What is a price quote?
A price quote, or simply a quote, is a commercial document that many companies and individual sellers use to inform a potential client about the price of the goods or services.
This document is sent to the customer before any sales transaction occurs. Usually, the customer requests a price quote (or, for many service businesses, the seller uses it by default) in order to estimate the price of the requested goods or services.
Because most clients often depend on the price of the goods or services before they make the final decision to purchase, it is very important that your price quote is able to influence the customer.
For that reason, you should use a professional looking price quote, such as InvoiceBerry's free price quote template.
A good price quote can also be used as a promotional tool that attempts to convince a customer to buy from the seller. Therefore, the seller has to thread that fine line between making a profit on each good or unit of service sold, and persuading the client to actually purchase.
For example, if the seller quotes too high a price, the customer will walk away. However, if the seller quotes a price that's too low, the profit will be minimized and, in some cases, even disappear.
In any price quote, it is important that you include some important information:
- your business details
- the address of your potential client
- the date, quotation number and customer ID
- the validity of the quotation
- the salesperson (who will act as the contact person)
- the PO #, ship date, delivery date, shipping method, FOB point and terms (for shipping goods)
- the quantity, description, unit price and amount
- a determination whether the goods or services are taxable
- the subtotal, total and any applicable taxes
There is a lot of information to include in a price quote, but you should always include the date that the quotation is valid for.
In this way, you will be able to provide an accurate quote based on a few important factors, whether that’s charges for shipping, mail, or other aspects whose prices may change regularly.
Additionally, it does provide a small amount of pressure to the client to act more quickly. By showing that the price quote is only valid for a certain time period, you are incentivizing the client to make a decision faster, which is good for sales.