Notes for owners · Industry playbooks
How medical supplies distributors answer a requirement list
A hospital store sends a long list of items and wants rates. This post sets out what to do with that list, who to ask, what to send back and how to follow up.
The GullySales team · Updated 6 Oct 2026 · 5 min read
Rules for this trade differ by state and professional body, and they change. Check the current position with your own council or adviser before you act on anything here.
On this page
Answer the list the day it arrives, item by item, with stock and rate against each line, and name the person who will ring about it. Then record it. A requirement list is a buyer who has already decided to buy, and most distributors treat it like a request for a brochure: a PDF goes out, nobody follows up, and the order goes to whoever rang the store on Thursday.
What a hospital store is really asking when it sends a list
The store keeper has a list from the wards and the OT, a budget line and a purchase manager waiting for comparisons. She is not asking who you are. She is asking whether you have these items, at what rate, on what credit, and by when they reach the store.
For example, a nursing home in Davanagere sends one list in March with IV sets, cannulas of three gauges, two wheelchairs, a suction machine and a carton of surgical gloves. A distributor who quotes only the items he has handy loses the whole list. The hospital will not split the order across four suppliers for the sake of the one carton he missed.
What to do in the first hour
Open the list and mark every line as in stock, available from the principal, or not supplied by you. Do this before anyone types a rate.
Then read the list for what it says about the buyer. A request for wheelchairs and a suction machine in the same message means a new ward or a refit, which will bring more orders. A list that names a brand means the doctors have chosen and the store is only comparing the rate. A list with no brand names leaves room for you to propose an alternative, which you may do only with items your principal supplies.
What the reply should carry
Send the reply as a message the store keeper can forward without editing. A WhatsApp message with a clean table works for a small hospital. A PDF on your letterhead with the same table works for a trust or a group.
| Column | Why the store needs it |
|---|---|
| Item and brand as named on the list | So the comparison sheet lines up with the others |
| Pack size and unit rate | A rate per piece and a rate per box are not comparable |
| Stock today | The first thing she checks, before the rate |
| Batch and shelf-life range you hold | A store will refuse a short-dated batch |
| Credit terms and GST shown separately | So your total matches what the accounts team will pay |
| Delivery day and who delivers | The name of a person, not "our team" |
Keep any product claims to what the principal's own approved leaflet says. Rules on how medical devices and drugs may be described differ by item and change, so check with the principal or your own regulatory adviser before adding words of your own.
How to follow up without nagging
The follow-up is the part most distributors skip. Ring or message the store keeper the next working day and ask one useful question: has the comparison gone to the purchase manager, and is there anything on the list you could not read? Ask whether any rate needs a second look.
If the answer is that a rival is cheaper on the cannulas, do not cut every rate. Offer to hold the lower rate on that one item against the full list, if the margin allows. A distributor who protects the order's total beats one who drops a line by a rupee and loses the delivery record.
When you hear nothing, ring again after the date she gave you for the decision, not on a count of days. If she gave no date, you asked the wrong question the first time.
Where the list leaks away
Most lists are lost in three ordinary places. The rep took the call on his mobile and the list lives in his WhatsApp. The quote went out on Friday evening and nobody looked at it until Tuesday. Or the hospital's request was a repeat and the rep assumed the old rates still stood.
A shared enquiry record fixes all three. One row per list, with the hospital, the person, the date received, the items quoted, the date the reply went and the date of the next call. Everyone who sells for you opens the same sheet. That is the plain version of what is described on the CRM page for medical supplies distributors, and it works in a spreadsheet before it works in software.
Why the lost lists are worth reading
Whenever you have an hour, read the lists you did not win. Which items did you not stock? Which hospital never called again? Did the same two rivals keep appearing? A distributor who finds that every lost list had a wheelchair on it has found a stocking decision, not a marketing problem.
The same record tells you which source a list came from: a repeat store keeper, an IndiaMART enquiry, a doctor's reference or a manufacturer's regional manager. That is how you learn which source brings real hospital orders and which brings thermometer enquiries. The sales process page sets out the steps from first list to repeat order, and WhatsApp marketing for medical supplies distributors covers how to keep those store keepers one message away.
What to do next
Take the last ten lists that came in, from any source. For each, write down the date it arrived, the date you replied, whether anyone rang afterwards, and whether you won any of it. If you cannot fill the table from memory, nobody owns the lists yet, and that is the first thing to fix.
If you want a second pair of eyes on it, the free audit is a 90-minute call on how enquiries reach you and what happens to them afterwards, with a written, scored report after it. For the wider picture of this trade, read the medical supplies distributors page.