When a buyer asks for a sample
A sample request expires after 30 days, and nothing reminds you. This is the whole loop, from the request to the outcome.
Last updated 2026-09-10
In short
- A buyer can ask for a sample of any active lot in a catalog they can open.
- You have 30 days to answer. Nothing reminds you, and after that you cannot accept.
- After you send it, the buyer confirms it arrived, cups it, and records an outcome.
The request arrives
A buyer reading one of your catalogs presses the button on a lot and asks for a sample. You get a notification, and the request appears on your Samples page.
They can only do this for a lot that is active for sale and sits in a catalog they can reach. A paused lot has no button.
The clock
A sample request does not wait for you. From the day it arrives you have 30 days to accept or decline it, and after that the request is gone.
Nothing is sent to remind you — not an email, not a message. After 30 days your Samples page marks the request expired and the accept button is gone. The buyer is not told to wait; they simply never get an answer.
If you cannot answer properly, decline. A decline tells the buyer your answer, and it costs you nothing.
Accepting
Accepting turns the request into a draft sample on your Samples page — the record of a parcel you now have to pack. Two hundred grams is the usual size.
Sending it
When the parcel leaves, press "Mark as sent". You can add a tracking number. LotsLog can also give you a WhatsApp message to copy, so the buyer knows it is on the way.
What the buyer does next
The buyer gets their own page for the sample. They confirm it arrived, and later they record how it went: interested, not interested, or will buy.
You can record the same steps yourself from the Samples page if the buyer tells you over WhatsApp instead. Either way the sample ends in one of those three states, and you keep the note they left.
Why this loop matters
A sample is where a catalog turns into a conversation. The clock is the only part of it that can cost you the request, and nothing warns you while it runs — so answer a request the week it arrives, even if the answer is no.
Words used in this journal
- Lot — one batch of coffee you are selling, and the record of it in LotsLog.
- Logged — your record of the coffee is complete. It does not mean anyone can see it.
- Active for sale, Paused, Currently unavailable — one switch, three screens. "Active for sale" is the switch on the lot. "Paused" is what My Lots calls it when the switch is off. "Currently unavailable" is what a buyer reads in your catalog.
- Sold out — a separate switch from Active for sale, for a different fact: the coffee is gone, not just that you have paused selling it. A sold-out lot still shows to buyers, marked sold out, and stays in your catalog as proof of what you sell.
- Archived — taken out of your lists and off every public page, without being deleted. Restore brings it back.
- Catalog — the list a buyer browses. A lot reaches a buyer through a catalog and through no other way.
- Chain — the parties the coffee passed through, from the source at the bottom up to you.
- Sourcing link — a record that one of your lots came from another supplier's lot. You ask for it; they confirm it.
- Show name, Type and place only, Don't show — how much of one business a buyer sees. The same three words on every screen that asks: confirming a link, your own choice on a link, and each entry in the lot form's chain.
- Published — a roaster has put your lot on their own bag. It never means a catalog.