How requests for quotes work on Sparehawk

A request for quotes on Sparehawk replaces the part of spare-parts buying that consumes the most time: sending the same list to eight suppliers, chasing four of them, and comparing answers that arrive in four different formats. The how it works page summarises the flow on one page; this guide goes through it step by step.

What happens after you send a request for quotes?

Sparehawk matches each line to the suppliers who list that part, or that brand and category and ship to your country, and sends it to them without your email address or phone number. Their quotes come back into one side-by-side comparison; when you accept one, we send your contact details to that supplier, and the order continues directly between you.

1. You build a list. Add parts from the catalogue, upload a bill of materials, or type part numbers we do not recognise yet. Each line carries a quantity and, optionally, a condition you will accept and a needed-by date.
2. We match suppliers per line. A supplier is matched when they have an active offer for that part, or when they list the brand and the category and ship to your country. Matching is per line, so a ten-line request typically reaches more suppliers than any single line would.
3. They receive it and respond. Suppliers see the lines, the quantities, your delivery country and your company name. They do not see your email address or phone number until you accept a quote — everything before that goes through the platform.
4. Quotes come back into one comparison. Price per line, lead time, condition, warranty, shipping terms. You see them side by side rather than in eight PDFs.
5. You choose. When you accept a quote, we send your contact details to that supplier, and the order proceeds directly between you. Sparehawk is not a party to the transaction and takes no commission on it.

What suppliers see, and what they do not

This matters for how you write the request. Suppliers see: the parts and quantities, your delivery country, your company name and the note you attach. They do not see: your address, your email, your phone number, other suppliers’ prices, or how many suppliers the request went to.

That last one is deliberate. A supplier who knows they are one of twelve prices differently from one who knows they are one of two, and neither is a price you want to be quoted from a position you did not choose.

Writing a request that gets answered

The difference between a request that gets five quotes and one that gets none is almost always in the detail.

• Give the exact part number including the functional version where one exists. 6ES7315-2EH14-0AB0 is answerable; “a 315 CPU” needs a conversation first. The guide to Siemens order numbers shows why the version matters.
• State the quantity honestly. Suppliers price differently for one and for twenty, and a request for “1” that turns into “20” at order time damages the relationship you just built.
• Say which conditions you will accept. “New or new surplus only” saves a refurbisher from quoting and saves you from filtering. If you will take used, say so — it often halves the price. The guide to conditions explains the four grades.
• Give a realistic needed-by date. “ASAP” tells a supplier nothing. “On site by the 14th” tells them whether to quote express freight.
• Add the machine context in the note when the part is ambiguous: what it is fitted to, what it is replacing, what the rating plate says. A supplier who carries the family can often identify a part from the plate text faster than you can find the number.
• Describe the rating plate in the note (every line of text on it) for anything you are not certain about, or read it first with photo search.

How long does it take to get a quote?

How fast quotes arrive depends on the supplier and on whether the part is on their shelf or has to be sourced. Once a supplier has answered requests here, their storefront shows the response rate and median response time measured on this platform, which is a better predictor than anything they say about themselves. A part the supplier has to source takes longer, and the guide to lead time and stock explains what each availability claim means.

If a request has had no answer after two business days, it is usually one of three things: the part number does not resolve to anything the matched suppliers carry, the quantity is outside what they handle, or the delivery country is one they do not ship to. All three are visible on the request, and all three are fixable: close the request and send a new one with the corrected details.

After you accept

When you accept a quote, we send your contact details to the supplier and hand the transaction over. From that point the supplier’s own terms apply: their payment terms, their shipping terms, their warranty. Sparehawk keeps the record of what was quoted, which is what you need if something arrives that is not what was described — and the dispute and review mechanisms exist precisely for that case. The Incoterms guide explains the shipping terms you will see.

The practical advice: keep the whole conversation on the platform until you have accepted. It is not a rule, it is the only way the record is complete if you later need it.