An Incoterm is not a formality attached to the invoice. It decides which side books the vessel, who pays for what between the factory gate and your yard, and the exact point where risk passes from seller to buyer. Two suppliers can quote the same figure per ton and still leave you with very different total costs, because the term behind each figure is doing different work.
Most steel offers you will receive use one of four terms. Under EXW the buyer collects at the works and carries everything from there. Under FOB the seller delivers the cargo on board at the named port, and the buyer books the ocean freight and insurance. Under CFR the seller pays the freight to the destination port, and under CIF the seller also arranges insurance. The detail buyers miss is that CFR and CIF transfer risk at loading, not on arrival: if the cargo is damaged at sea, your claim runs against your own insurance rather than the supplier.
So compare offers on the same term, and read the named port carefully. Check who clears export and import, who pays for loading, stowage and dunnage, what the insurance actually covers and from which point, and whether destination charges land on you. Make sure the term is identical on the quotation, the contract and the invoice, because mismatched terms are one of the quietest sources of dispute in steel trade.
If you have your own forwarder and want control of routing and cost, ask for FOB and let your team book the shipment. If you would rather have one party handle the movement, CIF is simpler, provided you check the cover behind it. We have supplied buyers in more than one hundred countries for over twenty years from an eighty-thousand-square-meter facility with annual capacity of six million tons, working under ISO 9001 and issuing a mill test certificate with every order. Tell us your destination port and preferred term, and we will quote on that basis so the comparison is like for like.