đź’¬ Sales Assistant

How Comments Work (Bids, BINs & Claims)

Once your drop is posted, the Sales Assistant automatically monitors your Instagram comments and understands what customers are trying to do — whether they’re bidding, claiming an item, or asking a question.

The goal: You no longer need to manually track comments, bids, or claims. The assistant reads them and updates the sale automatically.

How bidding works

If your drop uses bidding, the Sales Assistant automatically detects bids in the comments and updates the current highest bid. We respond to customers letting them know if they have been outbid as well!

Example

  • Customer comments: “$10”
  • Assistant recognizes it as a bid and responds "thank you for your bid"
  • Bid becomes the new highest bid
  • Customer 2 comments: "12"
  • Assistant recognizes it as a bid and responds "thank you for your bid"
  • Bid becomes the new highest bid
  • Assistant lets customer one know "you've been outbid"
Important: Bids must be higher than the current bid. If someone bids the same or lower amount, we will respond letting them know "the highest bid is currently at $x. Your bid was not accepted". This bid will not replace the current highest bid in your Thryft Ship Sales hub.
You can track all of these bids in your Sales hub by clicking on an item and seeing all current bids. Here you can also delete items, mark them as sold, or mark them as unsold.

How BIN works

If BIN (Buy It Now) is enabled, a customer can instantly win the item by commenting the BIN price.

Example

  • Caption says: “BIN $30”
  • Customer comments: “BIN” or “$30”
  • The item is immediately assigned to that customer
BIN overrides bidding. Once someone BINs an item, bidding closes for that item.

How claim sales work

If you run claim-only drops (no bidding), customers simply comment to claim the item.

Example

  • Caption says: “CLAIM $8”
  • Customer comments: “claim”, "8", "me", "$8" etc.
  • The item is assigned to that customer
Tip: Claims are processed in order of comments. The first valid claim wins the item.

How questions are handled

If a customer asks a question instead of bidding or claiming, the Sales Assistant flags it so you can respond.

Example questions

  • “What size is this?”
  • “Does it fit oversized?”
  • “Can you measure the waist?”
The assistant will not treat these as bids or claims — they are marked as questions for you to answer.

Best practices for captions

Setting the Bid and BIN values below your captions during drop creation help the Sales Assistant understand how your sale should work. Making sure the rules are clear in the caption itself for your customer is important too!

Recommended caption format for customers

  • BID starting $X
  • BIN $X (optional)
  • Bidding ends in X hours
  • Comment below to bid or BIN
These phrases help customers understand the sale format.