Make an Offer for Magento 2

Overview

Let shoppers name their price on a product page. You accept, counter or decline in the Admin; the agreed price reaches the cart once, applied by the server for one customer, one quantity and a limited time.

Tested on Magento Open Source 2.4.8 (PHP 8.3) with the Luma theme. Compatibility with other versions, themes and Adobe Commerce is listed only after it has been tested.

What you get

• A Make an offer button on the product page (static markup, so the full page cache keeps working) and a dialog for quantity, price and message.
• Offers from signed-in customers and, if you allow it, from guests.
• Sales > Offers in the Admin: accept, send a counter-offer, decline or re-issue, with the history of every step.
• Hidden rules: a minimum price per product, accept-at-once and decline-at-once percentages.
• A one-time buy link and a My offers page in the customer account.
• Magento transactional e-mail templates, all switched off until you switch them on.

Read next

1. Installation
2. Configuration
3. Using Make an Offer
4. Questions and answers

Installation

Requirements: Magento Open Source 2.4.8 (tested), PHP 8.3, MySQL or MariaDB as Magento itself, a working cron (offers lapse and reservations are released by a job that runs every ten minutes).

Composer (recommended)

1. Add the Kavio Labs repository and your licence credentials (see your Kavio Labs account).
2. Run composer require kaviolabs/module-make-an-offer.
3. Run bin/magento module:enable KavioLabs_MakeAnOffer, bin/magento setup:upgrade and, in production mode, bin/magento setup:di:compile and bin/magento setup:static-content:deploy.
4. Flush the cache: bin/magento cache:flush.

Zip upload

1. Download the zip from your Kavio Labs account.
2. Extract it into app/code/KavioLabs/MakeAnOffer/ (the folder holds registration.php).
3. Run the same bin/magento commands as above.

Licence key

Stores > Configuration > Kavio Labs > Make an Offer > Licence: paste the key from your Kavio Labs account, save, then click Check now. One licence covers one production domain; staging and development domains are free. The module works for a 14-day start period without a key. The Admin is never blocked. Only the licence check contacts our server; it does not send customer or offer data. Nothing is checked before you enter a key.

Cron

The module registers one job (kv_make_an_offer_sweep, every ten minutes): it closes offers whose window ran out, gives back order reservations that were never completed and, if you set a retention period, anonymises old closed offers. It sends no e-mail.

What the module adds to your database

Two tables (kv_make_an_offer_offer, kv_make_an_offer_event), two product attributes (Offers and Hidden minimum offer price, in the group Product Details) and its settings. It adds no column to a core table and replaces no core class.

Update

Update the module like any other (Composer or replace the folder), then run bin/magento setup:upgrade. Offers, settings and the licence state are kept.

Uninstall

• Keep the data: bin/magento module:disable KavioLabs_MakeAnOffer (then delete the folder, or composer remove the package, and run setup:upgrade).
• Remove everything (tables, attributes, settings, licence state, cron rows): Composer install bin/magento module:uninstall KavioLabs_MakeAnOffer --remove-data; zip install bin/magento module:uninstall KavioLabs_MakeAnOffer --non-composer, then module:disable, delete the folder and run setup:upgrade.

Configuration

Stores > Configuration > Kavio Labs > Make an Offer. Most settings can be set per website (a website is the sales channel of Magento).

General

Automatic answers (hidden from shoppers)

The price is the price the shopper sees for the quantity (tier prices, special prices and catalog price rules included). A hidden minimum offer price on the product (product page, group Product Details) accepts an offer at or above it at once; shoppers never see it.

Negotiation

Limits and privacy

When a customer account is deleted, its open offers are withdrawn and its offers lose name, e-mail and messages.

E-mails (off by default)

The module sends nothing on its own. Switch on the e-mails you want; each uses a Magento transactional e-mail template that you can edit under Marketing > Communications > Email Templates (the starting templates are "Make an Offer: ...").

Set E-mail sender and Shop owner e-mail address; without an address the two owner e-mails are not sent.

Per product

On the product page, group Product Details: Offers (use the store setting / Offers on / Offers off) and Hidden minimum offer price (in the base currency).

Which products take offers

Simple and virtual products without custom options, whose quantity is a whole number. Configurable, bundle, grouped and downloadable products are not supported in 1.0.0. The store must show prices in the same tax state as it enters them (prices excluding tax shown excluding tax, or including shown including); otherwise the button is hidden, because the price a shopper types would not mean what the cart calculates.

Permissions

System > Permissions > User Roles > Role Resources > Sales > Operations > Offers: the role can open the list and every offer. The sub-permission Answer offers is needed to accept, counter, decline, send messages and re-issue.

Using Make an Offer

The shopper

On a product page the Make an offer button sits under Add to Cart. The page itself is static HTML (the full page cache keeps it); the button and the shopper's offer state come from the module's JavaScript and one uncached request.

The dialog asks for quantity, price per piece and an optional message. Guests also give name and e-mail and agree to the storage of their offer.

Offers must be lower than the current price. The answer is immediate when a hidden rule decides: accepted (the shopper gets a Buy link), declined, or "sent".

My offers in the customer account lists every offer with its history. The shopper can accept a counter-offer, answer it with a new price, withdraw, write a message and add an accepted offer to the cart.

Guests get a personal link to their offer page right after sending the offer (keep it; staff see the same link on the offer in the Admin and can send it on). Guests also get a signed link by e-mail to view their offer and answer it; an accepted offer is bought with the one-time link in the e-mail, and a guest who accepts a counter-offer is taken straight to the cart. Guests are told about answers by e-mail only, so switch on the e-mails "Offer accepted" and "Counter-offer" when guest offers are on.

The agreed price in the cart

The cart line carries the offer: it is added by the module (the customer can not create it) and linked to the offer. On every totals calculation the server recomputes the price from the stored offer and applies it only when all of this is true:

• the offer is accepted, inside its time window and not used;
• it belongs to the signed-in customer (guest offers: the checkout e-mail address must be the offer's address);
• the quantity is exactly the agreed quantity (a bulk deal is not for fewer pieces);
• the offer was made in this website;
• the agreed price is lower than the regular price (an offer never raises a price).

Otherwise the line shows the regular price with a notice. When the order is placed the offer is taken in one atomic step: two carts holding the same offer can not both buy at the agreed price, the second one gets a clear message and its cart goes back to the regular price. A cancelled order closes the offer as expired, so it can not be used twice; Re-issue gives the shopper a new window. If an offer lapses while it sits in the cart, the line goes back to the regular price with a notice and the order is placed normally.

Promotions: by default a cart price rule or coupon does not discount a line that carries an agreed price, while the other lines of the cart keep their rules. Switch the setting "Keep cart price rules off agreed prices" off to let rules discount it too. Free-shipping rules are not affected.

Admin orders: editing an existing order in the Admin keeps the agreed unit price; a reorder is a new purchase at the current price and never reuses the offer. Neither can break the offer or the order.

The merchant

Sales > Offers: tabs for offers that need an answer, counter-offers, accepted, ordered and closed offers, search by e-mail, name, SKU or product.

Open an offer to answer it: Accept, Send counter-offer (between the offer and the price at the time, up to the configured rounds, optional message), Decline, or just a message. Accepted and expired offers show Re-issue (new window, new link; the old link stops working). The one-time buy link of an accept is shown once, in case no e-mail is switched on. Every step is logged with the acting user.

On the Admin order page an order placed through an offer shows a "Placed through an offer" box with the agreed price.

Each product has a hidden minimum offer price and an offers switch on its product page in the Admin. An offer at or above the minimum is accepted at once; shoppers never see it.

The cron job

The cron job kv_make_an_offer_sweep closes offers whose answer or payment window ran out, releases reservations that were never completed (after 20 minutes) and anonymises closed offers after the retention period.

FAQ

Does a customer see my hidden rules?

No. The minimum price and the automatic percentages are never sent to the browser; the shopper only learns the answer.

Can a customer change the price?

The price is never taken from the request. The cart line is created by the module from the stored offer and checked against it on every calculation and again when the order is placed. A forged request or a line of another customer ends at the regular price.

What if the shopper changes the quantity in the cart?

The agreed price is only for the agreed quantity. Any other quantity is shown at the regular price with a notice; setting it back restores the agreed price.

Can one offer be used twice?

No. The order placement takes the offer with one atomic database update. A second cart or a second order is stopped with a message and goes back to the regular price. A cancelled order closes the offer; staff can re-issue it.

Does it work with the full page cache or Varnish?

The product page holds a static mount that is identical for every visitor; no price, customer data or form key is in the page. State and answers come from uncached routes. Tested with the built-in full page cache on Magento Open Source 2.4.8; Varnish and Hyva are not claimed.

Which products?

Simple and virtual products without custom options and with whole-number quantities. Not configurable, bundle, grouped or downloadable products in 1.0.0.

Guests?

Optional. Guests need to give a name and e-mail address and agree to the storage. They get a personal link to their offer page right after sending, and learn about answers by e-mail only, so switch on the e-mails "Offer accepted" and "Counter-offer". The buy link of a guest offer is valid for one order and the checkout e-mail must match.

Does the module send e-mail by itself?

No. Every e-mail is off until you switch it on; it then uses a Magento transactional template.

Several currencies?

Offers are stored in the currency the shopper used, with that currency's decimals (no cents for JPY). If the shopper later pays in another currency the agreed price is converted at the current rate.

An abandoned unpaid order?

The offer stays used by that order until the order is cancelled. Returns and credit memos keep the offer as ordered.

Does it work with Multi-Source Inventory?

Stock is never touched by the module; the normal Magento checks apply when the line is added and the order is placed.

Behind a CDN, why do all visitors share one rate limit?

Only the connection address is used (forwarding headers can be forged). Configure Magento's trusted proxies so the real visitor address is the connection address.

Adobe Commerce?

Not supported in 1.0.0. Only Magento Open Source 2.4.8 was tested.

Support: [email protected], same working day on weekdays.

Another extension stopped an order after the offer was taken?

The offer becomes buyable again within 20 minutes (a stopped order releases it at once in almost every case).