How REPONS qualifies a supplier

1 — Identity and legal existence

• Registered legal name, country of registration and trading name.
• Company registration or tax identification document.
• Whether the company is the manufacturer, an authorised agent, a trading company or a distributor — stated, not assumed.
• Factory location or locations, where the supplier is a producer.

2 — Category and technical capability

• Product range relevant to the requirement, with standards the products are built to.
• Production capacity, typical lead times and minimum order quantities.
• Test reports, material certificates and type approvals relevant to the item — requested per product, not accepted as a general claim.
• OEM and private-label capability where the requirement needs it.

3 — Export and commercial readiness

• Export markets already served and experience with the destination country's documentation.
• Incoterms the supplier can work on and packing standard for sea or air freight.
• Payment terms, currency and the supplier's banking details verified against the registered entity.
• Responsiveness during the enquiry itself — a supplier that cannot answer a technical clarification in time is a delivery risk.

4 — Verification before an order

• Document review against the specification, not against the supplier's marketing.
• Samples where the product class and the value justify it.
• Pre-shipment inspection or third-party inspection where the buyer requires it.
• Production monitoring on longer lead-time items.

5 — Performance review after delivery

• Technical conformity, delivery adherence, documentation quality, responsiveness and commercial behaviour are recorded per order.
• A supplier can be restricted or removed for a category after a failure; the record stays.
• Repeat business is directed to suppliers with a recorded performance history, not to the lowest quotation in isolation.

What REPONS does not claim

REPONS does not describe itself as an approved supplier of a buyer, an authorised distributor of a manufacturer, or a certificate-holding body, unless that relationship is contractually in place and can be evidenced on request.