In my line of work, we submit formal proposals for very expensive industrial equipment. Even a fast bid might cost a few thousand dollars to generate.
This is 'part of doing business' because we understand no one buys a multi-million dollar piece of equipment without due consideration. At least not usually.
That said, we also have 'tire kickers' - companies who you come to realize have asked for bids for 5, 10, 15 years and never bought anything.
There's a sort of natural process of selection when it comes to this sort of situation. Their requests tend to get shuffled to the bottom of the heap. They might not ever get a bid at all if things are busy. Their prices tend to be not carefully scrubbed.
In those cases, I simply remind the less experienced people I work with that the term 'customer' is used for people who buy things, or at least might.
