When you respond to a demand, the Make an Offer wizard walks you through six steps. Use Continue at the end of each step and Back to return to the previous one. The Totals panel on the right stays visible throughout and updates live as you type — no calculator needed.
The steps run in this order: Start → Items → Expenses → Payment → Terms & files → Review.
1. Start — currency and validity
The first step shows a summary of the demand (title, category, the demand's currency, description). Two things are set here:
- Offer currency (comparison currency) — the currency the grand total is displayed in. It defaults to the demand's pricing currency.
- Valid until — optional.
You are asked to pick the currency up front, but you can still enter every line and every expense in its own currency. Changing the currency later does not erase what you have entered; it only re-converts the total.
2. Items
If the buyer listed line items in the demand, those items are pre-filled. On demands of this kind the Name and Qty fields are locked: you only price the items, you cannot add or remove them. On an Open demand, you enter your own items with + Add line and remove a row if you need to.
Each row contains:
- Unit price and the Currency for that item
- Discount (none / percentage / fixed) and Discount value
- VAT %
- Gross — the item's amount converted into the offer currency
- Attach — to attach files to the item
If an item is entered in a currency other than the offer currency, the row also shows the converted unit price (marked with "≈"). To continue, every item must have a name, a quantity and a price.
The Attach button opens a drawer for that item, where Images and Documents are managed separately. PNG, JPG and WEBP are accepted for images, PDF for documents; up to 10 MB per file. Files are uploaded when the offer is submitted, not at the moment you select them. If a file cannot be uploaded, the offer is still submitted and the screen lists the files that could not be attached under the heading "Some attachments could not be uploaded".
3. Expenses (multi-currency)
Costs such as freight, crating or container rent are entered row by row with + Add expense. Each expense can be in its own currency (for example container rent in USD, haulage in EUR); it is converted into the offer currency and added to the total. This step is optional — you can continue without entering any expense. Every expense you do enter must have a name and an amount.
4. Payment terms
This is where you state how the buyer pays. The available presets are: Prepaid, Net 30, Net 60, Net 90, Letter of credit, Milestones, Custom. The help icon in the step heading explains what each one means.
Once you make a selection, the Advance (deposit) percentage, the Net term in days and the Extra note fields appear. If you choose Milestones, you build a schedule row by row (label, percentage, due point); this is the one hard rule — the percentages must add up to 100%, otherwise the step will not pass. The whole step is optional; Remove payment terms undoes your selection.
5. Terms & files
Everything here is optional:
- Incoterm — picked from a list (EXW, FOB, CIF, DDP and others); the help icon next to it explains the most common ones.
- Order Discount — applied to the offer as a whole, either as a percentage or as a fixed amount.
- Note — free text.
- Offer Documents — documents that apply to the whole offer, such as a cover letter, a catalogue or a company certificate.
The number of documents you can upload depends on your seller package; if your package does not include document uploads, the field appears disabled and a notice explains that attaching documents is a Pro package feature. Images cannot be uploaded at offer level — images are only attached to an item.
6. Review and submit
In the final step, items and expenses are listed in two columns: Entered (in the currency you typed) and Converted (in the offer currency). If you set payment terms, their summary appears here as well. The panel on the right shows the subtotal, discount, VAT, expenses, order discount and grand total, along with the rates used under the FX conversion heading. Rates are indicative; they are locked in the moment the buyer accepts the offer.
The Change currency link takes you back to the first step with your entries preserved. When you are ready, press Submit offer. After you see the message "Your offer has been submitted.", you are returned to the Marketplace screen.
Weekly offer allowance
Your right to submit offers is set by your seller package and is counted weekly. Only submitted offers count; moving through the wizard or abandoning it does not consume your allowance. Once the allowance is used up you can still browse demands, but you cannot submit new offers; an upgrade notice appears on screen. The counter resets every Monday at 00:00 (UTC).
Asking a question before you submit
If something in the demand is unclear, you can write to the buyer while preparing your offer using the Messages button at the top of the page. The conversation is specific to that demand and other suppliers cannot see it.