Through the construction and marketing of the store, sellers gradually come into contact with foreign buyers, but in order to successfully grasp business opportunities, obtain orders and fulfill orders, sellers feel that there are still many things to do. In addition to inquiries, RFQ is an important way for buyers to obtain customer demand information on the Alibaba platform.

[Operational skills]

1. The meaning and process of FOQ.

RFQ (request for quotation) means that buyers take the initiative to fill in procurement information and entrust the Alibaba platform to find suitable sellers. Suppliers can view procurement requirements and make timely quotations according to buyers’ requirements. In this open market, buyers will take the initiative to publish procurement requirements, and suppliers can independently select suitable buyers for quotations.

From the functional composition diagram of FOQ, we can see the entire process of FOQ. Buyers publish their own procurement requirements in the FOQ market, suppliers can take the initiative to find customers, and buyers can quickly find suitable suppliers in the FOQ market, which is also convenient for supplier quotation management and order management.

2. RFQ quotation rights.

Different types of suppliers have different restrictions on the number of quotations they can make, and they have different rights. For example, for members of Export Link and Jinpincheng, the basic quotation authority is 20 items/month, for members of Pass, it is 10 items/month, and for free members in mainland China, it is 10 items/90 days. If the accumulated negative reviews in the month are ≥3, the quotation authority will be frozen for 7 days from the 3rd of the next month.

In addition, suppliers can obtain reward rights by increasing the number of days of access to the procurement direct market, the number of days of RFQ quotation, the number of valid credit insurance orders, and the buyers’ favorable comments on RFQ quotations.

If there is one RFQ quotation that has passed the review in the previous month and one or more credit insurance orders in the current month, you can get quotation privileges, such as being given the “Popular Supplier” mark, and you can be prioritized in the quotation list, and high-quality RFQs will be quoted first.

3. Obtaining RFQ.

Open the Alibaba backend, and you can enter the RFQ market from the Today’s To-Do List or the procurement direct access on the left. There are three main ways to obtain RFQs. The first is system recommendation. You can obtain recommended high-quality business opportunities on the homepage of the procurement direct channel and receive email notifications. Second, in the procurement direct channel, you can directly enter keywords in the search bar to find relevant procurement information. By filtering conditions such as time, category, language, buyer location, procurement quantity, remaining seats, etc., you can accurately obtain RFQ. Third, to customize RFQ, you can enter keywords in the search bar and add the keywords to “My Customized Search” through the “+ Add to My Customized Search” button. After completing the customization, the RFQ related to the keyword can be notified to the seller via email and Wangwang.