Your first customer outside Mexico: what they'll ask before placing an order

A buyer in the United States, Canada or Central America has seen your product and is interested. Before sending a purchase order, they’ll send questions. Lots of them.

For a Mexican company that has never exported, those questions tend to arrive in the worst possible order: one email asks for the HS code, the next asks whether the product qualifies under USMCA, another wants a price “DAP Laredo” and a twelve-page supplier onboarding form. If every answer takes a week, the buyer concludes you’re not ready.

What follows is the list of what a foreign customer will almost always ask for, in roughly the order they ask. Walk into the first call with this sorted and it’s a different conversation.

1. A quote they can compare

The buyer is collecting quotes from several suppliers, probably in several countries. Your price has to sit next to the others. That takes:

• A price with an Incoterm and a named place. Not “20 dollars a piece” but “20 dollars a piece FCA Querétaro”, “FOB Manzanillo” or “DAP Laredo, Texas”. Without the term, the price doesn’t say what it covers. If you’re unsure which one to offer, see Incoterms 2020 in plain language.
• Currency. Almost always US dollars. Decide whether your price can absorb exchange-rate swings or needs a short validity.
• Quote validity. Thirty days is common; with volatile raw materials, less.
• Minimum order and lead time. How many units at minimum, and how many days from order to goods ready to ship.

Two common traps. First, quoting EXW because it looks simplest. It leaves the buyer with all the logistics in a country they don’t know, and many would rather drop you than deal with it. Second, agreeing to quote DDP without realizing it makes you responsible for importing into their country and paying their duties. Before you put a delivered price on the table, ask your forwarder what it really costs to get there.

2. Spec sheet, samples and photos

Before buying, the customer wants to know exactly what they’ll receive:

• Specifications: materials, dimensions, tolerances, finishes, colors.
• Weight and dimensions per unit and per carton, and how many cartons fit on a pallet. They need it to work out their own freight.
• Samples. If you send them by courier, include an invoice and a clear description. The destination country applies the same logic Mexico does: a poorly documented sample gets held at customs. We covered it in samples with no commercial value.

3. Your product’s HS code

The buyer needs it to know how much duty they’ll pay importing your product, and that number can change their decision.

What’s worth knowing:

• The first six digits are shared by almost every country: that’s the Harmonized System. Beyond that, each country adds its own digits. Your Mexican eight-digit fracción plus the NICO is not the code their customs uses.
• Share the six digits with confidence and make clear the final classification at destination is done by their customs broker.
• If your Mexican classification is wrong, the error carries over to both sides. It’s worth confirming before you export; the method is in tariff classification in Mexico.

4. Origin: does it qualify under the trade agreement?

If the customer is in a country that has a trade agreement with Mexico, they’ll ask whether your product qualifies as originating. If it does, they pay less duty or none, which makes you more competitive than a supplier from a country with no agreement.

• Under USMCA, proof is a certification of origin with minimum data elements, which the exporter, the producer or the importer can complete. There’s no official pre-printed form.
• Being made in Mexico isn’t enough. The product has to meet the rule of origin for its tariff line. If you use inputs imported from outside the region, it may not qualify.
• Other agreements have other formats and rules. The USMCA detail is in certificate of origin and rules of origin.

Don’t sign a certification of origin to win the order unless you have the analysis to back it. If the other country’s customs reviews it and it doesn’t hold, your customer loses the preference and pays the difference, and you lose the customer.

Separately from the agreement, many destinations require the product or its packaging to show the country of origin. Ask how “Made in Mexico” must be marked before you print cartons.

5. Product requirements in their market

This takes the longest and depends least on Mexican customs. Depending on the product and country, there may be:

• Health registrations or authorizations. In the United States, for example, facilities that make food for that market register with the FDA, and food shipments require prior notice.
• Technical or safety certifications for electrical goods, toys, medical devices and more.
• Labeling in their language, with the information their rules require.

The buyer usually knows what their market needs. Ask directly what falls on you and what they handle, and get it in writing. Some of these processes take months and can’t be fixed with the cargo already on its way.

6. Export packaging

A product that travels for days or weeks, gets transshipped and stacked needs different packaging than domestic retail. The customer may ask for:

• Carton and pallet specs: strength, maximum height, weight per package, stretch wrap.
• Heat-treated wood pallets. The international ISPM 15 standard requires wood packaging to be treated and stamped. A pallet without the stamp can hold the shipment at destination.
• Package marking: order number, carton number, weight, origin.
• A packing list that matches what’s actually in each carton. See the packing list.

7. Supplier onboarding

Mid-size and large companies have a formal process to add a new supplier, and it usually arrives as a bundle of forms:

• Tax and legal details of your company: legal name, RFC (Mexican tax ID), address, tax status certificate, sometimes the articles of incorporation.
• Their country’s tax forms. US companies, for instance, typically ask foreign suppliers for a W-8BEN-E to document that they’re not US taxpayers. Fill it out with your accountant, not in a rush.
• Bank details on letterhead, sometimes with a bank letter.
• Compliance questionnaires: code of conduct, labor practices, material sourcing, anti-corruption, supply chain security.
• Insurance: some ask for a current general liability policy.

This is how a buyer protects itself from a supplier it doesn’t know yet. And a supplier who answers fully and quickly scores points over one with a better price.

8. Payment terms

The buyer will propose paying 30, 60 or 90 days after receiving the goods. You don’t know them yet, so you’d rather be paid before the shipment leaves. Between those extremes sit partial prepayment, letters of credit and documentary collections.

When you export, the big risk moves from customs to collection. Decide how much you’re willing to finance a customer with no track record, and don’t improvise it on the last call. There’s more on this in exporting from Mexico.

What they won’t ask, but you need anyway

The buyer doesn’t know, or care, how exporting works on the Mexican side. But if it fails, their order doesn’t arrive:

• An electronic invoice (CFDI) with the foreign trade supplement for a definitive export.
• The sector-specific exporter registry, only if your goods fall in one of the sectors that require it.
• A customs broker authorized to clear your export pedimento.
• Transport to the delivery point agreed in the Incoterm, with its Carta Porte.

All of this, plus zero-rate VAT and the shipping documents, is in exporting from Mexico: steps and documents.

The folder to have ready

Before the first call with a foreign buyer, gather in one place:

1. A model quote with Incoterm, currency, validity, minimum order and lead time.
2. A spec sheet in English, with weights and dimensions per unit, carton and pallet.
3. A confirmed tariff classification and its first six digits.
4. An origin analysis of your product against the destination’s trade agreement.
5. The product’s requirements in that market, confirmed with the customer.
6. Packaging spec, ISPM 15 pallets and marking.
7. A supplier onboarding pack: tax, banking and compliance details.
8. Your payment policy for new customers.

With that folder, the buyer’s questions get answered in hours, not weeks.

At TradeWay

We handle exports the same way we handle imports: ocean, air and land forwarding, customs clearance and transport to the border or port, with one point of contact and one invoice. If your first foreign customer asked for a delivered price, we’ll quote the full leg so your offer is built on real numbers. Get in touch.