Why does one have to ask for a quote to get a price for some things? When ordering items from some companies, they don't have their prices listed. One rather has to ask for a quote to get a price, having to provide information to do so. Why is this? Why do they not just show a price? Is the only point to get customer information or are there other reasons? This is with the product model number and quantity already known.
I believe that prices are typically available for well-defined products that dont vary between customers (e.g. groceries, cars, etc.). Whereas some products are customer specific (more so on the business to business side) and depend on quantity and quality simultaneously. I think of the example of a landscaping job (a service) that would depend on how much time the job would take (labour inputs) as well as the type of machinery (capital inputs) that would be needed to get the job done. Another example would be buying paper for an office, the cost would depend on how much you are buying and what quality and every companies needs would be entirely different.