Automatic acquisition — buy now or negotiate

Open Filters, edit a filter, and find the Automatic acquisition section. It starts collapsed — its header carries an Autocop or Auto-offer pill when either is armed, so you can see the state without opening it.

#One number splits the price line

Max buy price is the most you will ever pay for a match — whichever route gets there. Everything on this page follows from where a listed price falls relative to it.

Leave it empty and the filter's Max price is used instead. Set it lower than Max and the two numbers start doing different jobs:

That separation is the point. A filter can watch a deliberately wide range — €0 to €200 — while only ever buying under €60.

It must be positive, and at or below the filter's Max when the filter has one: matching already stops there, so a higher ceiling would be a number that never applies. The field turns red and says so rather than saving something inert.

#The three bands

An item never falls in two bands, and the bands never leave a gap.

#Arming one, the other, or both

Two independent switches, stacked in ascending price order. Three useful combinations:

With neither armed, the filter only notifies you.

Automatic negotiation is marked Experimental. Its behaviour may still change and some edge cases are being refined. It is usable — keep an eye on your offers. It also needs a plan that includes it; on a lower plan the row is shown but inert, with the plan it belongs to named on it.

#Refusing a listing that says "do not buy"

Nested under Instant buy is one setting: Skip "do not buy" listings. It only appears once instant buy is armed, because it governs instant buy and nothing else.

Some sellers write in plain words that you should not buy — the item is reserved, still being photographed, "message me first", price to be agreed. Kops already reads those phrases and puts a Do not buy badge on the card. That badge describes the listing; it has never stopped a purchase. This switch is what makes it decide one.

It ships off, and that is not an oversight: every one of your filters already buys these listings today, so turning it on for you would change what they do without your asking.

It is per member. On a shared filter each subscriber decides for themselves — your refusal does not cost the other one their buy.

It leaves offers alone. A seller who writes "don't buy, make me an offer" is asking for exactly what automatic negotiation does. Only instant buy stands down.

#Building the opening offer

#Opening discount

How far under the asking price the first offer opens. A slider from 0% to 40%, in steps of 5, defaulting to 20%.

The opening offer is the listed price minus that discount — and never above your max buy price. On a listing already under your maximum, the discount applies to the asking price, so you still offer below it.

#Room below your target

How far under its target an offer may go. The target is the asking price, or your max buy price when that is lower.

It is a risk dial, not a price dial. Opening low leaves longer for another buyer to take the item; opening at the target secures it at your maximum with nothing left to negotiate.

#Buy automatically if accepted

When the seller accepts your offer, Kops pays immediately instead of waiting for you.

#Negotiate if they counter higher

When the seller counters above your max buy price, Kops answers with converging counter-offers rather than leaving the thread stalled. It needs Buy automatically if accepted — the negotiation converges on that price, so without it there is nothing to converge on. Turn the prerequisite off and this row goes inert and says why; turn it back on and your choice is still there.

See Automatic negotiation for how the counter-offers are chosen and when they stop.

#What the seller actually receives

An offer is a price. A message is a separate send, posted in the conversation right after it — the seller sees a price, then a line of text.

A negotiation is therefore a run of prices, with a word at the start and a word at the end:

Both are on by default, and with no wording of your own it is Kops's that goes out — in the seller's language where it has one.

Worth knowing before you arm this: an automatic offer opens a real conversation on your Vinted account, and a message is posted there under your name whether or not you chose its wording. Read it once, then keep it or replace it.

One switch, and it is not on the filter. Message with your offers, in Settings → Purchase Preferences, governs both: turning it off silences the last word too, on a screen that does not say so. Full detail in Messages to sellers.

#What the editor tells you before you save

Under the settings, What happens, by price lists your bands with real amounts — the interval, and one line saying what happens inside it. It is computed from the same rule the engine applies, so what you read before saving is what runs.

Four warnings can appear, each next to the setting that causes it:

The ceiling field also quotes the result as you type: never pays more than €X, whichever way it buys — a negotiation opens around ~€Y.

#When there is no ceiling at all

No max buy price and no Max on the filter:

• Instant buy still buys, paying whatever is listed — which is how a filter with no price cap has always behaved.
• Automatic negotiation stands down. There is no target to converge on, so no offer is sent.

A listing whose price never came through triggers neither. Buying at an unknown price is exactly what a ceiling exists to prevent.

#Which accounts send the offers

This is not set on the filter. Open Settings → Purchase Preferences → Auto-offers.

By default, offers can come from any of your accounts. Create account groups on the Accounts page first, then pick them under Restrict to these groups — offers will only use accounts from those groups.

It is a separate pool from the one autocop uses, so you can keep one set of accounts for instant buys and another for negotiating.