An opportunity is a qualified prospect with a defined potential deal, usually carrying an estimated value and an expected close date, that is actively moving through your sales pipeline. It sits a step past a raw lead: someone has confirmed there is real intent, a budget, and a decision to be made. In quoting workflows, an opportunity often maps to one or more quotes issued to a single buyer.
How it works
An opportunity typically has a few core fields: the account or contact, an estimated deal value, a stage (for example, qualifying, quoting, negotiation, won, or lost), and an expected close date. As the deal progresses, you update the stage and refine the value. When you send a quote, the quote becomes the concrete artifact attached to that opportunity, and its status (viewed, accepted, paid) tells you where the deal actually stands.
Why it matters
Opportunities are how you forecast. Summing estimated values across open opportunities, weighted by stage or win probability, gives you a pipeline number to plan against. Tracking them also stops deals from stalling silently, because every open opportunity has an owner and a next step.
In B2B quoting on Shopify
Standard Shopify is built around orders that already happened, not deals in progress. B2B selling adds a gap between interest and purchase where negotiation and quoting happen. An opportunity is the record that lives in that gap. Tools that treat quoting as a CRM rather than a one-off form let you tie a quote back to an opportunity, so a request for a quote, the draft order behind it, and the buyer’s response all sit under one deal. See related terms in the B2B quoting glossary, or review plans if you are comparing tools.
Example
A wholesale buyer requests pricing on 400 units. You create an opportunity valued at 12,000 USD with a close date three weeks out, send a quote, and move the stage to negotiation once they reply.