I am feeling frustrated.
I spend time reading these posts and respond to quite a few of them.
Most of these are just left dangling, no responses posted back, no PMs sent back and no emails recieved.
I have yet to recieve any work through these sites and I am fighting an uphill battle in that respect - I do not begrudge this fact and keep submitting quotes anyway, I am a large shop and know that I can't compete on small jobs against afterhours backyard machinists (as the case is sometimes) and people tend to be afraid of importing for some reason.
The thing that is annoying me is that very few RFQ posters are closing anything, the threads remain open with no responses from the original poster.
Are most of these drive-by RFQs?

Whatever happened to common courtesy for the guy that spends valuable time considering and quoting on your RFQ?

THANK YOU!

DareBee,
Since machining is not my real source of income I am probably one of those after hours machinists you are referring to

But...
I could not agree more with you sentiments, it is just not right for RFQ posters to just ignore those that have spent time in answering a RFQ. Certainly not all have been doing that, some have kept right on top of it, thank you !!, however, this just ignore attitude is not all that uncommon and should not be tolerated. These RFQ should all be closed even if the closing stated that the quotes were appreciated but found to be too costly to continue.

Valid post DareBee.

Ken

I have been actually very concered about this issue. Although I can't force the poster to respond back. Also, with unresponded posts I can only assume the users took it up over an email or phone call.

This is not a site fault. It is going to happen, and you are correct, there is not much that you are able to do about it.
I guess we should just grit our teeth, learn to overlook it and move on.

What I have begun to do is send a private message asking a question of some sort, there is always something missing from the RFQ post that you
are able to ask a legitimate question. I judge how serious they are about their RFQ based upon how long it takes for a reply. If it takes days for a response or none at all then to me that is a big red flag that this person may not be as serious about his RFQ as I am serious about getting him one and I just pass on that one.

We might want to keep in mind here that this can go both ways with the RFQ poster being the one drug along.

I guess the answer lies in each of us, we can all behave as a professionals with out necessarily being a professional.

Ken

I have posted an rfq and received 4 responses, I have replied personally to all of them. I would like to close the RFQ now but don't see a button to push, apparently only the Admin do this?
Granted I could post that I'd found the right person for the job but that wouldn't be entirely truthful either...
I suppose it would be a lot of trouble to code the BB to allow original posters to lock or delete a thread. Maybe not?

dkbgs,
I would just close it by replying, indicating that the RFQ has been filled and thanking everyone for they're quotes.

Ken

I highly disagree
Once a customer has decieded who is getting the job the RFQ should be erased so the rest of us don't keep seeing it !!

__________________

If you haven't said anything in the email we wouldn't know if you found buyers.

DareBee,

You are correct that us buyers need to do a better job awarding jobs here. I closed my thread but still need to respond to e-mailed quotes individually.

One comment, buyers SHOULD be afraid of importing. I just got hosed on brokerage fees from Canada. My RFQs now state:

"If you are suppling from outside the continental USA you MUST include all shipping, taxes, tariffs, brokerage, customs, etc charges IN your quote. No exceptions will be made."

One question, do job shops want/should they get feedback on thier quote? I regularly get quotes that vary by a factor of 4 or 5 for the same job.

-Jeff

Okay, I just e-mailed everyone.

-Jeff