A mid-size buyer sending the same enquiry to three Egyptian suppliers usually gets three offers that look comparable and are not. One quotes per carton, another per kilogram. One is FOB Alexandria, another CFR your port. One assumes a 4 kilogram carton, another 4.5. The cheapest number on the page is very often the most expensive shipment. Putting the offers on the same basis takes about twenty minutes and is the single most useful thing you can do before confirming.
Step one: convert everything to one unit
Restate every offer as a price per kilogram net. That means dividing the carton price by the net weight, not the gross, and checking whether the stated net includes overpack. Egyptian packhouses commonly pack slightly above the declared net so the carton still weighs correctly on arrival after moisture loss. A supplier declaring 4 kilograms and packing 4.2 is giving you fruit the other supplier is not, and at container scale that difference is real money.
Step two: bring the Incoterms to the same point
An FOB price and a CFR price are not comparable until you add ocean freight, and on a part-load neither is comparable to a DAP price until you add the destination groupage and delivery leg. Build every offer up to the same delivery point, which for most mid-size buyers means the warehouse door. That is a landed cost calculation, and we set the components out in landed cost on an Egyptian part-load. Do not accept a freight figure verbally. Ask for it in the offer, with validity, because a rate quoted three weeks ago on an autumn sailing is no longer the rate you will pay.
Step three: match the specification
Price differences between two Egyptian offers are frequently specification differences in disguise. Check the count per carton, the size or calibre range, the grade or class, whether individual sleeves or nets are included, the carton board grade, and whether the pallet is a Euro or a standard footprint and who pays for it. A supplier quoting a wider count range is quoting an easier pack and should be cheaper. If one offer specifies Class I and the other does not name a class, they are not selling the same fruit.
Step four: price the payment terms
Thirty percent deposit with the balance against documents is not the same commercial position as full payment before loading, and neither is the same as a short credit period. If one supplier asks for more cash earlier, that is a financing cost to you and belongs in the comparison. Bank charges and the intermediary deductions on a small transfer also belong there, since they fall on the payment rather than the price.
Step five: weigh what is not on the page
After the arithmetic, two offers may sit within a few percent of each other. At that point the decision is not about price. It is about whether the supplier answered your specification questions precisely or vaguely, whether they hold GLOBALG.A.P and BRC certification, whether they were willing to commit the count and colour in writing, and whether they can serve you again in a short week. Our note on reading an Egyptian produce quotation covers what a complete offer should contain line by line.
Getting a quotation you can compare
Peivana quotes per carton and per kilogram net, states the Incoterm, the count, the class and the validity on every offer, and returns most quotations the same day. Send your product list, counts and delivery port on WhatsApp to +20 10 9911 1918 and we will price it in a form you can put side by side with anything else you hold.