The four kinds
Product, service, general and franchise enquiries — what each one asks for, what it makes you fill in, and how to pick the right one so the business receiving it can answer without a call.
Every enquiry is one of four kinds. The kind is the first thing you choose, and it decides what you are asked for — which is the whole point. A product enquiry that cannot state a quantity is not a product enquiry.
Choosing
Product
You want goods. You know roughly what and roughly how many.
Service
You want work done. Scope matters more than quantity.
General
A business question that is not a purchase yet.
Franchise
You want to run one of their outlets.
Product
You are buying goods. The enquiry is built around lines — each one a thing you want, with a quantity and a unit.
You can put several lines on a single enquiry, which is what makes it usable for a real requirement rather than one SKU at a time. There is a ceiling on how many, and it is generous enough that hitting it usually means you should be floating a tender instead.
Per line you give the item, how many, in what unit, and any specification that changes the price. Optionally an indicative rate.
Unit is not a formality
"500" means nothing. 500 pieces, 500 metres and 500 kilograms are three different enquiries, and a supplier who has to ask which cannot quote today.
Service
You want work performed. Structurally like a product enquiry — it also carries lines — but what makes it answerable is different.
Goods are specified by number. Services are specified by scope: what is included, what is not, where the work happens, and when it has to be finished. A service enquiry with a quantity and no scope is the one that comes back as "depends".
General
Not a purchase. A question — availability, capability, whether they serve your region, whether something is even possible.
This is the only kind with no lines to fill in, because there is nothing being counted yet. You write what you want to know.
It is the honest choice when you are genuinely exploring. Dressing up a question as a product enquiry with an invented quantity produces a quote nobody can act on and wastes both parties' credits.
General is not a way to skip the detail
It costs the same to send and the same to accept. The business is spending credits to reply to it. A vague general enquiry gets declined faster than a vague product one.
Franchise
You want to operate one of their outlets. Structurally different from the others, because the business is assessing you.
You pick the specific offering and the specific model — a brand usually runs several, and they differ on investment, format and territory. Then you say something about yourself:
| Investment capacity | What you can actually commit, and in what currency |
| Proposed location | Country, and the state and city if you know them |
| Property | Whether you already have the premises |
| Space | How much floor area, if you have it |
| Relevant experience | What you have run before |
| Timeline | When you would want to open |
None of this is bureaucracy for its own sake. A franchisor receiving an enquiry that answers these can tell in one read whether the conversation is worth having — which is why franchise enquiries that fill them in properly get accepted and the rest do not.
See Franchise for the other side of this.
What the kind changes
| Lines | What decides acceptance | |
|---|---|---|
| Product | Required | Whether it can be quoted |
| Service | Required | Whether the scope is clear |
| General | None | Whether the question is worth answering |
| Franchise | None — you fill in your profile instead | Whether you fit the model |
The credit cost does not vary by kind. The likelihood of acceptance varies enormously.
Sending one
The flow asks for the kind first, then what it needs for that kind, then the shared details, then a review before it goes. You see the whole thing before you spend anything.
Arriving from a product page, a service page or a franchise offering pre-fills the kind and the thing you were looking at — the usual way to send one, and the one least likely to produce a mismatch.