How to Read a Hotel Amenities Quotation: Line Items and Red Flags

A quotation is not a price — it is a set of assumptions. The unit price only means something together with the packing rate, the carton it ships in, the payment terms it assumes and the date it expires. Buyers who compare unit prices alone routinely award orders to the wrong supplier, then spend the savings resolving the problems the fine print predicted. Here is how to read one properly.

1. The lines a complete quotation carries

2. Red flags and what they predict

• No carton dimensions or gross weight — the supplier either has not produced the item or does not want the freight comparison yet. Ask for it in writing; reluctance here predicts reluctance everywhere.
• A unit price visibly below every other quote — usually achieved by thinner film, lower grammage paper, a shorter brush or a lighter soap. Ask what specification the price is built on; 'same as sample' is not an answer unless you have a signed golden sample.
• No validity date — prices that 'can be discussed anytime' get discussed upward after your deposit.
• One lump sum instead of per-SKU lines — you cannot audit an invoice you cannot decompose, and any future quantity change becomes a renegotiation.
• Payment terms stated nowhere — the proforma will arrive with terms stiffer than you assumed, after your samples are already approved and your team is committed.
• 'Freight excluded' with no named incoterm — read our Incoterms guide before accepting; the gap between FOB and an all-in delivered price routinely exceeds 20%.

3. The costs that hide outside the quotation

Even a clean quotation excludes things you will pay: artwork revision rounds beyond the included number, re-tooling when you change the pouch size after sampling, inland haulage from port to property, and — the classic — mixed-SKU containers priced as full loads of the heaviest item. Ask the supplier to quote your programme as a mixed container with the real SKU mix, not as a set of idealised full loads. Compare the resulting landed cost per occupied room night across suppliers, as covered in our wholesale price guide; that single figure ends most price arguments.

Finally, keep the quotation and the approved sample together. A price is only as binding as the specification it prices, and the golden sample — not the quotation PDF — is that specification. When both documents travel together into the purchase order, disputes end quickly; when the quotation is archived and the sample is on a shelf in another office, every conversation starts from zero. Send us your current quotation from any supplier and we will mark it up line by line — including the questions we would ask before paying a deposit.