A trade customer can find the right products online and still need help placing the order. The quantity may justify a negotiated price, the delivery needs may be unusual, or the buyer may need a formal offer before their purchasing team will approve the spend.
If the website only supports an immediate purchase, the customer returns to email. Your sales team then rebuilds the basket, checks the account, prepares a document and eventually re-enters the order. Adding a request-a-quote button helps only if the process behind it is clear.
For Australian and New Zealand wholesalers, distributors and manufacturers, the useful question is which purchases genuinely need negotiation, and how those purchases should move from enquiry to an accepted, fulfilment-ready order.
OSE recommends designing that workflow before selecting a quoting application or rebuilding a portal. Keep straightforward buying simple, give complex requests an accountable sales process, and preserve the agreed terms when the order reaches the ERP.
Key Takeaways
- Keep standard repeat orders on a direct buying path where the rules allow it.
- Use structured quotes for purchases that need commercial or operational review.
- Separate supplier negotiation from the buyer’s internal purchasing approval.
- Preserve the accepted quote version and reconcile its transfer into the ERP.
Decide which purchases actually need a quote
Start with a sample of recent sales enquiries. Separate requests for a better price from requests involving product selection, unusual freight, availability, configuration or purchasing approval. These are different jobs, even when customers describe all of them as needing a quote.
A regular replenishment order using an agreed catalogue may be suitable for direct checkout. A project order with uncertain quantities or delivery stages may need a sales representative to review the scope. A product requiring technical selection may need advice before anyone can offer a reliable price.
Define the routing rules in plain language. Specify when buyers can order immediately, when they can request review, and when a salesperson must qualify the requirement first. Avoid forcing every basket through a quote simply because the business has historically sold by email.
For example, an illustrative industrial supplier might allow account holders to reorder approved consumables directly while routing a project equipment package to sales. The right division depends on the trading rules, rather than a universal order-value threshold.
Distinguish a quote from account pricing and purchase approval
Account pricing is an ongoing arrangement that determines what a customer normally pays. A quote is an offer for a particular scope and set of conditions. Buyer approval is a separate process in which the customer decides whether a person may commit their organisation to the purchase.
These processes can interact without becoming interchangeable. A buyer may request a special price from you, obtain internal approval for the revised amount, and then submit a purchase order. Your sales team’s approval of a discount does not establish that the customer has authority to buy.
Keep the records and responsibilities clear. If the underlying issue is inconsistent contract pricing, resolve that rather than asking staff to quote every repeat order. Our guide to B2B contract pricing, customer price groups and the ERP covers those standing arrangements.
Capture enough information to produce a useful response
A generic contact form often creates another round of questions. A structured request should retain the basket, product identifiers, quantities and units of measure, together with the customer account and intended delivery location. Ask for a required date when timing affects the recommendation.
Allow the buyer to explain the job or attach relevant requirements where appropriate. Make optional information clearly optional, and avoid collecting documents your team does not need. Keep account-specific pricing and sensitive attachments within the authorised account workflow.
Show what happens next: whether sales will confirm suitability, prepare an offer or ask for more information. Publish a response expectation that the business can actually support. A confirmation screen should acknowledge the request without suggesting stock is reserved or an order has been accepted unless that is explicitly true.
For businesses serving both Australia and New Zealand, identify the relevant selling entity, currency, destination and fulfilment expectations early. Do not infer those solely from an email address or the currency displayed on a public product page.
Make ownership and quote status visible
Each request needs an accountable owner and a visible next action. A queue called ‘new quotes’ is useful only if someone reviews it, assigns requests and follows up on overdue work. Decide who covers the queue when an account manager is unavailable.
Use a small set of understandable states, such as received, information required, under review, offered, accepted, declined and expired. These are a proposed business model, not a claim about the exact labels provided by every platform. Map the chosen software’s states to the process your staff and customers understand.
Keep discussions attached to the relevant quote version. If a salesperson changes quantities or delivery terms after a phone call, record the change before sending the next offer. The buyer should be able to see which version they are reviewing and what is still awaiting a response.
Agree how abandoned requests will be handled. A reminder can help, but repeatedly emailing a customer will not fix an unclear offer, unsuitable products or a freight charge that remains unresolved.
Control price changes and commercial exceptions
Define which discounts a salesperson may offer independently and which need further approval. Include freight concessions and special fulfilment arrangements in that decision; the apparent product margin may not reflect the full cost of supplying the order.
The buyer-facing offer should make the scope clear: products, quantities, currency, price basis, freight assumptions, payment conditions and the period for which the offer applies. Establish what happens when a buyer changes the quantity or destination after receiving the offer.
Retain the accepted version rather than relying on the latest catalogue price to recreate it later. The integration and checkout must know when an agreed quote price is preserved and when a change triggers review. Give staff a controlled way to correct mistakes instead of encouraging undocumented overrides.
A quote’s validity period is also separate from stock reservation. Tell buyers how availability will be confirmed, and define whether any reservation exists, which system owns it and when it expires. Do not promise allocation merely because a quote remains open.
Choose platform capabilities against the workflow
Compare the complete buying journey, including staff administration and ERP handoff. A feature named ‘quotes’ may refer to a simple request form, a seller-created draft order, or a negotiated exchange with version history. Those capabilities solve different problems.
Adobe Commerce negotiable quotes
Adobe’s negotiable quote documentation describes a buyer-and-seller workflow for adjusting items, quantities and discounts before checkout. It requires the Adobe Commerce B2B extension and the relevant company-account and quote configuration. This is a useful starting point where negotiated ordering is central to the business; validate the deployed product and configuration before assuming availability.
Shopify draft-order workflows
Shopify documents B2B draft orders for staff-assisted sales, including company-location settings, custom prices and pricing locks. Its broader draft-order and invoice tools can provide checkout links for customers. Assess any additional application or development needed for buyer-initiated requests, negotiation history and your approval rules; do not treat a staff-created draft as proof of a complete self-service quoting journey.
Use the same scenarios for both options
Ask each implementation partner to demonstrate the same request, revision, approval, acceptance and ERP transfer. Include a changed delivery address and an expired offer. Our Adobe Commerce and Shopify Plus B2B comparison provides broader context, but the quoting decision should follow the workflow your team needs.
Connect accepted quotes to the ERP without losing their meaning
First decide where the authoritative quote lives. The commerce platform, CRM or ERP may own it, depending on the operating model. Avoid letting several systems independently issue competing versions of the same commercial offer.
Map the accepted quote ID and version to the resulting sales order. Preserve customer and company references, products, units, quantities, agreed prices, currency, delivery instructions and any purchase-order reference. Define which conditions need validation again before the order can proceed.
Make acceptance and transfer separate observable steps. A buyer’s acceptance should not disappear because the ERP is temporarily unavailable. Staff need to see pending transfers, rejections and the final ERP reference. Repeated messages must not create a second order for the same accepted operation.
If a salesperson enters an order manually during an outage, record that against the original quote so automated recovery can reconcile the intervention. Our ERP integration failure and recovery guide explains the controls behind safe replay and reconciliation.
Protect the customer experience at acceptance
Test the point at which the buyer commits. Can the correct person open the offer, see the agreed amount and complete the required payment or account-based checkout? What happens if another person from the company follows the link? Account permissions should support the intended buying process.
Explain any condition that remains unresolved before the final action. If freight still requires confirmation or the quote depends on technical review, the interface should not imply an unconditional, fulfilment-ready order. Make the distinction visible to the customer and the operations team.
Keep the accepted offer accessible through the account where the implementation supports it. Give the buyer a clear reference when they call sales, and make it possible for staff to find the same record without rebuilding the history from personal inboxes.
Launch with a narrow set of real buying scenarios
Begin with one product group or customer cohort whose quoting requirements are understood. Document who owns requests, the information required, discount authority, expiry behaviour and the ERP handoff before opening the workflow more widely.
Use representative scenarios for review: a straightforward request, a revised quantity, a rejected discount, an expired offer, an unauthorised buyer, changed stock availability and a failed ERP transfer. Check both the customer journey and the work staff must perform to resolve each situation.
Train account managers on when to direct a buyer online and when to retain a conversation. Online quoting should preserve useful sales involvement while removing avoidable re-entry. If you are also deciding how the channel fits your website, see our guide to extending an existing site versus building a separate B2B portal.
Measure whether the process improves commercial work
Record a baseline before launch. Useful measures include time to first meaningful response, time to issue an offer, acceptance rate, manual handling time and accepted quotes awaiting ERP transfer. Separate completed responses from automated acknowledgements.
Review results by request type and customer cohort. A lower overall acceptance rate may reflect more early-stage enquiries, rather than a worse buying experience. Compare margin and handling effort alongside order value, and account for changes in product mix, availability and sales activity.
Do not claim revenue improvement from installing a quote feature alone. The evidence should show whether buyers obtain useful answers faster, staff spend less time rebuilding orders, and accepted agreements reach fulfilment accurately.
If your team is managing B2B quotes through disconnected emails and spreadsheets, talk to OSE about mapping the quote-to-order workflow. Bring a few representative requests and the systems involved so the discussion starts with the decisions and handoffs that need to work.
Frequently asked questions
Does every B2B online store need a request-a-quote feature?
No. Direct ordering may work well for repeat purchases with agreed products, prices and fulfilment rules. Quoting is useful when the order requires negotiation or review. Identify the scenarios that need intervention before adding another step to every customer’s buying journey.
Is a quote the same as customer-specific pricing?
No. Customer-specific pricing usually describes an ongoing account arrangement. A quote covers a particular proposed purchase and its conditions. Define how quoted prices relate to catalogue prices, and what changes require the offer to be reviewed again.
Can Shopify support negotiated B2B orders?
Shopify provides draft-order capabilities that can support staff-assisted negotiated sales. A complete buyer-facing quote process may require additional configuration, applications or development. Validate request capture, revisions, pricing behaviour, permissions and ERP transfer against your required workflow and current plan.
Does an accepted quote automatically reserve stock?
Do not assume so. Reservation depends on the implementation and the business rules. Define which system reserves stock, the event that creates the reservation and its expiry. Show buyers whether availability is confirmed or still subject to review.
Should quotes be created in the ERP or the commerce platform?
Choose one authoritative quote record based on your sales process, pricing rules and operational systems. The other systems can support the journey, but accepted versions and resulting orders need clear references. Avoid independent edits that leave customers and staff working from different offers.