I also have submitted many quotes here. I have come to the conclusion that many of the requesters, have no idea what mfg costs are and when they see a quote higher then what they think is expected, they just either abandon the idea or figure out something else. I know that in my area, I am in the midrange for prices, so I should see SOME response to RFQ's. Nothing so far. Which also makes me suspect that many buyers are using this service to get an idea for pricing their product or as an argument for lower prices to a shop they are already dealing with.
One other thing may also be happening, Shops may be trying to underbid the other guy on the same job, I simply refuse to go under my shop rate.
I'm just not going to play that game
There is something wrong though...Everywhere I bid, except here, I see about 30% of that work awarded to my shop. I've been at that sucess rate for over 25 years. Not here or any other online RFQ site.
Go Figure.........
Jim

If you're looking to make a living, you're looking in the wrong place.

great responses from everyone.
I would definately like the originater of the RFQ to post that the job is fullfilled and thankyou.
Importing can be costly depending on the avenue taken.
For instance, if I go through my broker it costs me $50 flat for their service then I pay shipping yet, on a large job this is easiest/best method for me and $50 does very little to the bottome line.
For a small box of parts I just fill out a NAFTA certificate of origin and ship, price is just shipping then.
Another point of interest, if the sale goes to a private individual the US govt requires that the shipper supplies the recievers social security number. If it is a sale to a business then the business number is required.

Presently doing business with Canada saves you 15 cents on the dollar.

OK let me ask this, does everyone feel this way about doing business with Canada?
I would appreciate you letting me know so I can stop quoting work if no one here wants to deal out of country.

Thanks

We have subscribed to MFGQuote for several years and have the same problems there; non response, or awarded off line, or just canceled. I would guess that in one years time I quoted close to 250 jobs through them (injection molded products) and over half where purchase officers bouncing numbers to get the current suppliers to lower their cost. We are now doing the same with CPM fastools to see if the machine shop side is as corrupt as the injection molded side. The number of items to quote is about 10X that of injection molding but I still get the impression that it is purchase managers using the quotes as a stick to pound the current suppliers into lower prices. It is interesting to note; for every person that walks into my shop for a quote I get the job, for everyone that calls on the phone I would say 75% we get. Online quotes are less then 5%. Just shows that the more effort the person has to go through the more likely they are to be serious. It is just too easy to post an RFQ as opposed to picking up a phone or heaven forbid actually meeting a person face to face.
As for feedback, yes. The biggest benefit to the quote process, second to winning a bid is to at least see how you faired. Where you high or Low? To long of a lead? These are all good questions to have answers too, plus it makes me sleep better at night knowing I am not wasting time on bogus quotes.

You can't not quote jobs, there is no way of knowing real quotes vs. bogus vs. Purchasers bouncing numbers. My only suggestion is to automate the quote process as much as possible so you spend less time and therefore do not feel like you are being taken advantage of.

Good luck

DareBee, you seem to be **unusually** well informed about customs and shipping. Once, I got a quote from Austrailia, and I asked what the parts would cost to get here and they had no idea... I dropped them like a hot potato.

I'm **happy** to accept quotes from out of the country as long as all the shipping related issues are known by the supplier, and the cost is guaranteed by the supplier.

I'd suggest making this an explicit part of your quotes. I love it when a supplier includes stuff in thier quote that shows me they are thinking about making things easier for me.

Happy to do business with our well-informed northern neighbors,

-Jeff

Thanks Jeff
I have shipped over border a few times.
Usually complete automation equipment.
With that kind of money involved nobody ever worries about brokerage costs.
Please don't take my previous post about shipping as "gospel" because things DO change but those items are accurate to the experiences I have had.

If the user who started the thread could denote that he/she wants it deleted by a sale. I will be more than happy to delete it for them.

On Ebay you can rate suppliers an buyers on how good their service was. Maybe we could have a similar thing here, so if somebody is being impolite or untrustworthy people can see that and respond appropriately.

We have a "rate this thread" option and als we have a forum topic dedicated for comments on users or businesses.

-garrett
rfq admin

I am fairly confident that vBulletin software has the ability to allow the poster to delete or modify his/her posts. That of course would have to be set-up by the board admin.