Trade programme

Your company name and what it does, the kind of projects you take on, and the categories you buy most. If you have a current or upcoming job, describe that too — it is the most useful thing you can include.

Registration or tax details are worth having ready. Whether they are needed depends on how you want to be invoiced.

We read it and reply. If the fit is straightforward, the reply is a price on what you asked about. If it is not, the reply is a question — usually about volume, timing, or which finish you are holding to.

Nothing is automated here and nothing is instant. That is the honest version: a person reads your message and answers it.

You do not need an account to buy from the catalogue, and you do not need one to ask for a project price. Applying is worth it when you expect to buy repeatedly and want the same conversation each time rather than starting over.

Working through a specification across a whole job — which mixer suits which basin, what a shower needs behind the wall, where a finish is available across every item you want it on and where it is not.

Checking availability against a build programme before it is committed, so a range is not specified into a schedule it cannot meet.

Keeping a specification stable as a project runs. On a long job the risk is not choosing badly, it is choosing something that quietly stops being available halfway through.

Support is agreed per project rather than packaged. Larger and longer jobs get more of it, and what that looks like is something we settle when we understand the job — not something promised on a page before anyone has read your drawings.

The practical starting point is the same either way: send what you have, including the parts that are not decided yet.

The items, the quantities, and what they cost at those quantities. Where a substitution would be cheaper or more available, it is named rather than swapped in quietly.

Where something you asked for is not available in the quantity or finish you want, the quote says so. A quote that silently omits the hard item is worse than one that is shorter than you hoped.

Quantities by item, or by room type with a unit count — either works. A finish direction. And the date the first delivery has to land, which matters more than the total quantity for anything on a build programme.

It depends on the size of the list and whether everything on it is in the catalogue. We would rather come back once with a complete answer than three times with partial ones, so a large list takes longer than a short one.

Guest bathrooms are the clearest case for consistency: every room should read the same, and a replacement two years later should still match. That makes availability over time a bigger question than unit price.

Public and back-of-house areas usually need a harder-wearing specification than the guest rooms they sit behind. Both can come from one conversation.

Apartment and housing schemes buy the same kitchen and bathroom set repeatedly, often in phases months apart. The useful work is agreeing a specification that can be held across those phases rather than re-priced each time.

Where a scheme has tiers — a standard unit and a premium one — it is worth setting both at the start so they visibly relate to each other.

Offices, clinics, restaurants and retail. Usually a shorter programme and a tighter window for delivery, so the constraint is dates rather than volume.

Tell us the handover date first. Everything else can be worked around; that generally cannot.

Send the schedule alongside the list. Knowing that first fix is in March and sanitaryware lands in June changes what we recommend, because it changes what has to be available when.

Phased delivery against a programme is worth agreeing up front rather than arranging order by order.

If you are working to someone else's specification, send it as written. Where an item is not something we carry, we will say what is closest and how it differs — the difference matters more than the match, because it is the part you have to take back to the specifier.

Contractors who build the same unit type repeatedly get more out of settling a standard set once than pricing each job from scratch. If that is you, it is worth saying so in your first message.

The common failure is a finish that exists on the basin mixer and not on the bath filler. Send the full set you intend to specify and we will tell you where it holds and where it breaks before it reaches a drawing.

If a decision depends on seeing a finish in person, say so in your message and we will tell you what is possible for the items in question. It varies by range, so a blanket answer here would be wrong.

Dimensions, spout projections and tap-hole requirements are the details that most often force a late change. Ask for them early rather than at ordering.

A quote can be written against a scheme so it reads as a specification rather than a shopping list. If your client is buying directly, say that too — it changes who we should be talking to about delivery.