A draft order is an order a merchant creates manually inside the Shopify admin instead of one a customer places at checkout. You add products, set quantities, apply custom prices or discounts, choose shipping, and either collect payment yourself or send an invoice link the buyer pays through Shopify’s native checkout. Once paid or marked as paid, the draft converts into a regular order that flows through fulfillment, inventory, and reporting like any other.
How it works
From Orders, you open Drafts and build the cart line by line. You can attach an existing customer or create a new one, override line item prices, add custom (non-catalog) items, apply per-order discounts, and set tax and shipping. Shopify generates an invoice URL you can email or copy. When the buyer pays, inventory is committed and the order becomes final.
Why it matters for B2B
Draft orders are Shopify’s built-in mechanism for deals that do not fit standard storefront pricing: negotiated rates, bulk quantities, custom SKUs, or net terms. Because payment runs through real Shopify checkout, you keep one system of record instead of reconciling an outside invoicing tool. That makes them the natural foundation for quoting workflows, where a sales conversation needs to end in a payable, catalog-accurate order.
Example
A wholesale buyer asks for 500 units at a 15 percent discount. You build a draft order, override the price, and send the invoice. The buyer opens the link, confirms, and pays by card or the payment methods you allow. Inventory and revenue land in Shopify automatically.
ShopQuotes builds its Live Quotes on top of real draft orders, so an accepted quote is already a checkout-ready Shopify order rather than a PDF you have to re-enter. See pricing for plan details.