Quote carts are a request-for-quote (RFQ) e-commerce feature that let customers request customized pricing instead of fixed checkout prices, particularly valuable for B2B industries like wholesale, manufacturing, and construction where bulk purchases and negotiated pricing are standard.
By enabling price negotiation, personalized offers, and transparent cost breakdowns, quote carts address the leading cause of cart abandonment (48% due to high costs) while giving businesses a competitive edge over fixed-price competitors.
According to a 2025 Baymard analysis into 49 e-commerce cart abandonment studies, there was an average of 70.19% of customers that abandon their carts with the most common reason (48%) being because of too much cost. Static pricing can leave businesses in bulk-purchasing industries yearning for more price negotiation and flexible payment options—but quote carts offer a way to transform the customer experience by combining the benefits of requesting a quote with the familiarity of online shopping with a traditional e-commerce cart.
What is a Quote Cart?
Quote carts are a request-for-quote (RFQ) e-commerce feature that allows a customer to ask for a customized price quote based on their selection of items and products as opposed to simply checking out with a fixed price.
A Solution to the Pain Points of a Fixed Price Structure
Having this kind of online quoting system allows your business to then review the customer’s request and decide on discounts, custom pricing, or offering a tiered rate, and provide the customer with a personalized price offer for acceptance, rejection, or further pricing negotiation. Meanwhile, businesses that don’t utilize a robust cart-to-quote system may experience problems such as:
- Inefficient quote processes that force your sales team to waste time, manually calculate custom prices, and potentially lose sales opportunities because they’re not spending time performing customer outreach.
- Slow sales cycles lead to pricing delays and customers looking elsewhere as they either lose interest in waiting or they find an attractive offer from a competitor.
- Customer hesitancy over factors such as price, shipping, and taxes.
- Having your fixed prices get outcompeted by businesses that employ negotiable pricing.
- Miscommunication and process inefficiencies due to the use of email-based quoting.
This additional level of customer engagement can also lend you a competitive edge against other businesses that rely solely on fixed pricing, giving you the ability to beat their pricing or create more attractive offers such as for bulk purchases.
Examples of Where You’ve Likely Seen a Quote Cart
- B2B Marketplaces
- Wholesale Seller Sites
- Construction-related Contractor Websites
- Insurance companies
- Manufacturer Websites That Sell Directly
What Industries and Businesses Benefit from Quote Carts?
Quote carts are used in many B2B industries such as manufacturing companies, the wholesale industry, SaaS and IT services, automotive and industrial equipment companies, real estate construction and other construction businesses, and custom product companies like those in printing. These industries use quote carts because of the bulk purchases, custom pricing, and negotiated contracts that are often done.
Here’s a closer look at these industries and where quote carts come into play for them or their customers:
Quote carts do more than enable companies to better price their customizable goods and orders, they also improve the customer’s experience when buying those items.
How Do Quote Carts Change Customer Experience?
Quote carts enhance customer experience by transforming pricing uncertainty into personalized negotiations, reducing cart abandonment, facilitate relationship establishment and development with one-on-one care, and enabling businesses to proactively reach customers with tailored recommendations.
When pricing is not standardized such as when buying items in bulk, customized products, or products in industries where pricing is highly variable, quote carts turn uncertainty into an opportunity for a customer to get an attractive price through negotiation, discounts, or alternative pricing options. Quote carts quickly become a key to retaining customers, reducing hesitation, minimizing cart abandonment, and completing the customer journey to the end-stage of the sales funnel.
Why Do Customers Abandon Their Online Purchases?
Customers may abandon their carts for various reasons such as pricing, taxes, shipping fees, or the lack of discounts. In contrast, quote carts offer a chance for customers to receive a better negotiated price and gain clarity on factors such as taxes and shipping fees to better understand what they will be paying.
Reaching Out to Customers
Quote carts aren’t just for when customers come to a business—they can be used as a way for businesses to reach out to customers with offered quotes in the form of a personalized recommendation or an exclusive deal based on what the business thinks a customer may like. This can also be used as a follow-up sales strategy to close more deals or maintain customer relationships.
Quote Cart vs. Traditional Shopping Carts
The main difference between quote carts and traditional shopping carts is the level of pricing flexibility and customer interaction they offer during the checkout process.
Which Is Right For You?
If you’re still wondering if quote carts are worth it for your business, try answering the following checklist. You may find that a quote cart is exactly what you’re looking for, or maybe it’s a traditional virtual basket, or both even.
Consider A Quote Cart If You Answer Yes To These Questions:
- Do my customers ask about potential discounts and/or desire to negotiate prices?
- Am I seeing a lot of cart abandonment?
- Does my business deal in a lot of complex or bulk orders?
- Do I sell products with variable components that can change the pricing?
- Does my business sell high-ticket items where my customers may benefit from more flexible payment options?
Consider A Traditional Cart If You Answer Yes To These Questions:
- Do I have customers who like fixed prices?
- Do my customers like having their self-checkout experience?
- Do I sell products that have preset prices for specific amounts (2, 5, 10, etc)?
- Does my business only offer predetermined discounts during certain periods of times (example: holiday sales, customer birthdays, etc)?
Should you find yourself saying yes to any of the Quote Cart questions, you may want to consider either switching to a Quote Cart or including it as a part of your checkout process for specific types of items. Providing your customers with the right checkout experience not only helps prevent cart abandonment, but it also helps you build better relationships with your customers.
Getting Quote Carts to Work for You
Getting quote carts to work for your business will require proper integration with your backend systems, planning behind how your business will process and respond to quote requests, and designing your customer portal. Tapping into our expertise ensures that your quote cart is set up optimally in your e-commerce system. Meanwhile, understanding how quote carts work in a business will be key to executing your quote cart strategy as a part of your greater sales strategy.