Most RFQs we receive for used containers are three lines long and produce three quotes that cannot be compared with each other. Here are the twelve lines that fix that, and why each one is there.
The twelve lines
- Quantity and capacity. “Forty 275 gallon” rather than “some totes.” If you can flex, say so — “forty 275 or thirty-three 330” frequently gets a better answer.
- Grade required, or the duty. If you know you want Grade B, say Grade B. If you do not, describe what the container will do and let the supplier recommend. The second option often saves you money.
- Cargo and concentration. This drives seat material, compatibility and whether a marking is needed. “Sodium hypochlorite 12.5%” is a useful line. “Chemicals” is not.
- Specific gravity. Determines gross weight, stacking and lift-gate suitability. If you do not know it, the SDS does.
- UN marking required, yes or no. This is a hard filter. A unit without a current marking cannot carry regulated cargo at any price.
- Outlet thread and valve type. S60x6 or NPT; butterfly or ball; seat material. Thread mismatches are the single commonest reason a delivered tote cannot be used on day one.
- Lid type. Vented or solid. Cheap to specify, expensive to get wrong — see the bulging bottle post.
- Pallet type. Plastic, steel, composite or wood, driven by where the tote will live and whether it crosses a border.
- Delivery ZIP and dock situation. Dock, forklift, or lift-gate needed. Freight is frequently the largest variable between quotes and it cannot be priced without this.
- Required date, and whether it is firm. A window beats a date. If the date is genuinely firm, say that too, because it changes what a supplier should offer you.
- Documentation you need. Grade card, wash record, prior-cargo declaration, test results, chain of custody, diversion certificate. Ask for it in the RFQ rather than discovering at delivery that it does not exist.
- Whether you also have empties to clear. This is the line nobody includes and it frequently changes the price, because a delivery paired with a collection is two useful loads for one set of miles.
Three lines that make quotes comparable
Beyond the specification, three requests do more than anything else to stop you comparing apples with oranges:
Ask for a delivered price, not ex-works. Freight is where the variance hides. A low unit price with high freight is not a cheap quote.
Ask what grade standard they use and to see it. If a supplier cannot point you at written criteria, “Grade A” from them is not the same as Grade A from anybody else. Ours is published on the grade scale page specifically so you can hold us to it.
Ask what happens if the grade is wrong. The answer tells you more about a supplier than the price does. Ours is: email a photograph, we credit or replace, we pay freight both ways, no form.
Questions worth adding when it matters
- What is your leak test procedure and what proportion of units fail it?
- Can I see the wash record and the prior-cargo declaration before delivery?
- What would disqualify a unit from your food programme? (Revealing, every time.)
- Are you the reconditioner or a broker? Who actually washed these?
- Will you collect the empties at end of life, and at what price?
What not to put in
An arbitrary cosmetic standard. “Must be clear” sounds like a quality requirement and is frequently the opposite: clear and brittle is worse than cloudy and ductile, and specifying clarity pushes you toward units with corner stress whitening that happen to look good. Specify the duty and let the grading system do its job.
A worked example
40 × 275 gal reconditioned, Grade B. Cargo: urea ammonium nitrate 32%, SG 1.32. No UN marking required. 2 in S60x6 butterfly, EPDM seat. Vented 6 in lid. Composite pallet. Deliver to 46226, dock available, forklift on site. Needed in the window 10–24 March, not firm. Require grade card and wash record per unit. We also have approximately 60 empties to clear from the same site in July.
That is twelve lines, about ninety seconds of typing, and it gets a delivered price, a firm date and a buyback number in one reply instead of four emails. Paste it into the form on any page of this site and you will see what we mean.
Why specifying the duty beats specifying the grade
The counter-intuitive advice in the main list. If you tell a supplier “Grade A,” you get Grade A pricing. If you tell them “holding 32 per cent calcium chloride brine for a municipal plough fleet,” a good supplier tells you Grade C is fine and you save a substantial amount.
It also surfaces things you did not ask about. Describe the duty and you will get told about seat material, lid venting, pallet choice and specific gravity — none of which were in your RFQ and all of which matter.
The exception is where you have a genuine specification to meet. Then quote the clause verbatim rather than paraphrasing it, because paraphrased specifications drift.
Weighting the responses
If you are formally evaluating, a weighting that reflects where the risk actually sits:
| Criterion | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Delivered price | 35% | Includes freight, which is where variance hides |
| Documented grading standard | 20% | Without it, “Grade A” is not comparable |
| Remedy if grade is wrong | 15% | Tells you who absorbs the risk |
| Documentation supplied | 10% | Grade card, wash record, declaration, test results |
| Lead time reliability | 10% | A comfortable date is worth less than an honest one |
| Buyback at end of life | 10% | Converts a disposal cost into income |
Note what is not there: cosmetic condition. It correlates poorly with service life and specifying it pushes suppliers toward units that photograph well.
Multi-year and blanket arrangements
If your volume is predictable, ask for a blanket price held for a term rather than a spot quote. Three things to specify:
- Total volume and the term — typically six or twelve months.
- Release mechanism — how much notice you give, and the minimum release size.
- What happens to unused volume — rolled, released, or forfeit.
Price stability is worth real money in this market because resin and scrap steel move weekly. A held price is a genuine concession and it is one we give readily to customers who let us schedule the work.
Red flags in a response
- A published fixed price list. Either stale or guessing. Tote pricing follows three volatile inputs.
- No written grading criteria. The grade is then an opinion with a price tag.
- Unable to produce a prior-cargo declaration for the specific units.
- “Food grade” on units with industrial history. Physically impossible and tells you everything.
- No answer on remedy. If they will not say what happens when it goes wrong, assume nothing happens.
- Vague on who did the washing. Brokers are fine; brokers presenting as reconditioners are not.
Two lines that save the most money
“We also have N empties to clear.” A delivery paired with a collection is two useful loads for one set of miles, and it frequently changes the delivered price materially. Almost nobody mentions it.
“Our window is X to Y, not a fixed date.” Flexibility lets a supplier slot you onto an existing lane rather than running a dedicated trip. It is worth more than haggling, and it costs you nothing if your schedule genuinely allows it.
What we do with a good RFQ
Answer it in one reply with a delivered price, a date, the documentation list and — where relevant — a note saying a cheaper grade or a different capacity would serve you better. That last part is not generosity; a customer who buys the right thing comes back, and a customer who buys Grade A for brine duty does not.
Paste the twelve lines into the form on any page of this site and you will see how it works. A named specialist reads it, and the reply comes from the bench that can answer it.
