Quoting steel and sponge-iron buyers when the rate moves daily

You gave the rate at eleven. The contractor said "book it" at six, after the market had moved, and still expected the morning price. Steel and sponge-iron quotes go wrong like this because the rate, the quantity and the time limit travelled in three different calls. Put them in one WhatsApp message: item and grade, quantity, the rate and what it includes, payment and weighment. End it with the clock time the rate holds until, and the exact word the buyer sends to book. Anything outside that message is not part of the deal.

Where do rate disputes start?

Often not over the number but over what the number meant.

The rate was ex-works Siltara, and the buyer heard delivered at the site in Bilaspur. GST was "extra" in your head and "included" in the buyer's. The 8 mm and 10 mm bars carried a size extra, which you mentioned on the phone and the buyer forgot. The rate was "today's", and today ran until bedtime. Any one of these is enough to turn a confirmed order into an argument at the weighbridge.

Sponge-iron buyers add their own questions: lumps or fines, the size range, the metallisation figure and whose lab tests it, and how much fines or moisture is accepted before the rate is revised. A rolling mill in Urla checks those before it checks your name.

And the buyer is comparing you with several other dealers, on the same phone, in the same hour. The quote that can be read in one look, with no follow-up question, gets the reply.

The one-message quote

Copy this, keep the structure, and change the lines for your product. It is written for TMT bars from a Raipur dealer.

Rate for: (buyer firm), (site or town)
Sent: (date), 11:20 am

Item: TMT bar, Fe 500D, 12 to 25 mm
Quantity: 25 tonnes, size split as per your list
Rate: ₹(basic) per tonne, ex-works Siltara
Size extra: 8 and 10 mm at ₹(extra) per tonne over basic
Loading: included
GST: extra, shown separately on the bill
Freight to (site): ₹(freight) per tonne, or send your own truck
Payment: full advance before loading
Weight: our weighbridge slip; any difference beyond (tolerance)
        settled on a third weighbridge

Rate holds till: 3:00 pm today
To book: reply BOOK 25T and send the advance by 3:00 pm
After 3:00 pm the rate is re-quoted at the day's price.

For sponge iron, swap the item lines for lumps or fines, the size range, the metallisation figure with the lab that tests it, and the fines and moisture limits. Keep the last three lines exactly as they are.

Why the last three lines matter most

The hold time prevents the six o'clock argument. Write a clock time, never "today" or "subject to change". "Subject to change" protects nobody: the buyer reads it as a formality.

The booking word comes next. When the buyer has to type BOOK and a quantity, nobody wonders later whether "ok" meant yes or "ok, noted". Ask for the advance or the payment reference by the same time. A booking with no money behind it, on a rising day, is an option you gave away free.

Then the re-quote line. It tells the buyer, before anything goes wrong, what happens when the rate lapses, so you never have to say it in anger.

How long should the rate hold?

Shorter than it takes the market to move against you, and never longer than the stock or the purchase you can cover. Three situations cover most quotes:

• Stock already in your yard. Hold until the end of the working day, because your cost is fixed.
• Buying from the mill after the buyer books. Hold only as long as the mill's rate holds for you, and tell the buyer that is why the window is short.
• Several trucks over several days. Quote the first truck firm and the rest at the day's rate on each loading, unless you both sign a price formula.

Some buyers should not get this message at all. Buyers on a rate contract with a formula, and tenders, have their own price variation terms. A walk-in buyer taking a few bundles needs the board rate and a bill.

For example: a Raipur dealer who lost a contractor

This is an invented case. A TMT and structural steel dealer in Raipur supplies a building contractor in Bilaspur.

The dealer's quotes were one line: "12 mm (rate) + GST". One morning the contractor's site engineer asked for twenty tonnes. The contractor said they would confirm, and went quiet. At seven in the evening the contractor called to book at the morning rate. The market had risen by about ₹800 a tonne, which on twenty tonnes is ₹16,000. The dealer refused, the contractor felt cheated, and the next order went to a dealer in Bilaspur.

The refusal was not the mistake; on price, the dealer was right. What failed was a quote that never said when the price ended, so both sides were honestly sure they had been wronged.

The dealer now sends the full message above, and keeps a short register of open quotes, one line each: buyer, item, quantity, rate, hold time, and what happened. At the hold time, a buyer who showed interest but did not book gets one line: "This morning's rate has lapsed. Today's rate is (rate) until 11 am tomorrow. Shall I book the first truck at this rate?" There is little left to argue about, though the contractor has not come back yet and may not.

Following up without becoming morning spam

A lapsed rate is a natural follow-up for a steel dealer, because it carries news. Use it for buyers who asked. Send the new rate at the hold time, once more if the price moves in the buyer's favour, and then stop. A buyer who has gone quiet after three quotes is buying elsewhere, and the useful question is why: rate, credit, or the size you could not supply.

If your team quotes from different phones, give one person the open-quote register and one set of templates. Otherwise nobody knows which rate is live. For the slower kind of quote, a project or a fabricated job, see our note on following up a quotation. The hold time does not stop the rate moving. It stops the move becoming a quarrel.

Before tomorrow's first rate goes out

Save the template as a quick reply on the phone your team quotes from, and make the clock time the one line nobody may leave blank. Start the open-quote register on the same day. Our Chhattisgarh page lists the stale-by-noon quote among the state's problems, quotation and proposal follow-up is the related service, and you can tell us what you need.