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.

What happens when you send one

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 e-mail 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. Accepting a quote exchanges contact details and the order proceeds directly between you and that supplier. 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 e-mail, 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.
• 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.
• 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 a photo faster than you can find the number.
• Attach a photo of the rating plate for anything you are not certain about.

How long it takes

Most suppliers who are going to quote do so within one business day; the median on this marketplace is faster for parts they have in stock and slower for parts they have to source. Each supplier's storefront shows their observed response rate and median response time, which is a better predictor than anything they say about themselves.

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 by editing and re-sending.

After you accept

Accepting a quote exchanges contact details and hands 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 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.