Can a war reserve case order start at 50 units instead of 200?

Answer: Usually yes, at 15 to 20 percent above the unit price, with tooling credited later.

Is 52,000 yuan the normal tooling cost?

Answer: For a single mould under 600 litres, roughly. Twin moulds or side cores pass 80,000 yuan.

Why is testing priced separately?

Answer: Tightness, drop and salt fog go to a lab and are billed per run. A price that includes them covers appearance only.

Can 76 days be shortened?

Answer: Only by overlapping. Buying material during the last 10 days of tooling saves about 12 days.

Will a supplier accept 90 days of credit?

Answer: Rarely below mid-size. Expect 3 to 5 percent on the unit price.

The cavity arrives undersized. What now?

Answer: Widen the sample to separate a lot-wide drift from a single case. Lot-wide means a mould fault, so return it.

War Reserve Case Quotes: Three Lines and Four Numbers

Quick answer: War reserve case quotations look alike; the differences sit behind the MOQ, the tooling and the test list. Ask with four numbers, 200 units, a 52,000 yuan tool, 38 days of tooling and 60 days of credit, and the offer shows its real shape.

Three Lines to Draw Before You Ask for a Quote
MOQ and Tooling Ownership Are Two Answers
Five Costs Missing from the Quotation
Lead Time Has Three Stages, Not One Number
Payment Terms, Factory Visit and Sample Fee
Incoming Inspection and Claim Clauses
FAQ

1. Three Lines to Draw Before You Ask for a Quote

Draw three lines before a single email goes out: storage years, batch size, delivery window.

Without them, ten suppliers return ten prices and all look sane. Storage years decide the resin, the seal hardness and the desiccant load, and 8 years and 15 years are not one grade. Batch size is 200 units or 800; the window is 90 days or 45, and anyone who cannot split it into tooling plus production days is not making the case.

Line	Number	Usual answer	What it tells you
Storage years	8 or 15	Either is fine	No material plan
First batch	200 or 800	Depends	No price breaks
Window	90 or 45 days	We will try	Cannot split days

The window is the line buyers give away first. Pressure turns 90 days into 45, first-article approval gets cut, and dimensional drift starts there.

2. MOQ and Tooling Ownership Are Two Answers

A war reserve case is not a stock item; change the cavity and a mould has to be cut.

War Reserve Case: olive green case on a steel bench, scuffed surface, one black latch and moulded handle, workshop racks behind

At 52,000 yuan for the tool, three ways to place it exist, and each fixes the first-order price, the owner of the mould and whether it travels.

Arrangement	First-order price	Mould owner	Later risk
Buyer pays in full	High, tool included	Buyer	Movable, if written
Amortised per unit	Low, plus 65 yuan	Supplier	Break-even near 800 units
Supplier absorbs	Lowest	Supplier	Stays behind

A plant quoting 200 units runs a small rotomoulding machine with one mould on two shifts. Above 500 units the work moves to a carousel, which holds delivery but queues repeat orders by 20 days.

Ownership must be written: the mould belongs to the buyer and can be collected within 30 days of a line stop.

3. Five Costs Missing from the Quotation

A settled unit price is not a settled total.

Mould changes: 3,000 yuan per round when the first article misses a dimension
Testing: tightness, drop and salt fog outsourced, about 4,200 yuan
Packing: 45 yuan per timber crate, 12 yuan per carton
Sample fee: 1,800 yuan, credited against production
Freight: 0.6 yuan per unit per day after 7 free days

Together they run 8 to 12 percent of the unit price on a war reserve case, so price them line by line.

4. Lead Time Has Three Stages, Not One Number

Lead time is three stages added together: 38 days of tooling, 26 days of first-article approval and 12 days of ramp-up, which is 76 days.

War Reserve Case: olive green case open on a steel bench, foam cut into compartments, lid slots holding vials and rolled packs, racking behind

The stage that gets cut is first-article approval. It measures cavity size, wall thickness, latch position and pressure decay, where 1.5 kPa held for 10 minutes must not fall past 0.2 kPa. Some plants merge both stages, run 50 units and inspect afterwards, when the mould has cycled hundreds of times and the buyer pays for rework. The schedule should list dates and deliverables: a mould acceptance sheet, three samples with a report, then a sealed sample with batch records. Three documents, and the date means something. Ask about the queue as well, since a finished mould may wait 15 days for a slot.

5. Payment Terms, Factory Visit and Sample Fee

Thirty percent down with the balance at 60 days is the ordinary structure. Push the deposit under 20 percent and resin grades quietly drop, costing impact strength without changing the look.

Visit the machines, not the showroom. Tonnage, mould stations and oven logs answer the capacity question.

Do not skip the 1,800 yuan sample. About 21 kg points to an 8 mm wall, and a light sample means thin material. Then stack the war reserve case to 2.2 m for 72 hours and check the rim.

6. Incoming Inspection and Claim Clauses

Sample 10 percent of a 200 unit lot, so 20 cases, and check: cavity size, latch force, pressure decay and marking.

Measure with tape and caliper, and reject the lot beyond 3 mm of drift. Latch force should feel identical across the twenty, since one stiff and one loose means mixed hardware. Repeat the pressure test, and a decay past 0.2 kPa points to the seal.

A claim clause on a war reserve case needs three things: which report decides, where rework ends and return begins, and the replacement lead time.

Conclusion

Negotiating a war reserve case means putting three lines and four numbers on the table: 200 units, a 52,000 yuan tool, 38 days of tooling and 60 days of credit, which together set the price structure. Ask for the five missing costs in writing, and the war reserve case you order will be priced on clauses you can check.

This article discusses only the container (case body) side of specifications and design intent, and does not cover any handling, loading or use of the contents.