Notes for owners · Sales management
Bulk and builder orders for appliances: handling enquiries that do not come through the cart
How an online appliance seller handles builders, hotels and offices who ask for a quote in lots: a separate route, a quote that shows GST, delivery lots and warranty start, and one named person.
The GullySales team · Updated 17 Oct 2026 · 6 min read
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A builder's purchase team types 'need 96 split ACs and 48 chimneys for Tower B, send best rate' into your website chat, and the chat replies with a coupon code. Builders, hotels and offices buy appliances in lots, and the cart cannot serve them. Give them their own door. That means a 'bulk and project orders' link on every product page and a short form for models, quantities, site and handover date. One named person replies with a written quote. It shows unit price, GST, delivery lots, installation and when the warranty starts.
Who sends these enquiries
Builders buying ACs, chimneys and geysers for a tower, hotels fitting out rooms before an opening date, and offices or hostels buying by the floor. All want a GST invoice and a written quote, and none will add 96 units to a cart. A builder's team will often hold your quote against its approved makes list, line by line.
Why these enquiries die inside an online store
They come through the wrong door: the website chat, the customer care inbox, a product question, sometimes a review. Whoever reads them treats them as retail, sends the listed price or a coupon, and moves on. Nobody owns the enquiry, so nobody follows up when the builder goes quiet for a month while the interiors are finished.
The door itself, a line on every product page and a short form that asks for the GSTIN, is set out for bulk laptop and phone buyers. It works the same way for appliances, with one rule of your own: anything going to a site rather than a home gets a quote, whatever the quantity. Add two fields a laptop buyer never needs. One is the handover or opening date. The other is the approved makes list.
That list decides more than your price does. On a housing project the MEP consultant fixes it and the purchase team buys from it. A model that is missing will not be ordered at any rate, so ask for the list before you quote and price only the models it names.
What the quote has to show
| Line in the quote | What to write | Why the buyer needs it |
|---|---|---|
| Models and quantities | Exact model numbers, split by tower, floor or room type | It is checked against the approved makes list |
| Unit price and GST | Price per unit, GST shown separately, total per lot | Accounts matches it to the purchase order |
| Delivery lots | Which units go to which tower on which date | Few sites can store a whole order safely |
| Installation | Who fits, what is included, the rate for extra pipe or stands | Site disputes start with 'we thought it was included' |
| Warranty start | From invoice or from installation, as the brand confirms in writing | Units can sit in a site store for months |
| Payment | Advance, balance per lot, any credit period | It decides your cash as much as theirs |
| Validity | The date until which the price holds | Brand prices can move before handover |
| Named contact | One person, with a direct line | The site supervisor needs someone to call |
The warranty line is the one sellers miss. ACs delivered to a tower in its last months may not be switched on until the flats are handed over. If the brand counts the warranty from the invoice, the flat owner can find part of it gone before first use. Ask the brand how it treats project supplies, and put its answer in the quote.
Price the lot, not the box
Your online price is built for one delivery to one home. A lot with staggered delivery, high-floor installation and a credit period costs more to serve, so quote one rate for the units and a stated rate for extras. A builder who takes fewer lots or pays more up front earns a better rate.
Ask the brand before you quote, too. Some run a projects desk that supports large orders through a dealer. If yours does, register the deal, so you are not quoting against the brand's own offer to the same builder.
Know when to stop. A buyer who wants boxes only, at the lowest rate, with no installation and no schedule, is choosing on price alone. The brand's distributor will often win that. Quote once, honestly, and let it go.
For example: 80 ACs delivered on one day
For example, picture a multi-brand appliance store in Hyderabad with a busy website and a showroom. A builder asks it for 80 split ACs for a gated project on the city's western edge. The store quoted its online price, delivered all 80 on one day to save trips, and left the fitting to be scheduled later. The site had nowhere safe to keep them. Several outdoor units were damaged before they were fixed to a wall, and nobody could say whose fault it was. Flats were handed over months later, and owners found the warranty counted from the invoice date. High-floor fittings needed extra pipe, which the technicians charged to residents, who complained to the builder.
On the next project the store quoted in four lots by tower and had the site supervisor sign for each lot on arrival. It confirmed the warranty start with the brand in writing and priced extra pipe per metre in the quote. In this illustration the website margin on a ₹38,000 AC is ₹3,000 a unit and the project margin was ₹2,000, so the first project's 80 units promised ₹2,40,000. It lost about ₹90,000 to damage and extra pipe. The second earned ₹1,60,000 and kept nearly all of it. The builder asked for the next tower's quote without being chased.
Builders buy late, so follow up against handover
A builder may ask for a quote at the structure stage and order near handover. Put the handover date in your pipeline and follow up against that date, not the date you sent the quote. Our post on quotation follow-up covers the messages, and how plumbing distributors quote a builder's quantity list shows the same problem in another trade.
Find the bulk buyers already in your inbox
Search your chat logs, care inbox and reviews for any message with a quantity in it. Each one was a bulk buyer at the wrong door. Name one person to answer them. Ask each for the approved makes list and handover date. Project sales are one of the sides of appliance selling on our e-commerce sales and marketing page; the price ladder is pricing and packaging work, and the named reply is lead response and follow-up. To talk through the door, the quote format and the follow-up against handover, tell us what you need.
