The most common enquiry a supplier receives is a request for a price list. The answer to it is either vague, or precise but about something other than your task — and, worst of all, impossible to compare fairly with a competing offer, because each side costed something different.
Describe the task, not the product
The difference matters. «We need a 100 kW generator» is already your decision, and it may be wrong. «We need the clinic to run autonomously for eight hours, including two lifts and the server room» is a task — and an engineer can size it, possibly to a very different rating.
If you already know the model you need, name it — we will cost exactly that and, where useful, offer equivalents with shorter lead times. If there is no ready solution, describing the task is enough.
The minimum that allows a quotation
- What has to happen. The function rather than the label: carry a load, pump water, lift people, power a specific list of equipment.
- Operating conditions. Indoors or outdoors, temperature, dust, duty cycle — occasional, daily, continuous.
- Site constraints. Access dimensions, ceiling height, permissible loads, drainage, power supply, ground slope.
- Volume. A single unit or a batch, and whether repeat orders are expected.
- Deadline — and whether a date is immovable: commissioning, heating season, academic year.
- Delivery point, together with whether unloading, installation and commissioning are required.
These six points close most of the follow-up questions. If you do not know one of them, say so: «unknown» is information too, and better than a guess a supplier will treat as fact.
On budget
Many buyers avoid naming a budget, fearing the price will be raised to meet it. In practice the effect is the opposite: with no reference point a supplier either offers the cheapest option to win the comparison, or the most complete one so as not to under-deliver — and neither is about you.
A range or a ceiling is enough. It saves a round or two of correspondence and produces a more honest answer.
If there is no specification at all
That is a normal situation and no reason to delay the enquiry. Describe it in plain words: what exists, what it should become, what problems have already occurred. Photographs of the site often say more than a page of text — especially about the installation location, access and the condition of existing services.
Four gaps that make offers incomparable
- Installation not specified — and one quotation looks cheaper by exactly the cost of the works.
- Warranty and service not mentioned — the price is compared, the difference appears in year two.
- Commissioning left unassigned — on site it turns out nobody owns it.
- Documentation requirements omitted — and then a full origin-of-goods package turns out to be mandatory.
State these four explicitly and the responses become comparable — so the choice is about the quality of the solution rather than about who left what out.
We work exactly this way: we accept the task in whatever form it exists — a formal specification or a few sentences — and return a configuration with costing, lead time and a clear list of what is included. Consultation and costing are free of charge and carry no obligation.