How fast should you reply to a B2B enquiry?
A buyer who sends an enquiry is usually asking several suppliers at once. The first clear reply is often the one that gets the next message.
Sellyx team · 5 Nov 2026 · 3 min read
The short answer
Reply the same working hour if you can, and the same day at the latest: the buyer is comparing suppliers while they wait. Speed comes from having your facts ready and the enquiries in one place, not from rushing a price.
Enquiries from IndiaMART, TradeIndia, Alibaba and your own website rarely go to you alone. While the buyer waits, other suppliers reply. A fast reply does not win the order by itself, but a slow one often loses the conversation before it starts.
What slows a reply down
- Enquiries spread across lead-site apps, a mailbox and WhatsApp, each checked at a different time.
- Enquiries that arrive in the evening or on a holiday, and wait for the next working day.
- Facts that live in one person’s head: minimum order, dispatch time, which certificates you hold.
- Not knowing who should reply, so everyone assumes someone else did.
How to reply fast without mistakes
- Bring every enquiry into one place, so nothing waits in an app nobody opened.
- Write down the facts you repeat every day once: products, minimum order, dispatch time, certificates, delivery terms.
- Send a short first reply quickly: confirm you make what they asked for and ask the two or three questions you need to quote.
- Agree who approves replies and by when, so a reply never sits waiting for a decision.
- Keep prices out of the first reply unless they are already decided.
How Asha does this in Sellyx
Asha reads each enquiry from your lead sites, mailbox, WhatsApp and website form as it arrives, decides whether it is a lead, and drafts the first reply from your approved knowledge. A person on your team approves and sends it. In the Sellyx Test Lab, on test enquiries to a sample packaging maker, her median time from enquiry to draft was 21 seconds.
When a reply has to wait for a person, the buyer can get your approved “enquiry received” email, saying who will call and when. Sellyx’s employees write in English today.