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Sales & Retail vocabulary · Targets, Metrics & Commission

Quota

Meaning in sales & retail, with examples

/ˈkwoʊtə/nounCore term

In sales & retail, quota means: A fixed sales target given to a salesperson or team for a period, often used to calculate commission and judge performance.

In Turkish: satış kotası, kota

How it is used

Common in B2B and software sales, especially in US companies. You carry, hit, make or miss quota; people often drop the article and say “I hit quota.” Percent of quota (for example 110%) shows how well someone performed.

Example sentences

  1. Only six of the ten reps hit quota last quarter.

  2. My annual quota is 800,000 dollars in new business.

Common collocations

  • hit quota
  • miss quota
  • carry a quota
  • quota attainment
  • annual quota
  • sales targetThe amount of sales, in money or units, that a person, team or store is expected to reach in a given period.
  • commissionMoney paid to a salesperson based on the sales they make, usually a percentage of the value of each sale or of total revenue.
  • on-target earningsThe total pay a salesperson can expect in a year if they reach 100 percent of their target, made up of base salary plus commission or bonus.
  • hit a targetTo reach the sales amount or result that you were expected to achieve in a given period.
  • KPIKey performance indicator: a number that shows how well a person, team or store is doing against an important goal, such as daily sales or conversion rate.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Targets, Metrics & Commission

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