or impose a fine, which might be worse than not submitting a quote at all. Another point to take into consideration is that the customer does not want to wait too long with ordering -- remember that the market is volatile. When you do not promptly submit your quotes, you might have violated the cutoff date of the RFQ and consequently not get the order.

Quote properties

The Quote has the following properties:

• RFQ
  The RFQ to which the quote belongs (not changeable)
• Proposed amount
  The number of products that are actually promised
• Promised delivery date
  The promised date of delivery
• Base Price
  The price per product unit that the supplier is asking for the proposed amount of products
• Price
  The total price that the supplier is asking for the overall order

You have to take into account the transportation time and transportation mode when promising products on a certain date. An estimate of the transportation time is usually given in the game.