How to Create Alibaba RFQ to Attract Good Suppliers 2021
Table of Contents
What is RFQ on Alibaba?
Purchasing direct, also known as Alibaba RFQ (RFQ=request for quotation), means that buyers take the initiative to fill in purchasing information and entrust Alibaba platform to find suitable sellers. Suppliers can check purchasing requirements and quote timely according to buyer’s requirements; this function is temporarily free of charge. In this large open market, buyers will proactively announce their procurement requirements, and suppliers can independently select suitable buyers for quotations.
Alibaba RFQ Process Review
Alibaba RFQ service can greatly improve buyers’ purchasing efficiency, while helping suppliers to better complete order conversion and win more high-quality buyers.
Why do you need Alibaba RFQ?
Today I am talk about how to find the best suppliers on Alibaba using Alibaba RFQ function.
This will be a complete and newest step by step guide and I will start from talking about what’s RFQ and how does it work and then followed by a detailed instruction about how to write a good Alibaba RFQ to find the best suppliers on Alibaba.
So when you just simply do a supplier search and you applied the verified supplier and trade assurance supplier filter, yes, it’s true that Alibaba already screen the good suppliers for you. You will see pages and pages of suppliers list.
However, what you really need is to try to find the best suppliers that match your business best. Alibaba RFQ is definitely a great tool to help you in this.
What is Alibaba RFQ Sourcing Tool?
Ok. Let’s start the main things here. First, what is Alibaba RFQ? Alibaba RFQ sourcing tool means the Request For Quotation. It is a free Alibaba service. Simply speaking, the RFQ is your buying request and it will be opened to all potential suppliers for bidding. This enables you to receive quotations from multiple suppliers in a matter of days.
Instead of you spending hours and hours to contact suppliers one by one, and sometimes, they don’t even reply you, the Alibaba RFQ function turn the table and let the suppliers come to you. If you use it in the right way, Alibaba RFQ can be a really powerful sourcing tool for you to find your best match supplier.
The Advantages of Alibaba RFQ?
Next, before I start to show you how to use the RFQ function, there are still a few things that you want to understand first.
The 1st thing you want to understand is under what situations, using RFQ is a good option for you. Here I will give you an example of three typical situations.
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- 1ST, if you are trying to develop a new product or customize a product, RFQ is a very good option for you. Since not all suppliers are willing to spend time and effort to help you develop products, if you try to contact suppliers one by one, it will waste you a lot of time.
- 2nd, if you are looking for a very new, novel and unique product with some unique features that you are not even sure about the keywords to describe it, it will be hard for you to use key words and product search to find the right product you are looking for. In this situation, submitting a RFQ can save you tons of time and help you find the right supplier much more efficiently.
- 3rd, if you want to find the exactly same product that your competitor sells, then RFQ is a good option for you too. Since you can list out all the specifications and let the suppliers who have the same design to reach out to you.
The second thing is the engagement rules laid out by Alibaba. You need to remember two numbers, 10 and 30. Here, 1O is the maximum quotation number you can get for every single RFQ you submit. This is actually a rule that can benefit buyers, since Alibaba will automatically help you to do a first-step screening process and provide you a list of the most relevant suppliers.
While 30 is a number for the suppliers. Each supplier can only reply 30 RFQ per month for free, if they want to reply more, they will need to pay extra money. And here you can see why good suppliers will be a little picky when they select RFQs to reply.
They only choose the most serious buyers or the most professional buyers who show bigger potential for their business. Therefore, you need to write a very good Alibaba RFQ to show that you are a more attractive buyer.
Have no idea about how to write an attractive RFQ? Don’t worry, I will show you couple of different strategies in this following step by step guide on how to write a good and attractive RFQ.
There are different ways to access the RFQ page, you can go to My Alibaba and select the “Get Quotations Now” button here, or you can access the RFQ page by just typing the URL rfq.alibaba.com and click this “submit RFQ” there.
Even if you start with product research, you can still submit a RFQ after you submit your inquiry to a specific supplier. For example, here, I found this supplier through product search and just select contact supplier and after you put all your inquiry details, before you hit this send inquiry now button, you can simply check this “Recommend matching suppliers if this supplier doesn’t contact me on Message Center with 24 hours” and it will also lead you to the RFQ form page to fill out your inquries and send it to other potential suppliers.
1. The buyer can post an Alibaba RFQ when posting an inquiry.
2. There is an Alibaba RFQ area in the Services section of the search bar on the homepage.
How to Set an RFQ Alibaba?
OK, so now let’s start with filling out an Alibaba RFQ form from the beginning. Let’s say we are trying to find a supplier for customized tablecloths. Go to your account profile and hit the “Get Quotations Now” button and we are now here at the RFQ form page.
Alibaba RFQ Keywords
Here, we need to put a Alibaba RFQ product name, we are looking for a customized table cover, and when you put the product name, make sure you use proper keywords here to describe your products, this is important since the right key words make it easier for more suppliers to find your RFQ.
I will suggest you keep the product name as simple as possible, just need to contain the main elements. Do not use less known or less used product keywords. Then, you need to select the product category, for table cover, I am going to chose…This product category helps you to locate the right suppliers who have similar category products or in the same product industry.
Then, sourcing type, you will see this drop down menu and here, we will just chose the customized product and followed by this menu, you can specify the things you want to customize and let’s say I want to put a customized logo on my tablecloth and I also want a customized packaging. The sourcing purpose, we will choose wholesale.
Alibaba RFQ MOQ
And then, the quantity. You need to put an estimated purchasing quantities here, however, there are some tips here. We all know that if you put a very small quantities here, it’s unlikely that you will get a lot of suppliers who are interested to reply your Alibaba RFQ.
When the suppliers look at your RFQ, honestly speaking, this number gonna decide whether they are going to reply you.
So the tip here is to put a quantity that can meet most suppliers’ MOQ requirement. For your product, you can serach for this catergory on Alibaba and use the MOQ that listed by different suppliers as a starting reference. Based on our many year’s experience, for most of the common products, a MOQ around 500 to 1000 is already a good number for most suppliers for the first order.
Some blogs tell you to write more MOQ. However, an experienced buyer knows what the questions asked by a large number of orders are. So, try to keep it within a reasonable range
Ok, so here, I will put 500 into the quantity here. Then after this, we are going to select our trade terms here. In this drop down menu, there are many different incoterms. For your first quote, we would suggest you to always chose FOB instead of DDP or DDU, because this will give you a clear quotation and the supplier won’t have the chance to embed some of the profits in the shipping that they quote to you.
If you don’t know some of them, that’s fine, don’t worry, we will have another video talking about all different incoterms in the importing process coming out soon.
Alibaba RFQ Target Price
Ok, let’s move next. For the preferred unit price, this is actually another very important point. if you already did some research and have a good judgment and confidence in the wholesale price, you can directly put it here. From the supplier’s perspective, if they see your preferred price is really a very realistic price, they will also think that you are a very professional buyer.
If your price is too low or too high, the supplier will think that you didn’t really understand the market and you are not a very professional buyer.
Therefore, if you really didn’t have a good sense about the target price, the strategy we give you is try to submit the RFQ twice. In the first Alibaba RFQ, you can leave this preferred unit price here blank since it’s not mandatory. And after you receive the first round of questions from like 10 different suppliers, you will have a much better sense about the price and then you can try to put your target price here in the next round.
Ok, so let’s go back to this Alibaba RFQ we are working on now, I am going to leave the preferred unit price blank for now.
All right, the next one is certification. Here if your product need some certifications, you can put it here, just select the right certification that works for you from the drop down menu.
Now, we come to this details input box here. This is a very important part of the entire Alibaba RFQ form. Here, I am going to share with you a very useful good Alibaba RFQ template that you can use to put here.
Alibaba RFQ Form Template
So at the beginning, you want to start introducing yourself and your business background. For example, you can say ….
Then in the next paragraph, you want to list all your product specifications here.
Next, you can talk about your purchasing quantity and plan. As we talked about before, it’s OK that you won’t place a very big first order, here you want to talk to them that you have the potential to buy the products in the long term and you already have your own product selling plan. So you can write something like this…
Followed by this, you can write some of your other requirements and again, the purpose here is to help you find the most suitable suppliers. For example, we want a customized table cover with the company’s logo on. You can write a paragraph like this:
That’s pretty much all you need to put here to attract the best matching suppliers for your product and business. Let’s just copy this Alibaba RFQ and paste it here in the details box.
Then, after this, here, you have the option to upload a product photo or other document to include more details if you want. The next section is something you need about supplier’s capability. Like, if you need the supplier to have some certifications, you can put it here, and of course, some other requirements if you have.
The last section is shipping and payment. You can chose sea freight or air freight, this part actually doesn’t really matter now since you are just getting a quote.
Submit Alibaba RFQ
Now we are ready to submit our Alibaba RFQ form. Here on the right side, you can have a quick check, it shows our completeness is fair, because we didn’t put the color, type. Length ,etc, but it’s ok, we have listed them in the details.
So everything looks good now and let just hit submit!After it’s submitted and approved, you just need to wait for a bit to get suppliers reply you. where to find my rfq on alibaba? You can go to the account profile, there is a “manage the RFQ” option.
Once you get quotations from different suppliers, you can see all of them here. Click the Click the “view quotation”, then you can see the quotation details sent out by every supplier. Click “contact now”, you can start chatting with this supplier.
Alright, until now, I have shown you all the steps you need to do to find a good supplier on Alibaba using Alibaba RFQ function. Hope you can learn a lot from it.
As usual, if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us or leave your comments below. Thanks again for watching this video, if you like it, don’t forget to hit subscribe so that you won’t miss our next good article about sourcing from China.
