Seller Packs — Hammerd Docs

Step by step, send a seller their proposal and then their drafted listing as two packs, each with one email, one link and one signature.

With seller packs, a seller deals with you in two sittings instead of four separate asks (accept the valuation, sign the Seller Agreement, sign the Attestation, confirm the listing). They get:

A proposal, once you approve the valuation. One email and one page with the guide range, why you chose it, and the agreement to sign. Signing is accepting.
A publication pack, once the listing is drafted. One email and one page where the seller checks the listing, confirms it and signs their Attestation where the lot needs one.

The documents themselves, their wording, their signatures and the rules that hold a lot back from going live are unchanged. Only the way the seller receives them changes.

Seller packs are how Babylon sends these documents whenever Enable Seller Agreements is on. This guide takes you through setting up, sending both packs, following the seller's progress and handling sellers who were part-way through. For the contracts themselves, see Seller agreements. For the Supply screens, see Supply pipeline.

Check you are ready

Work through this list before you send your first pack:

Seller agreements are on. Go to Settings → Business Settings, open the Commerce tab and check Enable Seller Agreements in the Seller Agreements section. See Seller agreements.
You have published templates. You need a published Seller Agreement template. If any of your marketplace tiers needs an Attestation, you also need a published Attestation template. If you have returning sellers, publish a Lot Schedule Addendum template too, or a proposal for a seller who has already signed cannot be sent. You can start each one from a platform starter. See Agreement templates.
Your default templates are set. Under Default templates in the Seller Agreements section, choose each template, or leave a field on Use the only active template of this type if you have exactly one of that type.
Your marketplace tiers are set up. Every item needs a Catalogue (its marketplace tier) before a proposal can be sent. You can choose it inside Send proposal. See Marketplace tiers and authentication schemes.
Valuation is part of your plan. A proposal needs an approved valuation with a guide range and a reserve. You can approve it in Update valuation, or confirm the figures inside Send proposal.
Sellers have an email address. A pack cannot be sent to a seller without one. You can add it inside Send proposal.
Your Support Email is set. When a seller asks a question or declines a proposal, Babylon emails your team at the Support Email in your Business Profile. See Business profile and localisation.
Seller listing confirmation, if you want it. The publication pack asks the seller to confirm the drafted listing only if seller listing confirmation is on for your account. It is not a setting in Business Settings. Contact Hammerd support to turn it on.

Check who on your team can do each step:

Turning on seller agreements needs the permission to manage tenant settings.
Approving a valuation needs access to the Supply screens and the manage supply operations permission.
Sending a proposal, or sending the listing from the Supply screens, needs access to the Supply screens and the issue agreements permission.
Filling in a valuation, a marketplace tier or a seller email inside Send proposal needs both the issue agreements and the manage supply operations permissions.
Sending the listing from the listing itself needs the permission to update listings.

The standard Admin role has all of these. See Team members and roles.

How packs work

There is no packs setting. A tenant sends packs exactly when Enable Seller Agreements is on. Babylon does not issue agreements on its own, so nothing goes to a seller until your team sends it.

Two actions on the Supply screens. Send proposal and Send to seller appear as the next step on items, in each item's More actions menu and on Supply Board cards.
Send to seller is the only listing action. It is on the listing's edit page and in the Listings table's row menu.
The Supply Board follows packs. Its columns are Expected, Received (if you use intake), Valuation, Proposal with seller, Cataloguing, Listing with seller, Draft listing approved and Live.
Documents outside a pack. Issue a document outside a pack is in the More menu on a listing's edit page and in the More lead actions menu on a lead. Each shows a warning that issuing there bypasses the pack, so the seller gets a separate email and link for each document and the pack flow does not know about them.

Approve the valuation

A proposal is built from an approved valuation with a guide range and a reserve.

On the Supply Intake or the Supply Board, find the item and click Start valuation (or Update valuation if a valuation is already open).
Enter the Guide range low and Guide range high.
In Why this range, explain to the seller how you reached the range. The seller reads this on their proposal page, under the guide range. Do not quote your internal valuation. Keep your own working in Notes for the valuer, which the seller never sees.
When you are ready, open Update valuation, switch on Approve valuation and enter the Reserve.
Submit the form. Babylon records the guide range and the reserve as the figures agreed with the seller and marks the valuation approved.

Approve valuation only appears while the valuation is still open, and only for people with the manage supply operations permission. The reserve you enter here is the reserve the Seller Agreement prints.

Approving the valuation sends nothing. You may want to phone the seller first. You can also skip this section and confirm the figures in Send proposal when you send.

Send the proposal

Once an item is past intake, its next step is Send proposal, whether or not its valuation is approved yet. You do not have to approve the valuation, set the marketplace tier or fix the seller's email somewhere else first: Send proposal asks for whatever is still missing and fills it in as it sends.

Click Send proposal on the item on the Supply Intake, or on its card on the Supply Board. It is also in the item's More actions menu. On a lead, click Send proposal next to Add item. If the lead has more than one item that can take a proposal, choose the item to start from, then click Continue.
Read What this sends. It states the guide range and reserve of each item in the proposal, and anything Send proposal fills in first, for example "Approves the valuation at these figures, then: Sends Jane Seller one email and one link with the guide range £1,000.00 to £1,400.00, reserve £1,100.00."
Check the summary under it. For each item it shows the guide range, the reserve, what informs the valuation, and the Internal valuation notes, not shown to the seller. Those notes are the valuer's own working. They are never put in front of the seller.
Fill in each section that appears. A section appears only when that thing is missing, and it is filled in from what Babylon already has:

- Valuation: the guide range low and high, and the reserve. Sending approves the valuation with these figures, the same as Approve valuation in Update valuation. If the item has no valuation case yet, Babylon starts one. - Marketplace tier: the Catalogue the item sells on, and the Custody track when that catalogue needs one. If your account has one active catalogue, it is already chosen. - Seller email: the seller's email address. Babylon saves it on the lead.

Check Why this range. It is filled in from the valuation. What you leave here is what the seller sees, and Babylon saves it back to the valuation. If the box is empty, a warning says the seller will see the guide range with nothing to explain it. You can still send it, for example after you have spoken to the seller.
Under Also include these items from the same seller, Babylon lists the seller's other items that are ready for a proposal, all ticked. Untick any you want to send later. One proposal then covers every ticked item. An item goes in this list only if its own valuation and marketplace tier are in place. To fill those in, send its proposal from that item instead.
Click Send proposal. Babylon fills in what you confirmed, sends the proposal and confirms the address it emailed. If the proposal cannot go, nothing you entered is saved.

Filling in a valuation, a marketplace tier or an email needs the manage supply operations permission as well as issue agreements. Without it you can still send an item that has everything in place. For an item that is missing something, the form shows what is missing, read-only, and its Send proposal button stays disabled until someone with the permission fills it in.

Babylon records on the item that these were confirmed inside Send proposal. The valuation, the tier and the email are recorded in the same way as when you change them in their own forms.

The seller gets one email and one link. Babylon works out which document they owe for these items and puts it in the proposal:

A new seller gets a new Seller Agreement.
A seller with an agreement they have not signed yet gets that same agreement, with these lots added to it.
A seller who has already signed their Seller Agreement gets a short Lot Schedule Addendum for the new lots, never a second Seller Agreement.
A seller whose lots are all covered already gets a notice that you are going ahead, with nothing to sign.

The document is not also emailed on its own. If you send a proposal again for the same items, the new one replaces the earlier one and the earlier link stops working.

Fix a greyed-out Send proposal

Send proposal is disabled only for something it cannot fill in. Its tooltip says what, and where to fix it:

"No default Seller Agreement template is set (Business Settings → Seller Agreements), and there is not exactly one active template to fall back on." Publish a Seller Agreement template and choose it under Default templates.
"This item's valuation case is closed, so it cannot take new figures. Start a new valuation for the item, then send the proposal."
"A signed seller agreement already fixes the reserve for this lot. Void it and issue a new one to change the agreed reserve."
"This item already has a listing, so its marketplace tier is set on the listing. Set the catalogue there, then send the proposal."

If the button is enabled but Babylon cannot send the proposal, a Proposal not sent message says why. The most common reason is a returning seller with no published Lot Schedule Addendum template.

See what the seller receives with a proposal

The email's subject is "{Your business name}: your valuation and next steps". It lists each lot with your guide range and has a Review and accept button. The email says the page explains how you reached the range, and does not include your explanation itself. The link works without a password and expires 14 days after the email was sent. The date is printed in the email. The documents in the proposal must be signed within 14 days of being issued. A reminder sends a new link but does not give the seller longer to sign. See Send an expired proposal again.

The page is headed Your valuation and next steps. For each lot it shows:

The guide range.
Where it will be sold, the sale format, your commission and the buyer's premium.
Indicative net to you, which runs from the low to the high end of the guide range, each less your seller commission and any VAT on that commission, so the seller is not anchored on the higher figure. The page says it is an estimate only.

Under the lots, Why this range shows your explanation as it was when you sent the proposal. Editing the valuation afterwards does not change a proposal already sent.

Below that are the documents. The Seller Agreement is called Consignment Agreement on the page. Above the signature, the page says "Your signature below applies to all of these documents:" and names each one. The seller ticks a consent for each document, signs once by typing or drawing, and presses Sign (or Sign all 2 documents when there are two). One signature signs every document in the pack at the same time. If any of them cannot be signed, none is.

The seller can also:

Decline. They choose I don't want to proceed and pick a reason (the guide range is too low, they have chosen another auction house, they have changed their mind, or something else in their own words).
Ask a question. Babylon emails it to your Support Email. Replying to that email answers the seller. The proposal stays open.
Verify once. If a document needs a verification code, the seller asks for one code by email and it unlocks every document in the pack that needs one.

When they sign, the items move to Approved where your account uses that stage, and to the Cataloguing column on the Supply Board. If Babylon created an account for the seller that they have not used yet, the completion page offers Email me a link to set a password. Pressing it emails the seller the usual link to claim their account, once.

Drafting a listing creates the seller's account if they do not have one. With seller packs on, Babylon does not email them about that account until they have signed a proposal, so the proposal is the first thing they hear from you. If they have not signed one yet, the completion page offers the link when they do. If they already have, drafting the listing emails them the link as usual.

A seller who only gets a notice sees We're going ahead, a summary of the lots and a note that their existing agreement covers them.

Send the listing to the seller

Once the seller has accepted the proposal, catalogue the item and start its listing draft as usual. See Supply pipeline. When the item is catalogued and its listing meets every requirement, its next step is Send to seller, before Submit for approval.

Click Send to seller on the item on the Supply Intake or the Supply Board, or in its More actions menu. You can also use Send to seller on the listing's edit page or in the Listings table's row menu.
Confirm. Babylon emails the seller.

What goes in the publication pack depends on the lot:

The drafted listing to confirm, if seller listing confirmation is on for your account.
The Attestation of Authenticity and Title to sign, where the lot's marketplace tier needs one. Babylon issues it at this moment, so it states the copy the seller is confirming. A lot on a tier that needs no Attestation gets the listing only.
If your Attestation template has a supplementary question with the key provenance_narrative (the seller's account of the lot's history), Babylon fills it in from what the seller wrote in their enquiry. The seller can edit it before they sign.

If the seller has already signed an Attestation for the lot, it is not sent again. Sending the listing again replaces the earlier publication pack, and the earlier link stops working.

Fix a greyed-out Send to seller

Send to seller is disabled, with the reason in its tooltip, until the pack can be sent:

"Only a draft listing can be sent to the seller. Return it to draft first." Change the listing's status back to draft.
"The listing has no consignor to send the pack to." Set the listing's consignor.
"{Seller name} has no email address, so no link can be sent." Add the consignor's email address.
"The seller flagged the {fact} as wrong ("{their note}") and that correction is still open. Resolve it before sending the listing to the seller again." Resolve the correction first. See Handle a correction. When the seller flagged more than one fact, the sentence names them all.
"There is nothing to send: this lot needs no Attestation and seller listing confirmation is not enabled for this tenant." Submit the listing for approval as usual, or contact Hammerd support to turn on seller listing confirmation.
"This lot's surface requires an Attestation, but no default Attestation template is set and there is not exactly one active template to fall back on." Publish an Attestation template and choose it under Default templates.

See what the seller receives with the listing

The email's subject is "{Your business name}: your listing is ready to check", with a Check your listing button. The page, headed Your listing is ready to check, has three steps:

Your listing. Each fact (title, description, condition, item location, quantity and the category fields) has a This isn't right link beside it. The page also shows your own assessment (the marketplace tier, the grade and the guide range), which the seller cannot flag, and a link to see how buyers will see the listing.
Your statement. The Attestation, where the lot needs one, with the seller's account of the lot's history.
Confirm and sign. One consent per document and one signature. Confirming the listing and signing happen together, so if either fails, nothing is recorded.

A lot with no Attestation skips the statement step. The seller can ask a question from the page. The publication pack has no decline button.

Handle a correction

If the seller clicks This isn't right against a fact and explains what is wrong, the whole pack waits. Nothing in it can be signed until you act. On the Supply screens the item reads Seller asked for a correction: resolve it, then send again.

Open the listing and use Resolve Seller Correction. Accept the correction and enter the corrected value, or decline it and write your response to the seller.
Click Send to seller again.

Send to seller stays disabled until every correction the seller raised is resolved, and its tooltip names each open one. Sending earlier would replace the pack and leave the correction with nothing to resolve it against.

The seller is not emailed about the resolution on its own. The new pack replaces the earlier one. If the Attestation is not signed yet and no longer matches the corrected listing, Babylon voids it and issues a new one, keeping the seller's account of the lot's history. A signed Attestation is kept. If the correction changed the title or description it states, sending from the listing page shows Check the signed Attestation. Review it and, if the change affects what it warrants, void it and issue a new one. That decision stays yours.

Put the lot on sale

When the seller has confirmed and signed, Submit for approval becomes the item's next step. The usual rules still decide whether the lot can be scheduled or go live. Depending on your Seller agreement requirement, a lot can be held for an unsigned agreement or Attestation, and with seller listing confirmation on, it is held until the seller confirms the listing. See What blocks a lot from going live, which also says which actions run the check.

Follow progress on the Supply Board

Open Supply → Supply Board. With packs on, each item sits in the first column it has not cleared:

Expected, Received and Valuation follow the item's stage. An item whose proposal expired is back in Valuation, with Proposal expired: send it again on its card.
Proposal with seller holds items whose proposal is out. The card shows Sent, not opened, Opened, not signed or Seller gone quiet.
Cataloguing holds items whose proposal the seller accepted, until you send the listing. It is your move. An item whose publication pack expired is back here, with Publication pack expired: send it again on its card.
Listing with seller holds items whose listing the seller is checking. The card also shows Correction requested when they flag a fact.
Draft listing approved holds items waiting to be submitted, approved and to go live.
Live holds items whose listing is live.

On the Supply Intake, an item with a pack out shows how long since the seller looked instead of a button: Not opened yet, Seller last looked 2 hours ago, or Seller gone quiet: call them.

Chase a seller who has gone quiet

Babylon chases sellers once a day:

A seller who has not acted on a pack gets a reminder three days after the last email, and every three days after that, for as long as the pack is open.
Each reminder carries a new link and the old one stops working. A seller who opens an old link is told that a newer email has been sent.
A seller who opened their link in the last 24 hours, and still has more than two days left on it, is skipped that day.
A pack waiting on a correction is not chased, because the next move is yours.

After the third reminder the item shows Seller gone quiet: call them. Phone the seller. The reminders carry on.

A pack is marked Expired as soon as any agreement in it passes its signing deadline unsigned. The seller signs every document in a pack at once or none of them, so one expired document means the pack can never be completed. The expired agreements are marked Expired too. Babylon does not email the seller about it and stops reminding them. A pack with no agreement in it, such as a listing to confirm with no Attestation, is marked Expired when its link lapses.

Send an expired proposal again

When a proposal expires, the item's next step on the Supply Intake and the Supply Board is Proposal expired: send it again.

Click Proposal expired: send it again. The usual Send proposal form opens.
Check Why this range and the items to include, as in Send the proposal.
Click Send proposal.

Babylon issues a fresh agreement with a new 14-day signing deadline and emails the seller a new link. The expired agreement stays on file as Expired. The old link shows the seller that the pack has expired and cannot be signed. If you send the proposal again before Babylon has marked the old one Expired, the result is the same: the lapsed agreement is marked Expired and replaced.

An expired publication pack works the same way. The item's next step is Publication pack expired: send it again, which sends the listing again. Where the lot needs an Attestation and the old one expired unsigned, Babylon issues a new one and keeps the seller's account of the lot's history.

Revise and resend a proposal

The first time a seller sees a guide range and reserve is the first proposal, so you will often need to send a better one. Revise and resend is on the item's More actions menu while the proposal is with the seller, and it is the next step when the seller has asked for a review or declined the guide range.

Click Revise and resend. The form shows the current guide range and reserve, and Why this range.
Change the figures, or leave them and say Why you are sending this again. You need one or the other. The reason is for your records and is not shown to the seller.
Click Resend proposal.

The seller gets a new email and link. The earlier link stops working. The seller's agreement is kept, not voided, and its lots are updated to the new figures. The new proposal page says when it was revised and how the guide range moved, for example "Your guide range moved from £10,000 to £15,000 to £9,000 to £13,000", and keeps the earlier ranges under Earlier figures. The reserve is never shown to the seller on the page. Babylon keeps every revision's figures, reserve included, for your team.

After a seller declines because the guide range is too low, the item moves back to Valuation when you revise and resend. A seller who declined for any other reason cannot be revised: the item stays in Lost.

Raising the reserve or the guide range is restricted. A revision that puts either figure up needs the raise seller reserve permission (Admin has it) and a typed reason. Without the permission Babylon refuses and changes nothing. Lowering a figure, or changing neither, needs neither. Grant the permission to a role in the usual way.

After the seller has signed, you cannot revise. Once the seller has signed the agreement, the reserve is part of their contract and a new proposal cannot change it. Revise and resend is refused with a message saying so. Change a signed reserve with the reserve lowering flow on the listing instead, which records the change for audit.

When the seller asks for a review

Under Decline on the proposal page the seller sees a small link, Ask us to review the guide range. It is deliberately quiet. The seller picks one reason from a fixed list (they have new information, they would like to discuss the range, something in the description is wrong or missing, or something else), and can add a note. There is no price field. They can ask once for each revision.

The request does not decline the proposal or touch the agreement, so the seller can still sign. The item's next step on the Supply Intake becomes Seller asked for a review, with their reason and note. Answer by phone or email, then use Revise and resend. Keeping the range is fine: type why and resend, and the seller can ask again on the new revision.

Babylon records every request and every revision, and whether the revision raised the figures, so you can see whether sellers are learning to push. A tenant setting can add an optional field for a figure the seller has in mind. It is off unless Hammerd support switches it on (features.agreements.review_suggested_figure).

Handle a declined proposal

If the seller declines, every agreement in the proposal is declined and the items move to Lost with the reason recorded. If the reason was the guide range, see Revise and resend a proposal. Lost items leave the Supply Board. On the Supply Intake, the item says The seller declined the proposal: followed by the reason. Your team gets one email at your Support Email for the whole proposal, however many lots it covers. Its subject is "Proposal declined" and the seller's name. It names the seller, the document they declined (the Seller Agreement or the Lot Schedule Addendum), the lots and the reason, with a link to the Supply screen.

Measure the effect

Hammerd support can report where your sellers stall between an approved valuation and a confirmed listing, and your own tools can pull the same report over the API. Ask for it before you start sending packs, so you have a baseline to compare with later. See Measuring the seller funnel.

Sellers who were part-way through

Some sellers may already hold documents sent outside a pack. This is what carries over:

Links already sent keep working. Agreements and listing confirmations sent outside a pack stay valid, and Babylon keeps chasing them with the usual reminders.
The Supply Board places these items from their documents. An item with an unsigned agreement sent outside a pack sits in Proposal with seller, and its card offers Open seller agreement to anyone who can view agreements. An item with a signed agreement sits in Cataloguing.

This is the gap to watch. Babylon never issues an agreement on its own, so a seller whose valuation is approved but who was never sent an agreement needs a proposal from you. For an item still at Valuation, Send proposal is the next step. For an item already past it, use Send proposal in its More actions menu. Send to seller does not need a signed agreement, so send the proposal first. With Seller agreement requirement set to Required, the lot cannot go live until a signed agreement covers it. With Blocking, a lot that was never sent an agreement is not held, so check these items by hand.

A sensible order:

Ask Hammerd support for the seller funnel report, so you have a baseline.
Walk the Supply Board for items between an approved valuation and a signed agreement, and send each seller a proposal.

Use seller packs over the API

Everything in this guide can also be done through the API: listing packs, checking whether a pack can be sent, sending a proposal or the listing, and checking whether packs are on. The readiness checks return the same sentences as the console. See Seller packs over the API.

Solve common problems

Why is Send proposal greyed out?

Something the proposal needs is missing, and Send proposal cannot fill it in. Hover over the button to see what, then follow Fix a greyed-out Send proposal.

Can I send a proposal before the valuation is approved?

Yes. Send proposal asks for the guide range and the reserve, approves the valuation with them and then sends, in one step. It starts a valuation case too if the item has none. The figures you confirm are the ones the Seller Agreement prints. If you want to phone the seller before anything goes out, approve the valuation in Update valuation first: approving there sends nothing.

The seller says the link has expired

If they opened an older email, the page says that a newer email has been sent. Ask them to use the most recent one. Each link lasts 14 days, and while the pack is open each reminder sends a fresh one. The documents in a proposal can be signed for 14 days from when they were issued, and a reminder does not extend that. After that the pack is marked Expired and the page says the pack has expired. Send the proposal again to give the seller a fresh agreement. See Send an expired proposal again.

The item says Proposal expired: send it again

The seller did not sign within 14 days of the agreement being issued, so the proposal can no longer be signed. Phone the seller if you need to, then follow Send an expired proposal again.

What if the seller has already signed a Seller Agreement?

They are not asked to sign it again. The proposal carries a Lot Schedule Addendum for the new lots, or a notice with nothing to sign if their lots are already covered. You need a published Lot Schedule Addendum template for this.

Can the seller change their account of the lot's history?

Yes. Babylon only pre-fills it. The seller can edit it on the page until they sign. If you send the listing again after a correction, an unsigned Attestation that has to be reissued keeps what they wrote.

Can the seller turn the listing down?

Not from the publication pack. They can flag any fact with This isn't right, or ask a question. Declining is only offered on the proposal.