After working with customers, I would like to share with you my story about making quotes and contracts for a German customer in South Africa who wants to import Vietnamese garlic.

Prices of agricultural products change every week, sometimes every day depending on many variables, such as seasonality, weather, supply and demand of the market and other objective factors. So quickly finalizing deals with customers at the quoting time is very important. Not only customers get good prices, as agreed, but also help the suppliers take the initiative in preparing goods.

In one month working with a garlic importer, it was initially difficult to negotiate prices because the customer’s target price was quite low compared to the supplier’s offer. The reason is that the buyer used to import a lot of agricultural products from China in the past because the price in China is very competitive, the packing and transportation of goods were considered to be quite professional (we do not deny that about agricultural suppliers in China). Especially, the customer is German. After the Covid-19 pandemic, many European and American countries stopped importing goods of all kinds from China. They turn to looking for suppliers from other Asian countries, especially Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia.

After nearly a month of negotiation, two parties could reach to an agreement on the price and packing of garlic. The packing condition is 10kg in mesh bag and carton box, plus the 'Test Report' for container from SGS Vietnam.

Picture of packed garlic according to the customer's requirements

Photo of quotation via email from SGS Vietnam for the customer's container

 At the same time, the customer informed the supplier that they had applied an import license for 10 containers of garlic from Vietnam.

Photo of the customer applying for import license for 10 containers of garlic from the South African Agricultural Pest Control Authority - tentative translation

The supplier is familiar with packing garlic in 35 to 40kg mesh bags, has not had much experience in packing exported agricultural products in 10kg mesh bags and cartons as required by the customer, so researching and negotiating the price with the mesh bag and carton suppliers also took them 5 to 7 days. Fortunately, by the time we complete the contract, the price of garlic remained stable.

Picture of the completed contract

It was the rainy season during that time, floods and Covid-19 persisted. Even though the customer had prepared the money to deposit, within 2 days of the weekend the supplier informed that the price of garlic increased by 15% and could not sell to the customer at the old price as agreed in the contract. Although we had confirmed with the customer that the contract was valid only within 24 hours. The customer was also quite surprised about this price change. We sent an email to inform the customer and hoped that they would understand the change of garlic price in particular and agricultural product prices in general during the rainy season in Vietnam. The new price of garlic was much higher than the target price, the customer announced that they were sorry because of not being able to buy garlic at the new price offered by the supplier.

Photo of the price confirmation email

Currently, the contract has not been signed. And the flood situation is still happening, so the export garlic price is quite high, which cannot meet the customer’s target price. However, the customer highly appreciates the spirit and working style of Vietgo Company and suppliers, and is still keeping contact with them. We hope that the supplier will be able to give the customer the best price soon.