Let shoppers make an offer in CS-Cart.

When a Make an Offer button makes sense

CS-Cart has no way to negotiate a price. A shopper who would buy at a lower price either leaves or writes an e-mail, and that thread ends in a manual order or a coupon anyone can reuse. Your public price stays high only until someone shares the code.

Make an Offer suits items where price is genuinely open: high-value goods, used or unique pieces, bulk quantities, end-of-line stock and marketplaces where sellers set their own margins. It is a poor fit for low-margin commodity items, where the time spent answering is worth more than the sale. You can limit it to the right products: rules work per product, category and vendor.

How the negotiation works

1. The shopper picks options and quantity, clicks Make an offer next to Add to cart, and enters a price per item with an optional message. Guests add a name and e-mail and tick the consent box.
2. Your rules can answer at once: an offer above the hidden minimum is accepted, an offer below the auto-decline level is politely refused. Otherwise you get an e-mail.
3. You answer in Orders, Offers: accept, decline, or send a counter-offer between their offer and the current price. A value halfway is suggested.
4. The customer accepts the counter-offer, declines, or offers again while rounds are left. They work from My offers or from a signed link in the e-mail.
5. After acceptance they click Add to cart at offer price and have a limited time to buy.

The cart checks the offer line on every calculation. The price comes from the database, not the browser, and the quantity is the offered quantity. Changing the options, passing the deadline or trying it from another customer’s account removes the line with a notice. An offer can be used for one order only, even from two browsers at once, and a failed or cancelled order gives it back while the deadline has not passed.

Settings that shape your negotiation

Spam is limited by default: five open offers per customer, three offers per product in 30 days, one open offer per product and option combination, and 10 offers per hour from one guest connection.

Hidden minimum prices

Each rule level, resolved product first, then the nearest category, then vendor, then global settings, can set the Offers switch and the percentages. A hidden minimum unit price is available on the product and wins over the percentages. Shoppers never see any of these values.

Do coupons stack with an accepted offer?

You choose. Offer price only (default) switches off cart promotions and coupons while the offer item is in the cart. Cart promotions and coupons keeps them. All promotions also applies catalog promotions on top. The price shoppers offer against already includes catalog promotions, so an offer never ends up dearer than the promo price.

Make an Offer on a marketplace

On Multi-Vendor, vendors see Orders, Offers in their panel with offers on their own products only, and answer the same way. With the setting on, they set product rules and their own vendor defaults, so one seller can auto-accept at 85% while another reviews every offer. The marketplace administrator sees and can answer everything. Vendors cannot open or export other vendors' offers and cannot delete offers.

Statistics cards in the offers list show the acceptance rate, the average discount of accepted offers, how many accepted offers were actually ordered and the amount ordered. CSV export covers the filtered list.

Offers, coupons or quotes?

If your buyers are companies sending lists of SKUs, B2B Request a Quote is the better tool. The guide to Make an Offer settings goes through the figures that work for different margins. Get Make an Offer on the store.

Versions and exceptions

CS-Cart and Multi-Vendor 4.17.2 to 4.21.x, PHP 7.2.5 to 8.3 as your version supports, and a theme based on Responsive, Bright or Nova. On Ultimate every storefront has its own settings. Products without a price never show the button, nor do common products of Common Products for Vendors or bookable products from Bookings & Reservations, since an offer has no date or time slot.