How to handle a sample request without giving away your margin

The air cooler brand's development engineer wants fifty grilles and ten water tanks "for approval", before the dealer meet. A sample is a trial of your process, not free stock. Before you load a mould or cut steel, agree in writing what the buyer will test, who pays for what, and what order follows if the sample passes. Send catalogue items free. For anything that needs new tooling, a mould change or a machine shift, charge, or adjust the charge against the first order.

What the buyer is testing, and what not

A buyer asks for samples for one of four reasons. Only two of them are about your part.

The buyer may want to check fit and function on an assembly. Or your process: will a second lot match the first? Or something to show dealers or customers, which is a sales tool, not a test. And sometimes a reference to hand a cheaper supplier, or to wave at the current one.

The first two deserve your best effort. The third should be paid for. The fourth is hard to spot early, but a request that grows with every call is a warning sign.

So ask what the samples will go through: a fit check on the line, a drop test, a heat cycle, a colour match against the buyer's master. The answer tells you how many are needed. A fit check does not need fifty pieces.

Three kinds of sample, three answers

1. A catalogue item off the shelf. Send it free, with its datasheet. The cost is small and the buyer is right to expect it.
2. A standard part changed to the buyer's drawing: a new colour, an extra hole, a new insert in an existing mould. Charge the change and the material at cost, and offer to adjust it against the first order.
3. A new part that needs new tooling. Quote the tooling separately, take an advance before work starts, and charge the sample lot. Our note on what to put in an RFQ reply shows how to keep tooling apart from the piece price, and who owns the tool.

Pieces beyond what the tests need, for a dealer meet or a display, are sold at the piece price. Say so before the buyer asks.

The sample note: agree it before anything ships

Send this as a short email or WhatsApp message to the engineer, copy purchase, and ask for a reply that confirms it.

Sample for: part name, drawing number and revision.

Quantity: pieces needed for the tests named. Extra pieces at the quoted piece price.

Charges: mould change or tooling, plus the sample lot, adjusted against a first order of a stated quantity.

Tests and sign-off: what will be checked, by whom, with the result in writing by a date.

If approved: a first order of a stated quantity at the quoted piece price, delivered a set time after the purchase order.

If rejected: what changes, and whether a second sample is charged.

The "if approved" line is your margin. Without it, an approved sample opens a fresh negotiation on a part you have already paid to develop.

Imagine an injection moulder in Daman

Imagine a plastic injection moulding unit in Daman, asked by a Delhi air cooler brand for samples of a new grille and water tank before summer. The details are illustrative.

The grille could be moulded in an existing tool with a new insert. The owner paid for the insert, ran a machine for a shift, and sent fifty grilles and ten tanks, free. Insert, material and the shift came to about ₹40,000 (an invented figure). The brand approved them. Purchase then asked for two hundred more for the dealer meet, also free. The production order went to a larger moulder at a lower piece price, with the approved sample as its reference.

The next season the owner did it differently. A fan brand asked for samples of a new blade. The owner quoted the insert and a sample-lot charge, both to be adjusted against a first order of a stated quantity. Ten blades were offered for the fit and balance tests, with anything beyond priced. The note named the quality engineer who would sign off, and the brand paid the insert advance. The first order was smaller than hoped, but it covered the charge.

A second brand refused to pay anything and asked for fifty blades. The owner declined. The refusal had answered the question of whether it was buying.

When to send it free anyway

Some samples are worth giving. Send free when the buyer already orders from you, or when the sample costs less than the visit you would make to discuss it. The same goes for a large account where every vendor sends free samples, if the buyer has told you so.

Even then, send the note. A free sample with agreed tests and an agreed first order costs you material. Without them, it can cost you the part, and a sample sent without a note leaves you no way to say what "approved" meant.

What happens after the pass

Approval is where suppliers relax, and it is the moment to press. Ask for the approval in writing with the sample reference, and send the "if approved" line back to purchase that day. If the order still does not come, the reasons now sit with purchase, not with quality, and our note on sample approved, no order covers that stretch.

Before the next request

Write your own sample note now, with the three kinds of sample and what you charge for each, so the next request gets a ready answer. The manufacturing hub has more for component makers. If you want sample terms written for your own products, with negotiation and closing support behind them, tell us what you need.