Three offers and a phone call
Your sales manager has a load of HDPE natural to sell. Buyer A emailed an offer on Monday, delivered, with payment in sixty days. Buyer B sent a WhatsApp message on Tuesday with a higher price, collected, payment in thirty days. Buyer C rang on Wednesday with a price in between, delivered, but only for bales under a certain moisture.
Which is best? It depends on haulage cost, payment terms, the buyer's weight history and specification risk. The sales manager has a feel for it, and sells to Buyer B. Later the accounts team notices Buyer B's settlements have run below your weights for months. The higher headline price was not the better deal.
And when the sales manager is on holiday, nobody else knows what offers are live or which buyers have been reliable.
Why offers are hard to compare
Offers are not like for like, and they arrive in different places.
- Offers come by email, phone and messaging apps, and are not recorded together.
- Terms differ: delivered or collected, payment period, specification.
- Haulage cost varies by buyer location.
- Buyer reliability, such as weight differences and claims, is not factored in.
- Offers expire, and nobody tracks which are still valid.
What poor comparisons cost
Selling on headline price ignores haulage, payment terms and buyer reliability. The difference between the best-looking offer and the best actual offer, across many loads, is significant margin.
Knowledge held by one person is a risk. When they are away, sales are made by someone without the full picture, or not made at all.
Buyers also notice when you are organised. A sales team that responds quickly and knows its numbers gets better offers.
How we build an offer log
What we build records every offer on the same basis and compares them.
- Offers are logged per grade and buyer, with price, basis (delivered or collected), payment terms, specification, quantity and expiry. Emailed offers can be forwarded and read automatically, with a person confirming.
- Haulage cost per buyer location is recorded, from your haulage bookings or rates.
- Each offer is converted to a comparable net price at your gate, after haulage, and optionally adjusted for payment period.
- Buyer history is shown alongside: average weight difference from your records, claims and downgrades, and payment reliability.
- The sales manager sees offers for each grade ranked by net price, with buyer history, and chooses.
- The accepted offer creates the sale and outbound load, and the reason for choosing is recorded.
| Offer | Headline price | Haulage | Net at gate | Buyer history |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Buyer A, delivered | As offered | Your cost | Calculated | Weights close to yours |
| Buyer B, collected | As offered | None | Calculated | Weights often below |
| Buyer C, delivered | As offered | Your cost | Calculated | Moisture claims |
Selling the next load
The HDPE offers are in the log: Buyer A by email, Buyer B from a forwarded WhatsApp screenshot, Buyer C typed in after the call. The log shows net prices at your gate and each buyer's history. Buyer A's net price is slightly lower than B's headline, but A's weights match yours and B's run below. The sales manager sells to A and records why.
When he is on holiday, his colleague opens the log and sees live offers, their expiry dates and buyer history, and makes the next sale with the same information.
Are buyer offers compared on headline price?
- Offers arrive by email, phone and messaging apps with no single record.
- Haulage and payment terms are not factored into comparisons.
- Buyer weight differences and claims are not considered when selling.
- Nobody else knows which offers are live when the sales manager is away.
- You cannot say why a load was sold to a particular buyer.