What must a commercial offer contain?
A complete B2B commercial offer is not just a price. The customer must read from it everything needed for a purchase decision, without another email. Essential elements:
- Items with parameters — unambiguous name and parameters (e.g. DN/PN, material, standard) so there’s no doubt what exactly is bought.
- Quantity, unit and unit price — plus line value and totals (net, VAT, gross).
- Discount — a visible customer-group discount or the post-discount price.
- Availability — “in stock”, “not available”, “estimated” — and lead time for to-order items.
- Delivery method — pickup or transport, and any cost.
- Offer validity — e.g. “valid 14 days” (especially important with volatile prices).
- Formal data — seller, VAT ID, contact person, case number/reference.
Why are availability and lead time so important?
In B2B the customer rarely buys “anything for now” — more often they have their own schedule (construction, assembly, production). An offer without availability and lead time forces a phone call, and every call is a delay and a risk that they buy elsewhere in the meantime.
That’s why it’s worth distinguishing item statuses: “in stock” (from warehouse), “not available” (must be ordered), “estimated” (price/date to be confirmed). For to-order items add a realistic date — better to state “14 working days” than leave an empty field the customer reads as “unknown”.
How to show price and discount to build trust?
The best offers show the list price, the discount and the post-discount price — the customer sees they got their group’s terms, not a random number. This builds trust and cuts the “is this your best price” negotiation.
It’s important the discount is calculated consistently: by customer-group rules and specificity (a name discount beats a category discount, which beats a manufacturer discount). If the same item has a different discount on two offers for the same customer, you lose credibility. Calculating prices in the system rather than by hand removes this problem.
Does a PDF offer still make sense?
Yes — a PDF is still the standard the customer can print, pass to procurement and attach to an order. The key is readability: a header with data, a table of items with parameters and prices, a summary, terms and validity.
OferIQ generates a ready draft offer with matched items and calculated prices, and the rep approves or edits it and sends it — with a case number (ref_code) tying the whole cycle together, from request to order. As a result every offer has the full set of elements from this list, no matter who made it. See the full product picture (/en/product/) or the spreadsheet comparison (/en/compare/oferiq-vs-excel/).