Field by field: what each line of a factory quote actually commits to, where the cost hides, and which absences matter more than the numbers.
A factory quotation is a legal-commercial document wearing the clothes of a price list. Reading it well means reading what it includes, what it excludes, and what it declines to say.
Check the description against your specification line by line: dimensions, construction, materials, finish. Where the quote paraphrases your spec (“oak dining table” for a solid-oak spec) rather than confirming it, assume the cheaper reading until confirmed in writing. Most “price gaps” between factories are scope gaps.
Solid vs veneer, foam density, fabric weight, hardware brands: this is where an aggressive quote earns its number. A price that undercuts the market by a wide margin is usually answering a different materials question — which the benchmark treats as a specification deviation, not a saving.
Three states, three risks. Included against a real specification is safe. Excluded is honest and priceable. Undefined — “standard export packaging” — is the dangerous one: it defers a real cost and a real damage-rate conversation until after you have committed.
Every unit price sits on a quantity assumption. A low price at an MOQ you cannot reach is not your price. Check which tier the headline number belongs to, and what happens at the tier you actually buy.
Tooling either appears as its own line — cost, ownership, amortisation — or has been dissolved into the unit rate. Dissolved tooling makes a quote look expensive against one that excludes it silently; it also means you may never own tooling you have effectively paid for. Ask.
EXW, FOB, CIF: each is a different answer to “price for what, delivered to where?” A quotation without an Incoterm and a named place is not yet a price — this guide shows how much the difference moves the number.
A 30% deposit at order and balance at shipment is a different commercial offer from payment against documents at 60 days, even at the same unit price. Terms shift working capital and risk; read them as part of the price, not an administrative footnote.
The exclusions paragraph and the validity window are where quotations protect themselves. Note what is expressly excluded (testing? samples? inland haulage?) and how long the number holds. A 15-day validity on a 60-day decision process is a renegotiation scheduled in advance.
Careful reading tells you what a quotation says. It cannot tell you whether the number is competitive — only a market can. When the stakes justify it, validate the quotation against fresh, normalised quotes on the same specification.
Or start directly: send the product brief