HS Code, Origin and the m² Problem: Writing a Stone RFQ Suppliers Can Actually Price

Ask a natural stone exporter which enquiries get priced first and the answer is rarely about the stone. It is about the data. A demand that lets the export desk calculate customs and freight gets a sharp offer within days; a demand that forces guessing gets a padded number, a chain of clarification emails, or silence. If you are buying marble, travertine or granite across a border, the quality of your offers is decided before the first supplier even finishes reading your description.

A quote is a calculation, not a guess

Behind every serious international offer sits a calculation: production cost, export paperwork, duty exposure, freight to your destination, and the margin that survives all of it. Every input you leave out of your demand becomes either a question fired back at you or a risk premium quietly baked into the price. Picture two buyers requesting the same travertine. One writes a lyrical project story. The other fills in the handful of fields that make the calculation possible. The second buyer receives more offers, faster and tighter, because nobody on the other side has to guess.

This is also why an itemised product list beats a general request for export purchases. When each line carries its own name, quantity and unit, a supplier can price line by line instead of estimating a lump sum, and you can compare the answers line by line too.

The HS code: a few digits that unlock landed cost

An HS code — GTIP, if you trade with Turkey — such as 6802.91, the position covering worked marble, travertine and alabaster, is the key that unlocks the border. Duty rates, preferential treatment under trade agreements and the documents that must travel with the goods all hang off that code. A supplier who sees it can compute the customs side of your landed cost immediately; a supplier who does not will assume the worst case or come back with questions. On MarbleMap, every product line in an itemised demand carries an export info section where you record the GTIP/HS code together with origin and brand. The fields are optional, and that is exactly the point: the buyers who take one minute to fill them are the ones whose demands read as real business.

Origin is a price input, not a formality

Writing the expected origin — Italy, Carrara, to take the classic example — does more than add colour. Origin decides whether preferential duty applies at your border, which certificates must accompany the shipment, and how much scrutiny the goods may face at customs. It also lets suppliers self-select honestly: a quarry that cannot meet your origin requirement finds out before wasting your time, and one that can knows this demand is worth a careful bid. A single field quietly filters your inbox.

Choose the unit from a list, not from habit

Every exporter has a story about units. One buyer writes m2, another sqm, a third spells out square metre, and somewhere along the way an offer arrives priced per tonne or per pallet. At that point the offers stop being comparable and the disputes begin. MarbleMap closes that loophole by making the unit a selection, not a text field: a standardized list of international units — square metre, cubic metre, kilogram, tonne, metre, linear metre, piece, pallet, container and more — with a search box that recognises abbreviations like kg, m² and t. New lines start at square metre, the industry's workhorse, and every supplier prices against exactly the unit you chose. Comparing offers becomes arithmetic instead of archaeology.

A country is not a destination

Freight is priced to a point, not to a polygon on a map. Delivery to a coastal port and delivery to a job site eight hundred kilometres inland are different quotes, sometimes dramatically so. That is why MarbleMap asks for the delivery country and then insists on a delivery point — a city or a port — because a country alone is not enough to price freight. You also set the pricing currency for the demand; offers submitted in other currencies are converted at current rates, so everything lands on one screen, in one currency, ready to compare. Add the sealed-bid rule — no supplier sees a rival's offer, its price, or even how many offers arrived — and clean data in becomes honest competition out. The clarification rounds drop to zero because there is nothing left to clarify.

Open a demand suppliers can actually price

MarbleMap is a commission-free, sealed-bid B2B marketplace for natural stone. As a buyer you open a demand free of charge; the buyer side starts free, with advanced features reserved for the paid buyer plans, Pro and Business. Enter the HS code, the origin, the unit from the list and the exact delivery point once, then let verified suppliers compete for your business with sealed offers; nothing binds you until you accept one. If you are a supplier, a subscription puts fully specified demands like these, from vetted buyers, in front of you and lets you answer with a sealed offer no competitor will ever see. Start today at marblemap.co