Buyer Seriousness Checklist
Exporters, suppliers, traders, brokers, sourcing teams, and sales teams · Before spending serious time, sending samples, reserving stock, negotiating allocation, or extending payment risk
Risk warnings
- Do not reserve stock, send repeated samples, or extend payment risk until buyer identity, demand, price realism, payment path, and execution capability are evidenced.
Buyer identity and role
- Verify the buyer legal entity, trading name, website domain, email domain, address, company record, and authority of the contact making the request.
- Identify whether the buyer is importer, distributor, retailer, wholesaler, food-service operator, broker, agent, or end customer, and who will actually contract and pay.
- Confirm decision owners for product, price, contract, artwork or private label, payment terms, import documents, and final purchase approval.
- Check evidence of seriousness: past purchases, current suppliers, trade references, store or channel proof, buyer website, public records, and relevant market presence.
Demand, price, and execution fit
- Require clear demand details before quoting deeply: product, specification, pack format, quantity, shipment size, destination, timeline, repeat potential, and acceptance criteria.
- Test target price realism against Incoterm, named place, freight, customs, duty, taxes, local delivery, and landed-cost awareness.
- Check payment method realism, deposit capacity, creditworthiness, LC or open-account expectations, bankability, and what payment-risk controls the buyer will accept.
- Confirm import capability where relevant: licenses, importer-of-record ability, customs broker, warehouse, cold chain, distribution route, and local customer delivery plan.
Sampling, red flags, and decision
- Set a sample policy before sending goods: paid or free sample, freight payer, sample purpose, feedback deadline, decision trigger, and maximum sample loop.
- Watch for red flags such as vague requirements, impossible prices, urgent pressure, refusal to share company details, domain mismatch, endless samples, no payment path, or shifting decision makers.
- Decide go, hold, or reject before reserving stock or supplier allocation, and write down the minimum evidence needed to move forward.
- Escalate before extending credit, open account, exclusivity, private-label work, custom production, or allocation if authority, demand, margin, payment path, or execution capability is unclear.