An importer has emailed you. The first reply isn't there to sell.
An enquiry from abroad is the moment export stops being a plan and becomes an email you have to write. Almost every first reply from an Italian producer goes wrong in the same way, and it comes in two opposite forms.
Reply the same day, even if your material isn't ready. A foreign enquiry almost always goes to several suppliers at once. Replying first doesn't just earn you goodwill, it sets the terms of the comparison: everyone else will be read as an alternative to your offer.
Don't put the price list in the first reply. A price with no Incoterm, volume, pack size or destination market is a number that only gets you compared on price. Three questions first, then the right price list.
The first reply has four jobs: turn up quickly, show in two lines that you know what you're talking about, qualify the person who wrote, and propose a next step with a date.
This piece is part of the guide to export operations for small food producers and covers the entry point to the whole process, the one whose cost you can work out line by line: the enquiry arriving.
The template, to download
The two templates below, plus a third that appears on this page only as a principle: the reply to a buyer asking about a country for which you don't yet have the certificate, the label or the registration. A clear no with a date, which keeps the relationship alive. The English version is the one you send; the Italian one is there so you know what you're sending.
| File | Contents | Link |
|---|---|---|
| EnglishWord, to fill in | The three templates, with square brackets to fill in and a note on when to use each one. |
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| EnglishPDF, to read | The same page, to keep open next to your inbox. |
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| ItalianWord and PDF | A translation of the three templates, so you understand what the English version says. Also as a PDF. |
The files are free. There's no form in the way, we don't ask for an email address, and we don't get notified when anyone downloads them. Fill in the square brackets with your own details, and only use the line about holding stock until a date when it's true.
The two replies that lose
The first is three days of silence. It doesn't come from lack of interest, but from the opposite: the enquiry matters, so the reply has to be perfect, so first you have to prepare the export price list, translate the spec sheet, check with the accountant. And meanwhile the days go by.
The second is the catalogue fired straight back. The enquiry arrives and everything goes out at once: the full catalogue as a PDF, the domestic price list, photos, the company's history since 1954. It's a fast reply, and it still loses, because it dumps on the buyer the job of working out what they need.
Both wrong replies have the same cause: neither of them asks a question.
On speed there is one useful measure, useful for the direction it points in more than for the exact number. The InsideSales.com/MIT study by James Oldroyd, presented in 2007, puts it like this: “The odds of contacting a lead if called in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes drop 100 times”. Two limits, and they need saying up front: it measures phone call-backs, not emails, and it covers enquiries from web forms, not food buyers. We've looked at what that number proves and what it doesn't in the five minutes that decide an enquiry.
The four jobs of the first reply
A reply that works does four things in a few lines, and none of them is selling.
| Job | How to do it | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Turn up quicklysame day | Acknowledge the enquiry, say who you are in one line, say when the full material will arrive. |
The enquiry has almost certainly gone to several suppliers. The first to reply becomes the benchmark the others are compared against. |
| Show you know your stufftwo lines, not two pages | A detail only a real producer would know: yields, available pack sizes, batch lead times, markets already supplied. |
It sets a producer apart from a middleman. Foreign buyers spend half their time weeding out middlemen in disguise. |
| Qualifythree questions | Destination market, sales channel, and rough volumes and pack size for a first order. |
Without these three answers there's no right price list to send, and any price you send will be the wrong one. |
| Propose the next stepwith a date | A short call in one of two suggested slots, or the material sent by a specific day. |
A reply that ends without a next step leaves it to the buyer to remember you. They won't. |
The template: a vague enquiry
The most common enquiry is also the vaguest: someone says they're interested in your products and asks for a catalogue and price list. Here's a first reply that does all four jobs and stays short.
Subject: Re: [product] enquiry - a few questions before I send the right price list Dear [name], Thank you for reaching out. We are [company], a [size] producer of [product] based in [region, Italy]. We produce [key technical detail: yield, batch size, formats] and we currently supply [countries / channels]. So that I can send you the right export price list rather than a generic one, three quick questions: 1. Which market will the product be sold in, and through which channel (retail, food service, distribution)? 2. What volumes are you considering for a first order, and in which packaging format? 3. Do you need our own brand, or private label? In the meantime, I've attached our spec sheet in English so you can see the range. I can send the full quotation within [24/48] hours of your reply, or we can go through it in a short call: I am available [day] or [day], [time range] CET. Kind regards, [name] - [role] [company] - [website] - [phone]
Three things in this text deserve attention. The subject line already explains why there's no price inside, so the missing price list doesn't look like evasion. The technical detail in the first line does the work of half a page of company introduction. The three questions are numbered because a numbered list gets answered point by point, while the same content in a paragraph gets a single, generic reply.
The template: a detailed enquiry
Sometimes the enquiry arrives complete: product, pack size, volume, market. In that case, slowing things down with questions is the mirror image of the mistake of sending everything at once. Here the right reply is dense and practical.
Subject: Re: [product] [format] - availability, terms and next step Dear [name], Thank you for the detailed enquiry, which makes this easy. Availability: [product] in [format] is available, current lead time [X] working days for [quantity]. Terms: our export price list is attached, quoted [EXW / FOB port]. Minimum order [MOQ] for this format. Compliance: our spec sheet in English is attached; [label adaptation / certificate] for [country] can be prepared in [timeframe]. Two points I would like to confirm before we go further: - the destination market, since labelling requirements differ, and - whether you need samples before the first order. If it works for you, I can hold [quantity] from batch [reference] until [date] while you review. Kind regards, [name] - [role] [company] - [website] - [phone]
The last line is the one that moves things most: availability with a stated deadline turns an email into an appointment. Only use it when it's true. Stock you say you're holding and then don't costs more than the deal it was meant to speed up.
The language of the reply
English is the working standard, and for the email itself it's fine. The real question is about the attachments, which stay on the buyer's desk long after the email has been read.
The study Can’t Read, Won’t Buy by CSA Research, covering 8,709 respondents in 29 countries, found that 76% prefer to buy with information in their own language and that 40% never buy from a website in another language, or in the original wording, “40% will never buy from websites in other languages”. It covers consumers, not professional buyers, and the difference is real: a German purchasing manager works in English all day.
But that manager will still have to pass your spec sheet to a colleague in quality, a customer or an inspection body, and that handover happens in the language of their market. A spec sheet already in German removes an obstacle that nobody will ever tell you they had. How to build that document is covered in the spec sheet in English, with the field template.
What to leave out of the first reply
- Your domestic price list. It has retail prices and Italian terms that mean nothing in export, and once someone has read them, they can't unsee them.
- The full catalogue. If you have forty products, sending them all is the same as recommending none.
- The company history. It matters later, when the buyer is already choosing between you and someone else. In the first reply it takes up the space where the facts should be.
- Your strictest payment terms. They should be discussed, not announced: putting them in the first email shuts down conversations that were still open.
- Apologies for the delay, if you replied the same day. That's a reasonable time, and calling it a problem turns it into one.
The five-minute figure comes from a 2007 study of phone call-backs to online enquiries collected through web forms, not emails from overseas food buyers. The difference between a call and an email isn't small, and we say so before using the number. We quote it for the direction it points in, that the chance of making contact drops fast, not as a promise of a result in your case.
The language figure covers consumers, not purchasing managers. It explains why it's worth preparing attachments in the destination market's language, not that buyers reject English.
There are no examples on this page presented as client cases. The English templates are written as templates, to adapt to your own product.
When the inbox becomes the bottleneck
With two enquiries a month you can do all this by hand, and do it well. The problem starts when enquiries come in from three places, the website, trade fairs and WhatsApp, while you're busy with production.
At that point deals aren't lost through incompetence. They're lost because an email that came in on Thursday afternoon was read on a phone, mentally filed as something to deal with properly later, and found again on Tuesday. The right moment to reply was Thursday.
That's when collecting enquiries has to come out of one person's memory and go into a single place that sorts the enquiries and drafts the reply, with the rule set out in Ethics: the machine prepares and flags, but no reply goes to a buyer until a person has read and approved it. A first reply to a buyer is a commercial promise, and promises are made by a business, not by a system.
Before sending samples or detailed price lists, there's one step worth not skipping, and that's working out who you're dealing with: the signs that separate a serious buyer from a time-waster.
Questions and answers
How quickly should I reply to an email from a foreign importer?
Within a few working hours, and in any case the same day. A foreign enquiry almost always goes to several suppliers at once, and the first to reply sets the terms of the comparison: everyone else is read as an alternative to their offer.
You don't need a complete reply, you need a present one. Acknowledge the enquiry, ask your qualifying questions and say when the material will arrive, without waiting until the price list and spec sheets are ready.
Should I send my price list straight away?
No, and it's the most common mistake. A price only means something alongside an Incoterm, a volume, a pack size and a destination market. Sent without those four, it becomes a number the buyer will use to compare you with everyone else, on price alone.
The sequence that works: reply the same day, ask three questions, and send the right price list once you know which one is right.
What language should I reply in?
English as standard for the email. The real question is about the attachments, which stay on the buyer's desk long after the email has been read.
CSA Research's study of 8,709 respondents in 29 countries found that 76% prefer to buy with information in their own language. It covers consumers rather than professional buyers, but it shows the direction: a spec sheet already in the market's language removes an obstacle nobody will ever tell you they had.
What do I write if I'm not ready to export to that country yet?
Say so, with a date. A clear no with a when attached, for example that your certification for that market will be ready by the autumn and you'll get back to them in October, keeps the relationship alive and puts you in their diary.
Silence, or a vague reply promising to look into it and never coming back, closes the door twice: it loses this enquiry and teaches the buyer not to write again.
How can I tell whether the enquiry is serious before I invest time in it?
From the answers to your qualifying questions, not from the tone of the first email. A real buyer can tell you which market they'll sell in, through which channel, in roughly what volumes and in what pack size. Anyone who doesn't answer, or comes back asking only for your lowest price, is collecting quotes.
Background checks on the company come before you send samples, not before you reply: they're set out in serious buyer or time-waster.
Notes on sources
- InsideSales.com/MIT Lead Response Management Study, James Oldroyd, PhD, Sloan School of Management, MIT, presented on 16 October 2007. This is the source of the comparison between contact within 5 minutes and after 30, quoted word for word. Sample: three years of data from six companies, over fifteen thousand enquiries and more than a hundred thousand call attempts. It measures phone calls, not emails, and it covers enquiries from web forms: the figure points in a direction, it doesn't guarantee a result in exporting. Correction of 13 September 2026: this page used to attribute the figure to a 2011 Harvard Business Review article, which is a different piece of work.
- CSA Research, Can’t Read, Won’t Buy, 8,709 respondents in 29 countries. The source of the 76% and 40% figures on language. It covers consumers, not purchasing managers.
- The two English templates are written as templates and don't reproduce real client correspondence.
Enquiries aren't lost through incompetence. They're lost on a Thursday afternoon.
The first reply has four jobs, and sending the price list isn't one of them. At Itria we start from the outside and build tailored digital systems for exporters. For you, that means more enquiries, fewer losses and less manual work. Drop us a line about what's slowing you down. We'll make the first move: we'll look at what a buyer sees when they search for you, and tell you what we found. Even if we never end up working together.