Two quotes four percent apart is not a price difference. It is a scope difference that neither mill has written down. One mill has folded inspection into its metre rate and the other has left inspection outside, and until both are rebuilt on the same basis the gap means nothing in either direction. This page gives the one sheet that makes the two quotes comparable, the lines that can move a total by more than four percent on their own, and the three tests that show whether the gap is real before you commit a season to it.
One Sheet, Six Rows, Both Mills
Do not compare the two documents you were sent. Send one document to both mills and require them to quote into it. The rows below are the six that decide a small order, because each of them is a place where a mill can move cost without moving the headline rate. Column three is not a price column: it is the reason the row is on the sheet at all.
| Line | What both mills must state in writing | Why it changes the answer | Evidence to keep |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloth identity | Composition, weight in gsm with a tolerance, finished width and cuttable width, finishing route | A 20 gsm difference at the same nominal name is a real cost difference, and it also changes how the cloth cuts | The approved sample, dated, with its yarn lot written on the ticket |
| Delivery basis | One Incoterm with a named place, and who pays export clearance and destination handling | Two different terms are not comparable at any price, because the unpaid leg sits somewhere | The quote page with the term printed on it, not a verbal statement |
| Inspection | Who inspects, at what stage, to what standard, what report you receive, who pays for a re-inspection | “Included” covers at least four different services with four different costs | A sample report from a recent lot with the buyer’s name removed |
| Quantity basis | Billed metres, delivered metres, the short-metre rule, over and under shipment allowance | A two percent short rule removes two percent of value from every invoice quietly | Roll tickets and the delivery note, kept together |
| Defect remedy | Credit or replacement, at what price, within what window, who pays the freight on a replacement | The remedy price is part of the price; a cheap cloth with a slow remedy is not cheap | The clause as written, quoted back in the order confirmation |
| Payment clock | Deposit date, balance trigger, whether inspection happens before the balance is released | Money paid earlier is money you lend, and the lending has a cost even when nobody invoices it | The payment schedule, signed on both sides |
Send this as the attachment to the request for quotation. A mill that answers all six is quoting. A mill that answers three and calls the rest standard is telling you which rows it intends to control later, and that is worth knowing before the first metre is woven rather than after the fifth roll.
What the Included Inspection Is Actually Worth
Scope, not price
An inspection line can mean four different things, and they are not close in cost or in protection. It can mean the mill’s own final look at the roll before packing. It can mean a per-roll inspection with a written report and a defect map. It can mean an independent inspector, paid by the day and arriving on a schedule. Or it can mean a sampling plan with an acceptance limit expressed in points per hundred square yards, which is the only version that gives you a number to argue with later.
Ask for a sample report from a recent lot. A report with a header, a roll list, a points total and an acceptance line is a service. A report that says the goods were checked and found satisfactory is a sentence. The difference in cost between those two is small. The difference in what you can claim afterwards is not.
Who pays when a lot fails
This is the row almost nobody puts on the comparison sheet, and it is the one that reverses decisions. If the inspection is included but the consequence of a failed inspection is not, you have bought a diagnosis without a remedy. The full line reads: re-inspection cost, sorting cost, who owns the rejected metres, whether the replacement is a credit or a re-weave, and who pays the freight on a replacement roll. Two mills can both say inspection is included and be thousands of euros apart on this clause alone, without either of them lying.
Rebase Both Quotes to an Accepted Cuttable Metre
Every fabric quote sits somewhere on a chain, and the chain has three deductions between the number on the page and the metres you can put a pattern on. A quote that is compared at different points on the chain is not a comparison. The conversion method for a single-line quote covers the unit arithmetic; what matters here is the order of the deductions, because that is where the four percent goes.
The three deductions
- Billed to delivered. The short-metre rule decides how much of the invoice is cloth you never receive. Subtract the shortfall before you divide.
- Delivered to accepted. Defect points above the acceptance limit are metres you cannot cut. If one mill inspects to a written limit and the other to a habit, only one of these numbers is knowable.
- Accepted to cuttable. Usable width after the selvedge, plus any allowance for a join inside the roll, decides how many panels come out of the same metre.
A worked index, base 100
Set the higher quote at 100 and express everything as points on that index. Keep money out of the first pass, because the point is to see which line can move the total by more than four points, and money invites you to start negotiating before you have finished measuring.
An example with no prices in it. Quote A is 100 and includes inspection. Quote B is 96 and charges inspection separately at 3 points, so B lands at 99 and looks one point cheaper. Now apply the quantity rule. B applies a two percent short-metre rule and A applies half a percent. Divide each by its accepted share: A is 100 divided by 0.995, about 100.5, and B is 99 divided by 0.98, about 101. The one point advantage has become half a point of disadvantage, and nothing about the cloth or the inspection changed. Add a defect remedy that pays credit at invoice value but takes ten weeks, and B loses again on the same index.
The Three Flip Tests, In Order
- The scope test. Add the excluded inspection back in at the scope you actually require, meaning a report per roll with a written acceptance limit, not a look-over. If the gap closes here, stop: you were comparing two different services.
- The quantity test. Apply each mill’s short-metre rule and each mill’s remedy for rejections to your real order length. On a short run these two rules move the number more than the metre rate does, because they act on the whole order rather than on the margin.
- The second-order test. Ask both mills to price the same cloth again at twice the length, and again at your expected reorder. A mill whose price falls steeply is selling you a small-order premium you can grow out of. A mill whose price barely moves is selling you a rate, and that rate is the one you will live with.
If the gap survives all three, buy on the number. If it dies in the first test, buy on the mill, because what you are actually choosing between is a service level and a discount, and the discount is smaller than the service.
If One Mill Will Not Fill the Sheet
The non-answer is data
Three patterns show up. The mill returns the same price with a note that everything is included, which means the sheet was never read. The mill answers two rows and asks what your target price is, which means it prices to your number rather than to the work. The mill fills the sheet and marks several rows standard, which is the honest version and worth a second call, because “standard” usually means a default you can negotiate once you name it.
The fallback that costs less than guessing
If the sheet comes back half empty twice, stop comparing quotes and compare invoices. A paid short run from each mill, inspected to the same written limit and weighed on the same scale, produces two documents you can put side by side with no assumptions left in them. The trial order structure that tests a mill on four fronts is built for exactly this, and it converts a commercial argument into a sample you own.
Two more pages carry the adjacent mechanics: the side-by-side method for three quotes, and the inspection rights that belong in the payment terms rather than in a separate email. The per-roll inspection report is the document to ask for when the included inspection turns out to be a sentence.
The delivery basis deserves one line of its own, because it is the row most often left inconsistent. Two quotes can only be compared when both name the same Incoterm with its named place, and when both state who pays export clearance and who pays the destination handling. If one is quoted to your door and the other to a port, the four percent is a rounding error next to the leg that nobody priced.
Four percent is a question, not an answer. Ask it in the same format of both mills, in the same week, with the deductions in the same order, and the answer stops being a matter of who wrote a friendlier email. The number that should decide a season is the cost of an accepted, cuttable metre delivered on the agreed term, and nothing else on the page qualifies.
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