Heratio Help Center article. Category: Marketplace.

Marketplace — Make an Offer

How buyers negotiate a price on listings flagged "Open to offers", and how sellers respond.

When can I make an offer?

Listings show a Make an Offer button when the seller has enabled offers (sale type = Open to offers, or fixed-price listings with accepts_offers = 1).

If the listing is auction-only, offers are not accepted while bidding is live — submit a bid instead.

Buyer flow

Submit an offer

Open the listing → Make an Offer.
Form opens at /marketplace/offer-form.
Enter your price and an optional message (e.g. "willing to collect from your store").
Submit. The seller receives an email and the offer appears in their offers queue.

Track your offers

/marketplace/my-offers lists each offer with current state:

State	What it means	What you can do
Pending	Seller hasn't responded yet	Wait, or withdraw before they reply
Countered	Seller proposed a different price	Accept, counter back, or decline
Accepted	Seller agreed to your offer	Pay within the payment window
Declined	Seller rejected	Make a new offer with a different price
Expired	The offer wasn't responded to in time	Reset / re-offer

A counter exchange can go back and forth — the system records the full chain.

Pay an accepted offer

When the seller accepts (or you accept their counter), the listing is held for you for the payment window (operator-set, typically 48 hours):

POST /marketplace/buy   (paths the accepted offer through PayFast)

After payment confirmation the transaction is created in the same way as Buy Now.

Seller flow

Configure offers

In the listing form, tick Accepts offers and optionally set:

Minimum acceptable offer — automatically rejects offers below this price.
Auto-accept threshold — automatically accepts offers above this price (e.g. if you list at R5 000 and set auto-accept at R4 500, any offer ≥ R4 500 closes the deal immediately).

Respond to offers

Offers land at /marketplace/seller/offers with a count badge. Click into one → opens /marketplace/seller/offer-respond:

Accept — locks the listing for the buyer; PayFast checkout is initiated.
Counter — set a price + message; the buyer chooses again.
Decline — rejects with optional reason.

Endpoint behind the form: POST /marketplace/seller/offer-respond (CSRF + acl:update).

Auto-decline rules

If the buyer's offer is below your Minimum acceptable offer the system declines automatically with a polite reason. You won't see those in your queue (audit-only).

Etiquette & best practice

Sellers should respond within 48 hours; pending offers tie up your stock and frustrate buyers.
Buyers should make realistic offers — repeat low-ball offers can be ignored or, in operator settings, can result in a temporary cooldown.
When countering, include a short reason — "this is my floor because of provenance", "I can do this if you collect" — it dramatically improves accept-rate.

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