What a Lightning Sale is

A Lightning Sale lets you sell one item at a discount for a limited time. Buyers can Buy Now at your listed price, or they can make an offer for less. This guide is about offers, including how to set them up and how to accept, decline, or counter them.

Setting up offers

When you put an item on a Lightning Sale, you set the sale price that buyers pay to Buy Now, the original price it is marked down from, and how long the sale runs. Sales usually run somewhere between a few hours and a few days.

Then you decide how offers work. Offers are allowed by default. You can turn them off to make it a Buy Now only sale.

You can also set a private minimum, which is the lowest offer you would take. Buyers never see this number. It works together with two switches. Auto accept takes any offer at or above your minimum for you. Auto decline turns away any offer below it. Turn both on and offers sort themselves. Leave them off and you review each one yourself.

Buyers see a warmth hint as they type, from hot down to cold, but your exact minimum stays hidden. It is rounded to a rough range so no one can reverse engineer it.

When an offer comes in

You get a popup, an email, and a notice in the app. You can accept, decline, or counter.

If you accept, the buyer's saved card is charged right away for their offer amount and an order is created. There is no waiting on the buyer to check out. Because accepting charges them on the spot, only accept an offer you are ready to fulfill.

If you decline, the buyer is told and can offer again or Buy Now.

If you counter, you send back a price between the buyer's offer and your Buy Now price.

Countering an offer

You get one counter per offer. It has to be higher than the buyer's offer and lower than your Buy Now price. Countering one buyer also declines any other offers that same buyer has waiting.

The buyer can then accept your counter, and they are charged right away. They can decline. Or they can counter back one time with a price between their first offer and your counter. So a negotiation is a single back and forth. You counter once, they counter back once, then it is accept or pass.

Changing a sale that is already live

You can adjust a running sale. You can change the sale price, add more time, or change your minimum and the two switches.

If you lower your minimum while auto decline is on, any waiting offers below the new minimum are declined. An offer that now clears the new minimum can be auto accepted.

If you change the price, every buyer with a live offer is notified.

You can also cancel the sale. That declines all open offers and lets those buyers know.

More than one offer, and the race

You can accept more than one offer. When you do, those buyers race and the first one to pay gets the item. Once someone pays, the sale ends and the other accepted buyers are told it is gone. A buyer who hits Buy Now ends it the same way.

If a buyer's payment fails

If an accepted buyer's card is declined, the order is undone and the offer is marked as payment failed. Depending on your settings, that offer either closes out or comes back to you to approve again. Either way, the item is not sold until a payment actually clears.

Keeping up with offers

The popup lets you accept, decline, or counter right there. It clears itself after a while, but the offer stays in your offers list.

The offers drawer shows every offer for a product in one place, highest first, one line per buyer.

If a sale is near the end with no offers yet, we send a reminder so you can add more time or drop the price.

Common questions

Do I have to review every offer? No. Turn on auto accept or auto decline with a private minimum and offers sort themselves. Leave them off to review each one.

Can buyers see my minimum? No. It stays private. Buyers only see a rough warmth hint.

What happens the moment I accept? The buyer's saved card is charged for their offer amount and an order is created. There is no separate checkout.

Can I counter more than once? No. One counter per offer, and the buyer gets one counter back. After that it is accept or pass.

Can I get paid if I accept two people? Yes. They race, and the first payment wins. The rest are told the item sold.

Can I turn offers off? Yes. Switch off allow offers to run a Buy Now only sale.