B2B pricing is negotiated - a catalogue price is an opening position, not a number. Adobe Commerce’s negotiable quotes bring that dance online: buyers request pricing on a cart, sellers counter with adjusted prices, and the accepted quote converts directly to an order. It replaces the email-and-spreadsheet loop that surrounds most trade ordering.
The Lifecycle
A quote moves through defined states:
- Draft/Submitted: the buyer builds a cart and requests a quote instead of checking out
- In review: your sales team sees it in the admin quotes grid, with the buyer’s requested notes
- Negotiation: seller adjusts line prices (per-item or cart-level discount), adds comments, optionally attaches files (spec sheets, terms); the buyer can counter or accept
- Accepted: the buyer checks out at the negotiated prices - the quote becomes the order, prices locked
- Expired/Declined/Closed: terminal states with clear audit trail
Every exchange is logged with who said what and when - the audit trail procurement teams and your own margin reviews both need.
Seller Workflow in Admin
The admin quote view is a mini-CRM: quoted items, requested vs proposed pricing, margin visibility (with cost data), comment thread, and the ability to set an expiry date. Sales teams should live in the quotes grid: sorted by updated date, filtered to awaiting-response. Service-level discipline matters - a quote answered in two hours closes; one answered in two days goes to your competitor.
The Commercial Details That Matter
- Price locking: accepted quotes hold their prices regardless of catalogue changes - set expiries so a quote cannot be accepted months later at stale costs
- Shipping: quotes can include negotiated shipping terms; do not leave shipping unquoted on heavy goods
- Stock: a quote does not reserve stock by default - for scarce lines, align quote expiry with stock reality or oversell into your best customers
- Payment on account: quotes pair naturally with company credit - negotiated pricing plus credit terms is the full B2B package
Adoption: The Human Side
The feature fails when sales teams keep negotiating by email and keying the result into Magento afterwards. Migration plan: train sales on the quotes grid, make quote-discount visibility the only path to special pricing, and give buyers a one-screen “request quote” flow from the cart. Once the audit trail and speed advantage are felt, adoption follows - nobody misses searching their inbox for “RE: RE: pricing v4 FINAL”.
Negotiable quotes digitise the part of B2B that used to justify the sales rep’s inbox. The deal still happens between people - it just happens where your systems can see it.