Foundry enquiries on IndiaMART: sorting real buyers from price checkers

The IndiaMART inbox at a foundry fills with "CI casting rate per kg?", "need 1 piece for college project" and, now and then, an engineer with a real drawing. Answer them in the order they arrived and the engineer waits behind the students. Three questions, sent as one message, sort them. Can you send the drawing and grade? How many per lot and per year? Is the part for your own product or a customer's? A real buyer can answer at least two. A price checker tends to answer none, or asks for the rate again.

Who sends casting enquiries on a marketplace

Students and project makers want one piece, mention a college and have a deadline. They are genuine, but there is no business in it.

Traders and sourcing agents ask for rates per kg in several grades, with no drawing, and request your price list. Some have a real buyer behind them. Others are building a price sheet to sell from.

Rate checkers want the number and nothing else. One may be a purchase officer collecting a rate to push the current foundry down; another may be a rival foundry checking yours.

Real buyers send a drawing or a sample, a grade and a quantity, and ask about testing or machining. A quieter group among them is the maintenance engineer with a broken machine part, a sample in hand and no drawing at all.

"Rate per kg" is the trade's own shorthand, which is exactly why rate checkers use it. A rate given blind ignores cores, weight, machining and lot size. It is either too high to win the real buyer or too low to honour.

The three questions, as one message

Send this as plain text, as the first reply from the IndiaMART lead manager or typed into WhatsApp. It needs no buttons or templates.

Thank you for your enquiry for (casting name). To quote properly we need three things:
1. The drawing, or clear photos of a sample with its main sizes, and the material grade
   (for example FG 260 or SG 500/7).
2. How many pieces per lot, and roughly how many in a year.
3. Is this part for your own machine or product, or are you sourcing it for a customer?
If the casting is machined after, please tell us which faces. We send a quotation as soon as we have these.

The first question filters students and rate checkers, who often have no drawing. The second separates one-offs from runs. The third separates users from traders, without insulting either.

Sorting the replies

• Drawing, grade and a yearly figure. A real buyer. Cost it, then phone the buyer before the quote goes, to confirm what you assumed about machining and testing.
• A sample photo, a broken machine and one or two pieces. A maintenance buyer. It is real money but a one-off, so quote the pattern charge plainly. The machine is down, so the date matters more than the rate.
• Rates in several grades, "sourcing for a client". A trader. Ask for one drawing from the trader's client. If none comes, send a range you are happy to see in a rival's hands, or nothing.
• "For project", one piece. A student. Send the polite fixed note and spend no costing time.
• Silence after one reminder. Close it as "no reply" and stop.

Do not send the questions when the enquiry already carries the drawing, grade and quantity. Asking again tells the buyer you did not read it. And when a maintenance engineer writes that the line is stopped, ring rather than message.

For example: an SG iron foundry in Shivamogga

Imagine a small grey and SG iron foundry in Shivamogga with a paid IndiaMART listing titled "Cast Iron Casting" and a photo of a heap of castings. The details are illustrative.

A junior in the office handled the enquiries. The junior rang every sender within minutes and costed every part anyone described, and mornings went on students' brackets and traders' price lists. Then a pump maker's engineer in Rajkot sent a drawing of an impeller housing, with the grade and a yearly quantity. It sat in the queue behind student enquiries for days. By the time the quote went out, the sample order had gone to another foundry.

After that, the three-question message went to every new enquiry first, and only those that came back with a drawing and a quantity were costed. The listing was retitled by casting, with SG iron pump casings and grey iron housings shown separately and the weight range stated. Fewer quotations went out, and each one went to someone who had sent a drawing while still comparing foundries.

Count drawings, not enquiries

The number that tells you whether the listing works is how many enquiries arrived with a drawing. Total enquiries flatter a listing that mostly attracts rate checkers. Drawings do not. Count drawings received against enquiries each month, and judge the listing on that before renewal; the title is where to start. For a simple register, see IndiaMART, TradeIndia and directories. Once a real buyer has sent a drawing, read it back before you quote. See also casting and foundry.

This route suits a foundry that pours to drawings in modest lots. Skip the questions if you sell a standard catalogue item, such as manhole covers by size, where a price list is the honest first answer.

Send the three questions on the next enquiry

Open the enquiries still waiting in your IndiaMART inbox and sort them into the five groups above. Send the three questions to every one without a drawing, and cost only what comes back complete. If you want the listing rewritten and the reply routine set up through IndiaMART and marketplace lead management, tell us what you need.