Symptom
On the page of one of your rejected offers you click Submit New Offer, enter the new values in the dialog that opens — but the Submit new offer button stays greyed out (inactive) and will not respond to clicks. At the bottom of the dialog you also see this notice:
At least a 1% price improvement over the rejected offer OR a material term (incoterm/payment/validity) must change.
Nothing is broken here; your offer simply is not yet in a submittable state.
Cause — the difference rule
To prevent the same offer from being pushed to the buyer over and over with cosmetic tweaks, the offer you resubmit must be meaningfully different from the offer that was rejected. The text at the top of the dialog says exactly that: "Update your rejected offer. To submit, at least one of the rules below must be satisfied."
The comparison is always made against your own rejected offer. There is no comparison with competing offers; bids are sealed and you cannot see another supplier's figures.
The "Difference check" list in the dialog
The dialog contains three lines under the heading Difference check, and at least one of them must be satisfied before you can submit:
- At least 1% cheaper than the rejected offer
- Incoterm changed
- Payment terms changed
The lines update live as you type: an unsatisfied line shows a red cross, a satisfied line shows a green check mark. Next to the price line the size of the gap is also shown ("… cheaper" or "… dearer"). The moment one of the lines turns green, the Submit new offer button becomes active.
There are three editable fields in the dialog: New total (≈EUR), Incoterm and Payment terms. The notice also mentions "validity"; however, this dialog has no field for the validity date, so the only way to unlock the button is through these three fields.
Changes that are not enough
The following do not count as a difference on their own and will not unlock the button:
- Editing only the offer note
- Only attaching or removing files
- Applying a discount or a currency adjustment that lands on the same total
- Nudging the price by a negligible amount: raising the price or leaving it unchanged does not count, and neither does a discount small enough to be ignored
What to do
- If there is a price you can genuinely reduce, enter the new total in the New total (≈EUR) field. Once the price line turns green, the button unlocks.
- If you cannot lower the price, offer the buyer a real alternative by changing the delivery terms (Incoterm) or the Payment terms. Changing either one of these two fields is equally sufficient.
- After making the change, check that at least one line in the Difference check list is green, then click Submit new offer.
- If you change your mind, you can leave with Close; your offer stays in rejected status.
When you submit the offer, MarbleMap validates the same rule once more. On rare occasions the submission may be refused because the exchange rate was refreshed in the meantime; if that happens, improve the price slightly and try again.
The demand must also still be open for offers. If the buyer has closed the demand or the offer window has expired, a new offer cannot be submitted. In that case, look for a new demand on the Marketplace screen.
If the buyer requested a revision
This is a different situation. Your offer has not been rejected; the buyer has asked you to update specific lines. Your offer page shows The buyer requested a revision together with a Revise and resubmit button. In the Revise your offer dialog that opens, you see the buyer's reason and the Lines flagged for revision list, and you enter the new unit prices; if you wish, you can also update the Incoterm, Payment terms and Valid until fields.
The difference rule does not apply in this flow: since the buyer asked for the change, the Submit revised offer button is active from the start.