Examines the field of capital goods purchases, dealing specifically with four types of standard machine tools sold into the UK market. Identifies key factors in the supplied quotation judged by the buyer to be instrumental in discriminating between successful and unsuccessful quotations. Reveals that these were taken from survey date collected by personal interview in 51 companies. Suggests that this will aid machine tool suppliers in securing orders from customers as well as providing a predictor of their prospects in any competitive bidding situation.