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. Quote carts are ideal for B2B sales, bulk orders, and complex products requiring negotiation and customized pricing, while traditional carts suit fixed-price retail items with immediate self-checkout—and many businesses benefit from implementing both to serve different customer types and purchasing preferences.
What is a Traditional Shopping Cart?
Traditional shopping carts, also known as virtual baskets, in e-commerce are software solutions that allow customers to select items, build a list, and manage those items before making a purchase—just like an in-store experience. When a customer moves to make their purchase, the virtual shopping cart is designed to accept a variety of payment methods or even coupon codes.
Hosted Shopping Carts (Software as a Service – SaaS)
A hosted shopping cart is a SaaS solution in which a third-party provider manages all aspects of the shopping cart (hosting, security, updates, and maintenance) for a reoccurring subscription fee.
Examples include:
- Wix eCommerce
- Shopify
- BigCommerce
- Squarespace
Self-Hosted Shopping Carts (Licensed or On-Premise)
Self-hosted shopping carts are e-commerce software solutions that are either purchased and licensed or open-source software that gets installed on their own web servers, giving them full control over customization, data, and functionality but require management of the installation, security, maintenance, and infrastructure.
Examples include:
- Adobe Commerce (Magento)
- CS-Cart
- Oracle Commerce
- SAP Commerce Cloud (SAP Hybris)
- HCL Commerce (IBM WebSphere Commerce)
- OroCommerce
Headless Commerce Carts (API Driven)
Headless Commerce Carts are API-driven e-commerce systems where the backend commerce engine responsible for handling inventory, pricing, cart, and checkout is decoupled from the frontend presentation layer, communicating through APIs to enable flexible, customized styling and user experiences across multiple touchpoints like websites, mobile apps, and other digital interfaces.
Examples include:
- Commercetools
- Elastic Path
- Commerce Layer
- Spryker
- Swell
- Fabric
- VTEX
Traditional Carts at a Glance
- Software solutions that replicate physical shopping carts
- Support multiple payment methods and promotional features
- Available in three distinct deployment models depending on need
When to Consider Traditional E-Commerce Shopping Carts
- Your customers are looking to do their own self-checkout of individual or small batches of items.
- Your business does not offer custom orders.
- Your business sells in preset amounts for any kind of bulk order.
When Traditional Carts are Not for You
- You sell a lot of complex products with variable pricing.
- Your customers make a lot of bulk purchases but in varying amounts.
- You’re trying to have more engagement with your customers.
What Is A Quote Cart?
Quote carts are e-commerce features 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.
They are often used by:
- B2B Wholesalers & Distributors
- Bulk Material Supplies
- Manufacturers of Customizable or Configurable Products
- Service-Based Business with Variable Scopes
- Businesses selling High-Value or Complex Items
- Businesses That Offer Products with Fluctuating Prices
Quote Carts at a Glance
- E-commerce features for customized pricing requests
- Designed for negotiation and transparency
- Used by specific business types
When to Consider a Quote Cart Solution
- Your business handles a lot of custom, bulk, or complex orders
- Your business sells products that have variable components that often alter the pricing
- You’re selling high-ticket items and wish to offer flexible payment options to your customers
- Your customers want to negotiate for prices better than fixed-price competitors
- You wish to develop better relationships with your customers and attract repeat purchases
When Quote Carts Are Not For You
- Your customers are looking for an immediate purchase of low value items
- You don’t sell custom items or in bulk
- The products you sell are expected to be sold at fixed prices
What Are the Key Differences Between Quote Carts and 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.
There are other key differences that separate the two types of carts that you should know about before deciding on one.
Quote Cart Features
Custom Pricing Model
Quote Carts offer custom pricing based on order size, complexity, or through negotiation.
Personalized Customer Interaction
Quote carts enable personalized communication with a sales rep.
Individual Pricing
Quote carts allow for negotiations and custom order adjustments before final checkout.
Order Customization
Quote carts offer tailored prices with personalized discounts and deals for bulk or custom purchases.
Payment Terms
Quote carts allow for the ability to offer flexible terms of payment such as invoicing, deferred payments, installment payments, and partial upfront payments.
Customer Relationships
Quote carts provide the opportunity for relationship-based pricing and for direct interaction between the sales team and the customer.
Traditional Cart Features
Fixed Pricing Model
Traditional shopping carts offer fixed prices that are displayed upfront, usually alongside their associated items.
Self-Service
Traditional shopping carts are more built for customer self-service.
Immediate Purchase
Traditional shopping carts allow for immediate purchase after payment of a predetermined price.
Preconfigured Options
Traditional shopping carts may offer limited, preconfigured options for their products.
Pre-determined Discounts
Traditional shopping carts offer pre-set discounts or coupon codes.
Fixed Payment Schedule
Traditional shopping carts typically require immediate payment.
Pricing Transparency
Transitional shopping carts offer upfront and visible prices for all customers.
With these key differences in mind, it also becomes easier to know when you should be using a traditional shopping cart or when you should be using a quote cart. But what if you think that you’ll need both?
Why Would Businesses Need Both Quote Carts and Regular E-Commerce Carts?
Businesses need both carts when they serve a mix of B2C customers who want instant purchases at fixed prices and B2B customers who require custom quotes for bulk orders or negotiated pricing, allowing them to maximize sales opportunities without forcing either customer type into an unsuitable purchasing process.
The Benefits of Using Both Carts
Businesses that use both carts can serve both B2C and B2B customers, providing the proper purchasing experience for either. This in turn helps ensure customer preferences are met and that your customers are satisfied.
By serving both types of customers, a business can increase their sales opportunities and improve their sales efficiency by offering automated fixed-price sales for the customers that prefer that.
Can Both Carts Be Shown Together?
It is possible to have your quote cart and traditional shopping cart on the same page for your customer to view all of their quoted and direct-purchase items in one place, keeping the customer’s experience smooth so that they can carry out their immediate purchases while you receive their quote request. You may find some e-commerce platform providers that offer this combined feature or you can have a custom software developer like The Provato Group create the combined cart for you.
Along with understanding the benefits of using both kinds of carts, knowing some of the ways that they’re used in different industries can prepare you ahead of time for your own business.
How Do Quote Carts and Traditional Shopping Carts Compare in Different Industries?
Each industry has a different way of using quote carts and traditional shopping carts—with the following use cases and examples, you’ll have a better idea of how to use these carts for your specific business and industry, and if you want to use one or the other or perhaps both.
Is Your Business Ready to Revolutionize Sales with Quote Carts?
Whether your business works in one of the industries mentioned above, sells a lot of complex orders, or you’re an e-commerce company that sells a lot of individual items but have customers inquiring about bulk orders, having a quote cart or both a cart-to-quote system and a traditional cart can revolutionize your sales.
Your quote cart software can be found either pre-made by a provider, or you can have a custom cart-to-quote solution created by a custom application developer like The Provato Group so that you can begin building a more dedicated customer base and make complex or bulk purchases more attractive.