Quotes

Find out how a quote process looks like from start to end.

Very often customers want to negotiate the price regarding the products they want to buy. For such a process, it is important that an e-commerce platform supports a more sophisticated process. Requesting a quote is a common use case especially for B2B business model, but within the Emporix platform, the quotes for B2C customers are also supported.

Below you can see the general, simplified flow:

Not only the customer is able to request quotes, but also the merchant's employee or a sales manager can generate a quote on behalf of the customer. This is described step by step in the 2nd demo scenario - Employee creates quote on behalf of a customer.

Roles included:

• B2B or B2C customer

• Merchant employee who needs to accept or decline a quote request

A customer (B2B or B2C) requests a quote

This is a step-by-step description of the quoting process within the B2B Commerce Frontend and what to look for in detail.

1

Viewing and selecting products

The customer browses products by categories or use the search bar to find the product which they want to add to the cart.

2

Adding the product to cart

The customer chooses the product they want to order and adds it to cart.

The customer can change the quantity, for example to 3 before adding the product to cart.

Result: The summary screen is displayed:

Shopping cart with quote request option

3

Deciding on the quantity

Within the cart the customer can still change the quantity of the items. If they change it, the recalculation of the cart takes place.

4

Creating the quote

The customer chooses the Request quote button.

Quote request form

Result: The customer gets notification about a submitted request and the quote is already visible in their account.

To see the quote overview, the customer can go to the Quotes view and choose the quote they want to check.

Quote details page

5

Reviewing by employee

As an employee, open the Management Dashboard and go to Quotes, the quotes overview page is displayed.

• The created quote is displayed with the Awaiting status.

• The merchant employee is informed by email that a customer created a quote request. The corresponding sales representative or a customer service employee can then work on the quote request quickly.

6

Opening the quote

Check the quote details, prices and discounts. Go to the Approval tab and choose Approve quote to accept the quote. You can add a comment from a merchant perspective if needed.

Result: The quote request from customer is accepted by the merchant and the quote status changes from Creating to Open.

Quote view in Management Dashboard with open status

It is possible to work on quotes in Management Dashboard and to update them anytime needed. For details on how to work with quotes in MD, see Quotes documentation.

7

Accepting the quote by a customer

The customer goes to the Quotes view. The requested quote has the Open status as well.

The customer opens the details of the quote and can decide if they want to accept or decline the quote.

Quote details page in customer account

In case they request a change or decline the quote, they have to select a change or decline reason with an additional explanation.

In case the customer accepts the quote the status of the quote is updated within the frontend and also in the Management Dashboard.

• Frontend - customer account

  

  Accepted quote view in customer account
• Backend status - Management Dashboard

  

  Accepted quote view in Management Dashboard

Result The accepted quote creates an order within CE - the order link is visible in the details.

Order created from accepted quote

Employee creates quote on behalf of a customer

It is possible for you as an employee to create a quote on behalf of the customer in the Management Dashboard. For example, a customer calls a customer service department and asks for a specific quote. To create the quote on their behalf, you need to be logged in to the Management Dashboard as an employee and follow the steps described in the Quotes - Creating a quote guide.

Result: After you follow the steps and click the Create Quote button at the end, the quote is created with the Open status and a notification is sent to the customer by email, including the PDF with quote details. The customer can accept or decline the quote as described under Customer requests.

To learn more about API used in this use case see the Quote Service and for user guides check the Quotes and the Quote Management documentation.

Quote Approval Process

For B2B scenarios, you can enable the internal approval process for accepting quotes on the customer's side. When the quote approval flow is applied, then only authorized customers can accept open quotes. The approval flow is based on customer group assignment.

• Requester – Cannot accept quotes independently. Always needs approval. If the quote total is within the company purchasing limit, a Buyer or Admin can approve; if it exceeds the limit, only an Admin can approve.

• Buyer – Can accept quotes within the company purchasing limit. If the quote exceeds the limit, approval from an Admin is required.

• Admin – Can accept any quote without additional approval.

Prerequisites

• Make sure the customers have the right permissions level:

  • Assign customers to the correct groups (Admin, Buyer, Requester).

  • Configure company purchasing limits under Customer Management → Companies → Policies.

• Enable the quote approval process requires turning on the Enable quote approval process setting (approval.enableQuoteApprovalProcess) under Settings -> System Preferences in the Management Dashboard.

Changes may take up to 30 minutes to apply because of system caching.

Approval flow

When quote approval is enabled, the flow for accepting quotes is as follows:

1

Quote generation

The customer or employee creates a quote request.

2

Setting price by an employee

The merchant employee establishes the pricing for the quote in the Management Dashboard.

3

Quote negotiations

The customer and employee engage in iterative negotiations until the quote reaches Open status.

4

Accepting the quote by the customer

The customer opens the quote and chooses to accept it.

5

Approval verification

The Approval Service checks whether the customer is authorized to accept the quote. If the customer lacks permission (based on their customer group and the company purchasing limit), an approval request is created for a company approver.

6

Order creation

The order is created only after the customer is authorized or the approver completes the acceptance.

For more details, see Approvals.