HomeCasesThree Quotes, 40% Apart, Same Product Cases /Factory Sourcing Three Quotes, 40% Apart, Same Product The gap was not negotiation room. It was tooling ownership, MOQ and a different material grade, visible only when the quotes were rebuilt on one basis. 5 min read Reading time October 26, 2026 Updated Factory Sourcing Filed under On this page9 sections Background The problem Scope What we did What we found Deliverables Result Limitations Next step Quick read · Factory Sourcing Three quotations for the same product, 40% apart. None of the three was wrong; they were answering three different questions. Typical scenario. Assembled from recurring project patterns, not a single client record. No client name, order value or saving is disclosed. Background Household goods, mid-size order, buyer with an existing specification. Deliverable: quotation comparison. Timeframe: two weeks. The problem The buyer assumed the spread was negotiation room. A 40% gap on an identical drawing usually is not. Scope Rebuild the three quotations on one specification basis and identify where the difference actually originates. No renegotiation included. What we did Each quotation was decomposed into material, labour, tooling, packaging, MOQ and lead time, and each line was traced back to the assumption behind it. Three differences surfaced. One quote excluded tooling and amortised it into unit price at a volume the buyer had not committed to. One used a lower material grade, permitted by the drawing’s tolerance but not by the buyer’s end use. One quoted a higher MOQ that changed the per-unit labour allocation. All three were reissued against the same volume, material grade and tooling ownership. The spread fell to single digits. What we found A price gap is only a negotiation signal after the basis is identical. Before that, it is a description of three different scopes. Deliverables Line-by-line comparison table, assumptions extracted from each quote, and a list of items the buyer needed to decide before any further negotiation. Result Three quotes placed on one basis; the remaining difference traced to tooling amortisation, which became a commercial decision rather than a price argument. Basis note: the 40% and the single-digit remainder refer to this comparison only and depend on volume and specification. Limitations No supplier, product or price is identified. Findings depend on the drawing being complete; an incomplete specification produces the same confusion regardless of who compares it. Next step Send two or three quotations and the specification they were based on. Factory sourcing covers shortlisting and comparison together. Related reading Factory Sourcing Four Days, Two Cities, Five Plants A route built around one industrial belt instead of th… Read the full case → Factory Sourcing Three Sample Rounds, One Root Cause Three failed samples were read as a factory problem. T… Read the full case → Factory Sourcing A Contact List Full of Traders Twelve contacts from a show, four actual factories. Sc… Read the full case → Same kind of request? Tell us the category, quantity and target city. Scope, schedule and pricing basis reach you within 24 hours. Submit a request
