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A Poor Excuse for an RFQ

By Margie Dana

Attention, please: I am not a printer.

I got an email inviting me to bid on printing 40M catalogs. It’s not the first time someone mistook me for a printer or a broker. The 15 other email addresses (all visible, BTW) were those of commercial printers as far as I could tell.

This RFQ-by-email came up short in SO many ways. Only the most basic specs were provided: quantity, generic stock, page count, final size, 4/4, delivery in four batches, and a few other hints about what the job looks like. Key details were missing.

I’m no printer, but this short spec list raised a lot of questions (and red flags). I read the list and wondered…

  • Is this a new job or a reprint? If it’s a reprint, can I get a sample? And how does this one differ?
  • What’s the purpose of this catalog?
  • What does it look like? Send me something to go on, please!
  • Is it part of a larger campaign? If so, what?
  • When do you need delivery – and when will your file be ready?
  • What format is the file you’ll send me?
  • Why 40M? If it’s a reprint, how many did you print before, and how many did you USE?
  • Is the catalog 4/4 throughout? Are there bleeds? Special inks? What about images? Tell me everything you can about the type of content.
  • What are the batching details, and when should each drop? How do you plan to address and mail the catalogs? Should we handle the distribution for you?
  • Is anything else getting mailed out with the catalogs?
  • Is it a self-mailer?
  • Can I presume it’s saddlewired?
  • Does anything need to bind into it?

I could go on and on. This email was a good example of how NOT to buy printing. It gave me way too little to go on, and certainly not enough to generate an accurate estimate.

But wait: I’ve saved the best for last. At the bottom of the email, after we were instructed to submit our bids to an email address by a certain date, stood this sentence:

“Please no phone calls – all correspondence should be done via email.”

Ridiculous. So I hit ‘delete.’

© 2011 Margie Dana. All rights reserved. Your comments are encouraged. You’re free to forward this email to friends and colleagues. However, no part of this column may be reprinted without permission from the author.