A price list is a contract with your own sales team
Most price lists are written for the customer and used by the sales team, which is the wrong way round. The customer reads one line and a total. The salesperson reads the whole document under pressure, on a phone, while a buyer asks whether the price includes delivery and whether it holds until the end of the quarter. Whatever the document does not answer at that moment gets improvised, and an improvised answer becomes the price the customer believes they were quoted.
That is why a trade price list should be treated as an internal contract. It commits the people who quote from it to a way of quoting, and it protects them from having to invent terms. A list that leaves gaps does not stay flexible; it produces a different answer from every person who reads it, and the differences are discovered later in a disputed invoice.
A single price list is read by three audiences, and each needs something different from it. The counter or inside sales team needs to find a model quickly and know what surrounds the number. The field representative needs to know what can and cannot be conceded without a referral. The customer’s buyer needs to compare two offers and understand what is being compared.
A document organised only by model code serves the first reader and frustrates the other two, because the terms are in a footnote that nobody reads. A document organised only by terms serves the third reader and slows the first to a crawl. The layout that works answers both: a model section that is fast to search, and a terms section that is short enough to be read once and remembered.
The four groups every line has to satisfy
The diagram below is the structure we suggest to buyers assembling a trade list, and it is deliberately drawn as four groups rather than as a long form. Each group answers a different question, and a list that is missing one of them will be completed verbally in front of a customer.
Read as a set, the four groups answer the four questions that arrive in the first minute of a customer conversation. The model group identifies exactly what is being bought, so that two lists can be compared line by line rather than by description. The terms group surrounds the number with the conditions that change it: the delivery basis, the currency, the payment route, the minimum, the lead time and the warranty. The validity group says how long the number holds and what reopens it. The exclusions group says what the number never included, which is the group most often missing and the one that causes the most arguments after the order.
The model group: identify the line, not the family
A price list line should carry the printed model code, because that is the only identifier that survives contact with a factory, a packing list and a customs document. Family names are useful for navigation and useless for ordering. Two models in the same family can differ in mounting, in trap arrangement and in the finishes they are produced in, and a price attached to the family is a price that will be corrected at the order stage.
Alongside the code, three attributes do most of the work: the mounting, because a wall-hung pan and a floor-standing pan are different installations; the finish, because a colour or matt finish is a different production run and carries a per-model minimum of 30 pieces; and the packing unit, because a buyer pricing a project needs to know what one order line actually delivers. Where a model is supplied with a seat and cover, say so on the line rather than in a footnote.
The terms group: the conditions that change the number
A price without terms is a number that will be renegotiated. The terms group is where a trade list earns its name, and it is short: the delivery basis, the currency, the payment route, the minimum order, the production lead time, and the warranty position.
Each of those is a decision, not a description. The delivery basis determines who pays for the movement of the goods and where risk passes, so a list that omits it invites a customer to assume the most favourable reading. The currency should be a code rather than a symbol. The payment route matters because TT and LC impose different documentary work and different bank charges. The minimum should distinguish between white and a colour or matt finish, because the two behave differently. The lead time should be stated against a defined starting point — production of 30–40 days from approval is a different promise from 30–40 days from order. And the warranty should say what it covers and for how long: in our case, the ceramic body, for the life of the installation.
The validity group and the exclusions group
Validity is the group that saves the most arguments for the least work. A list should carry an issue date, a version, an expiry, and a sentence on what reopens a quoted line — a change of finish, a change of quantity, a change of destination, or a movement in the currency. Without that sentence, every quotation issued from the list is open to the reading that it holds indefinitely, and the sales team has no basis for saying otherwise.
Exclusions do the same job from the other side. A trade price list should state plainly what the price does not include: freight and insurance where the basis is not delivered, duty and clearance at destination, terminal handling, installation and commissioning, and any accessory that the factory does not supply. Naming an exclusion is not an invitation to negotiate it; it is the sentence that stops the customer discovering it on an invoice.
What to leave out
A trade list is weakened by what it includes as much as by what it omits. Four things belong somewhere else:
- Discount ladders and per-customer arrangements. A list that shows a ladder tells every customer where the bottom is, and it turns a negotiation into a request for a rung.
- Provisional or indicative prices mixed in with firm ones. A line that is not firm should be marked as requiring a quotation, not given a number with a caveat in small print.
- Competitor comparisons. They date the document immediately and they invite a comparison the list cannot control.
- Verbal concessions printed as terms. Anything conceded in a meeting and added to the list becomes the new baseline for every customer who reads the list.
There is a practical reason for each exclusion, and it is the same reason in all four cases: a price list is read by people who were not in the conversation that produced it, so anything that depends on context will be misapplied.
Keeping the list alive
A price list is a living document, and the version number is its most important single field. Every issue should carry a version and a date, every change should be recorded in a short revision log at the back, and the superseded version should be withdrawn rather than left in circulation. The revision log matters more than it looks: when a customer produces a list from an earlier quarter, the log is what settles which price applied.
Two habits keep a list current without rewriting it. The first is to review it on a fixed cycle rather than when a problem appears, so that revision is routine and not a signal of bad news. The second is to route every change through one person, so that the version in circulation is the version everyone is quoting from. A list maintained by three people independently is three lists.
What we can supply for a trade price list
We do not issue a price list for a buyer’s market, because the price a buyer should set depends on its own channel, its own costs and its own customers. What we supply is the input: the model codes and their attributes, the terms that sit around every price, and the documents that let a buyer quote with confidence.
The fixed points are these. MOQ is 0 on white vitreous china. Samples are free. A colour or matt finish carries a per-model minimum of 30 pieces. Production runs 30–40 days from approval. Payment is TT or LC. The ceramic body carries a lifetime warranty. The range is 89 vitreous china models across two-piece, one-piece, wall-hung, back-to-wall, smart, bidet and accessible types, made at Chaozhou in Guangdong in a 51,000 m² plant with 285 people and its own tunnel kiln, where casting, glazing, firing and QC sit in the same factory. Certificate documents on request.
Those are the lines a buyer can put into its own list without rewriting them, and they are the lines that decide whether a quoted price survives contact with the order.
Frequently asked questions
What has to be in a trade price list besides prices?
Model identification, the terms that surround the number, the validity of the document and the exclusions. Without those four groups the list is a set of figures that every reader completes differently, and the differences surface in disputed invoices rather than in conversations.
Should the list show model codes or product names?
Model codes, because they are the identifier that survives the factory, the packing list and the customs entry. Names are useful for navigation only. Two models in the same family can differ in mounting and finishes, so a price attached to a name is a price that will be corrected later.
Why include an expiry date?
Because a list without one is read as holding indefinitely, and the sales team has no basis for saying otherwise. An expiry, a version and a sentence on what reopens a line give the team a defensible answer instead of an improvised one.
Should discount tiers appear in the document?
No. A visible ladder tells every customer where the bottom is and converts a negotiation into a request for a rung. Customer-specific arrangements belong in the customer’s file, not in the document that everyone quotes from.
How should exclusions be worded?
Plainly and specifically: freight and insurance where the basis is not delivered, duty and clearance, terminal handling, installation, and accessories not supplied by the factory. Naming an exclusion is what prevents the customer meeting it for the first time on an invoice.
How often should a trade list be revised?
On a fixed cycle rather than in response to a problem, so that revision is routine rather than a signal. Every issue should carry a version and a date, and superseded copies should be withdrawn so that only one document is in circulation.
Related on this site
Documents and certificates
Related reading
- What a sanitaryware quotation should itemise
- Comparing quotes from three suppliers
- Delisting a Model Without Losing the Buyer