Selling
Offers & Negotiation: Let Customers Make an Offer
Turn on Make an offer for chosen products, set the lowest offer you will look at and what is accepted or declined for you, answer offers with a counter-offer, and let accepted buyers check out through a private, single-use link at the agreed price.
Overview
Offers let a customer propose a price for a product instead of paying the listed one. You decide which products take offers and on what terms; everything else runs through your normal checkout.
- You choose the products. "Make an offer" appears only on products you switch it on for.
- Your rules answer for you. Set the lowest offer a customer can send, a level at which offers are accepted automatically, and a level below which they are declined automatically. Everything in between waits for you.
- Real negotiation. Accept, decline, or reply with a counter-offer and a message. The customer accepts or declines your counter from their own private link.
- A private checkout at the agreed price. An accepted offer becomes a private link for that customer only: single use, for the quantity offered, for a limited time. The price is held on the server, so it cannot be changed in the browser.
- Payments go to you. The customer pays through your own connected Stripe account, exactly like any other order. BestWebby never holds the money.
Who can use it. Offers & negotiation is included from the Scale plan up. Anyone who can see orders can read the offers inbox. Staff who can edit orders (owner, admin, manager, staff) can answer offers. The rules for each product need product editing rights, the same people who set prices. Supplier email drafts need access to your suppliers.
Step 1: Choose the products and their rules
Go to Channels → Offers → Products and click Take offers on a product. Pick a product and set:
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Show "Make an offer" | Switches the button on or off on the product page. |
| Lowest offer (% of price) | Offers below this cannot be sent. Customers see where offers start. |
| Accept automatically from (%) | Offers at or above this are accepted the moment the customer's email is confirmed. Leave empty to decide every offer yourself. |
| Decline automatically under (%) | Offers below this are declined straight away, politely. Leave empty to see every offer. |
| Reply within (hours) | An offer, or your counter-offer, lapses if it is not answered in this time. |
| Checkout link lasts (hours) | How long the agreed price is held for the customer after acceptance. |
| Units per offer | The most units one offer can cover. |
| Promo codes on top | Off by default: the agreed price is the final price. Tick it to let discount codes and automatic promotions apply as well. |
Percentages are of the product's price on the storefront where the offer is made, in that storefront's currency. A product with options (sizes, colours) takes offers per option, at that option's price. Gift cards and partner items cannot take offers.
What customers see
On the product page, Make an offer opens a short form: the amount, the quantity (when you allow more than one), their name and email, and an optional message.
- A signed-in customer's offer is sent at once (their email is already confirmed).
- A guest receives an email with a link to confirm their offer. You never see an offer until its email is confirmed.
Each customer has a private link to their offer where they can see its history, accept or decline your counter-offer, or withdraw it. When an offer is accepted they get an email with their private checkout link.
Step 2: Answer offers
Offers waiting for you are in Channels → Offers → Inbox, under Needs answer. Open one to see the offer against your price, the customer's message, the full history, and the customer's other offers with your store.
- Accept — the customer is emailed their private checkout link at the offered price.
- Counter — enter your price (between their offer and your price) and an optional message. They can accept it, which sends them the checkout link, or decline it. An offer can be countered up to three times.
- Decline — optionally with a message. You can also withdraw a counter-offer the customer has not answered.
If two people on your team answer the same offer at the same moment, only the first answer counts; the second is told the offer has already been answered.
The private checkout link
An accepted offer (or a won auction) becomes an agreed price:
- It works only for the email address it was sent to, and only on the storefront where the offer was made.
- It covers up to the number of units in the offer, at the agreed price per unit. Shipping and tax are added at checkout as usual.
- It can be used once. If the customer starts checking out, goes back and changes their address, their earlier unfinished checkout is released automatically, so they are never locked out. If two checkouts try to use one link at the same time, only one can.
- If a payment fails or the checkout is abandoned, the link is given back for the rest of its time.
- The customer gets one reminder in the last 12 hours. When it runs out unused, the offer is marked as lapsed.
The order is an ordinary order in Orders, with its revenue recorded like any other.
Notifications
| Notification | When |
|---|---|
| A new offer | A confirmed offer is waiting for your answer (emailed by default). |
| A customer answered your counter-offer | They accepted or declined it. |
Change who is told, and how, under Settings → Notifications.
Abuse limits
Each customer can have one open offer per product, up to 10 offers a day with your store, and after three declined offers on a product they wait a day before offering on it again. Offers from one internet connection are also limited per day. Forms carry bot protection.
Supplier emails
The Supplier emails tab drafts a negotiation email to one of your own suppliers from the current price, your target and the most you would pay. The draft is a starting point for you to check, edit and send from your own email; nothing is sent from BestWebby.
Privacy
Offers are part of the customer's data: a customer's own data download includes their offers and their history, and erasing a customer removes their name, email and messages from offers and kills their private links, while keeping the record of what sold at what price.