Most first messages we receive say one word: price?
We answer all of them, and the answer has to be a question, because there is no price for “a truck”. A 2020 tipper and a 2025 tipper with the same model name are two different purchases, and freight to Lagos and freight to Douala are two different numbers. So the conversation takes four exchanges to get where it could have started.
Here is the message that skips that.
The four things
1. The machine
Type and configuration. “A 6×4 tractor unit”, “an 8×4 tipper”, “a 22-tonne excavator”, “a tipping semi-trailer”.
If you are not sure, describe the job instead and let us work it out. “I move sand from a pit to a batching plant, about 30 tonnes a load, on a made road” is a better first message than a model name you are guessing at, and it will get you a better answer.
If you do know the exact model, say it. If you already run something and want the same again, say that too, because matching an existing fleet is worth more than any specification improvement we could suggest.
2. What you will use it for
This changes which unit is right more than the spec sheet does, and it is the line most buyers leave out.
Site haulage, long-distance road work, mine haul, municipal water, agriculture. The ground it works on, wet or dry, made or unmade. Whether the driver sleeps in the truck. Whether your route climbs.
Two examples of what this actually changes. A buyer who says “dense ore, short haul” gets pointed at our short-bodied 8×4 tipper, which ships for less than the 6×4 and carries fifteen tonnes more. A buyer who says “light waste, long body needed” gets the opposite recommendation and would have wasted money on the first one. Same category, same payload rating, opposite answers.
3. Your destination port
Without a port there is no landed cost, only a machine price.
Sea freight is charged by volume and quoted per port, and rates move week to week. We cannot tell you what a machine costs to get to you until we know where “to you” is. With the port we can quote the machine and the freight together, which is the number you actually pay.
Say the country too, because import rules for used commercial vehicles vary by country and some of them turn on age or emission standard. We would rather check that before you commit than after your truck is on the water.
4. Your budget range
This is the one people hesitate over, so here is what it is actually for.
It gets you the right units in the first reply. The same model spans several model years and several conditions in our yard. Without a range we either send you everything, which is not useful, or we guess, and a guess in either direction wastes your time: too high and you are looking at machines you were not going to buy, too low and we never showed you the one you wanted.
It is not a negotiating disclosure. It is the filter that turns a catalogue into a shortlist.
Two more, if you know them
Quantity. Freight per unit falls with volume, sometimes considerably, and on small machines like the farm tractors it falls a lot. If you are taking three, say three, because the per-unit figure we quote for one is not the figure for three.
Timeline. When you need it on the ground. It changes what we show you: what is standing in the yard now, against what we would source for you.
What comes back
With those four in one message, the first reply is:
- Specific units that exist, with the year and condition of each
- Photographs of those actual machines, not model photographs
- The shipping volume, and freight to your port
- A written specification you can check
Instead of: “which model?”, “what is it for?”, “which port?”, “what is your budget?”, and four days gone.
Copy this
Hello. I am looking for [machine and configuration], [quantity] units. I will use it for [the job, the ground, the distance]. Destination port is [port, country]. My budget is around [range] per unit. I need it by [when].
That is it. It takes a minute to write and it saves a week.
One thing we will always do
If what you have described is better served by a different machine than the one you asked for, we will say so, including when the different machine is cheaper. The short 8×4 tipper example above is real and it comes up most weeks. We would rather sell you the right machine once than the wrong machine now.
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