Price list: how to build one a customer can order from without calling

A price list is the plainest document a company publishes and the one buyers use most. Its job is to let a customer put a correct order together without a phone call: the right order code, the right price for the quantity, the pack they will actually receive, and when it will ship. Every gap in that information becomes a question to your sales desk, and every ambiguity becomes a dispute at invoice time. This guide covers what belongs on each line, how to present prices and terms, and how to keep a list correct once it is out in the world.

What every line needs

• The order code: the exact code the customer types on the purchase order, one per line, never a series name that covers several
• A description that distinguishes the line from its neighbours: the product and the option, “Radar level transmitter, 30 m, flanged”
• The list price, with its currency symbol on every line, not just in the heading
• The pack quantity: the minimum the line ships in, so a customer ordering three of a ten-pack knows what arrives
• Lead time: “Stock” or weeks from order, so the buyer can plan before they commit
• A category column or grouping, so the list is browsable as well as searchable

Quantity pricing and price breaks

If you offer quantity pricing, show it as a column beside the list price, headed “Qty 10+”, rather than a footnote percentage the customer has to calculate. Then state the breaks once in a small table: what quantity earns what discount, and what the discount applies to (one order code on one order is the usual rule; a mixed order of ten different codes is not ten of anything). Quantities beyond the last break are quoted; say so, and say who quotes them.

The terms that belong on the list

A price means nothing without the basis it is quoted on. State it in the introduction and in a terms block at the end: the currency, the delivery term (ex works, FOB destination; the Incoterms rules give the buyer a definition to rely on), whether tax and freight are included, the payment terms, the minimum order, the returns policy and the validity period. Under the Uniform Commercial Code an order with an open price term can still be a contract, which is one reason the basis and terms a list states should be the ones you intend to stand behind.

Layout: one table, or many?

The temptation is a heading and a table per category. It reads well on screen and badly on paper, because each table moves to a new page when it will not fit whole, and a forty-line list becomes six pages with a third of each blank. One continuous table with a category column paginates cleanly, keeps the column headings on every page, and lets the customer find a code by scanning one column. Use landscape for a list with quantity pricing and portrait for a counter copy or a binder: the same data, two page shapes. The order codes themselves should follow the logic your ordering guide explains, so a customer can build a code they do not see listed.

Keeping a price list correct

A price list is wrong the day after a price changes, and a customer holding last year’s list is holding a quote. Three habits keep that manageable: an effective date range on the first page, a validity clause in the terms (“prices subject to change with 30 days’ notice; quotes hold for 60 days”), and a list that is generated from the same product data as the catalog rather than retyped. When the price lives in one place, the catalog, the price list and the quote all say the same number, and reissuing the list is a regeneration rather than a proofreading job.