Magento Negotiable Quote Enhancer
Negotiable deals are standard in the eCommerce world and in many countries, they even become a norm where merchants get upset if the customer does not offer the merchant the negotiating experience when shopping at the store.
Magento platform has implemented a very basic flow allowing the customer to request a quote for desired products.
- 1 New Features & Use Cases
- 1.1 A sales representative is able to create a quote in the Magento back-office
- 1.2 B2B and B2C Negotiable Quotes
- 1.3 Quick approval
- 1.4 Customer-friendly, quote number
- 1.5 Quote Versioning
- 1.6 Product price adjustment
- 1.7 Product comments
- 1.8 Adding Products to Quote (plus the import)
- 1.9 Quote Customer Disocount upgrades
- 1.10 Self-service: shipping address and methods
- 1.11 Other small enhancements
New Features & Use Cases
A sales representative is able to create a quote in the Magento back-office
This flow covers use cases where a merchant is accepting orders via phone and other channels and where the process requires manual touchpoints from the sales representative.
B2B and B2C Negotiable Quotes
It’s unfair to assume that negotiable quotes are only used in the B2B landscape. There are many B2C businesses where purchase prices could be negotiated (eg. car purchase, buying larger than normal quantities, buying an open box or damaged products, etc.)
PowerSync added the configuration feature to allow negotiable quotes for both B2B Customers and B2C customers.
Quick approval
Some customers are busy or lazy. We’ve seen cases where it's easier for the customer to call the sales rep back or text them and say: “The quote is good, go ahead and place the order” or the customer may just want to click a button to “approve” or “reject” the quote from the sales representative.
PowerSync implemented new email templates to:
Notify the customer when a quote is ready for them to accept or reject
Send a copy of the quote to the sales representative
Each email has a quote in a PDF format attached to the email.
PowerSync also implemented a “Convert to Order” button for the Sales Representative to be able to place the order on behalf of the customer upon their verbal approval.
Customer-friendly, quote number
Even though that a quote may have a custom name, sales representatives may not always have the time or the need to give each quote a unique name. This field is often is nice to have vs. a must-have. Instead, quotes usually have an alphanumeric number (just like an order, invoice, and a PO).
PowerSync implemented configurable quote numbers where a merchant can specify a custom prefix and a starting number. The example below will generate unique quote numbers like Q-100001 and Q-100234, etc. Each new quote will keep incrementing the ID.
Quote Versioning
We found that many merchants are struggling with the same issue. It has to do with preventing customers from accepting old versions of the quote.
What is the quote version?
Imagine you are a sales representative and you are working with a customer on a quote. You send them a quote for a water tank, oversize delivery, and installation (version 1). You then realize that you forgot to add insurance into the quote and make a change to the quote and resend the new quote to the customer (version 2 of the same quote). The customer can accidentally “accept” the wrong quote.
PowerSync solved this problem by introducing quote versioning in Magento. When a new quote version is created the old quote is automatically closed and a NEW quote is automatically created. The sales representative then can make changes to the newly created quote and send it to the customer. Quote numbers will have a numeric suffix, eg. Q-100001.0 and Q-100001.1
Quote versioning can be enabled via the configuration
Product price adjustment
Many merchants we’ve worked with don’t like to be limited to controlling the quote discounts at the whole quote level. The most common use cases are that only one or a few products on a quote are discounted vs. the whole quote. Merchants also shared with us that customers do want to see the discounted rate on the line item level vs. the whole quote.
PowerSync added a configuration setting which a merchant can enable to “hide” the discounts at the quote level and instead allow the sales representative to modify the proposed price on the product level.
Product comments
PowerSync added the “Line Comment” field to the quote to allow the sales representative to capture any customer-facing notes on the product level. This field is used to provide details like the discount summary or delivery information and so on.
Adding Products to Quote (plus the import)
All merchants PowerSync worked with disliked the “Add products by SKU” button. Many found it very unusable.
PowerSync added the configuration feature to hide the button
PowerSync also added the “Add Product” button to mimic the native Magento order flow when adding products to the order. PowerSync also added the new button “CSV Import” which allows sales representatives to import products into the quote via a CSV file. This feature is used for quotes with a large number of products.
CSV Import
Add Product (flow)
Quote Customer Disocount upgrades
Many merchants today are controlling customer discounts via Magento Customer Groups. It becomes critical for these merchants to have the ability to upgrade the overall quote discount by changing the assigned customer group on a negotiable quote.
PowerSync made the filed editable allowing the Sales Representative to change this on a quote.
Self-service: shipping address and methods
There are different types of quotes merchants put together for their customers. PowerSync built logic and flows to support all these use cases.
Quotes where the customer is purely seeking better prices for the products they would like to buy. The sales rep will put together the quote and prices for all products the customer desires AND the customer will specify the shipping address and choose the shipping method during the checkout.
Quotes where the shipping address for the customer is known. The sales rep will put together the quote and prices for all products the customer desires and prefills the shipping address where the product will be shipped. The customer will be responsible to choose the desired shipping method during the checkout.
Quotes where the shipping method is recommended by the merchant. The sales rep will put together the quote and prices for all products the customer desires, prefills the shipping address where the product will be shipped, and chooses the shipping method on behalf of the customer. The customer only has to accept and provide the payment details to place the order.
Other small enhancements
In some scenarios, merchants don’t want to give the customer the flexibility to change the data on a quote. These scenarios can include:
Removal of products from the quote
Changing the product quantity
Also, by default Magento allows customers to “delete” the quote and this process performs a hard delete which removes all the information which a merchant may want to retain if the customer does not want to keep the quote in the system.
PowerSync added configuration features to help address these use cases.