Must distinguish between offer and Invitations to treat: Only when the offeror indicates a willingness to enter into a contract on specific terms, in circumstances where it appears that he is committing himself to a deal should his proposal be accepted by the other side, that an offer is made in the legal sense.
Any preliminary negotiations before this point are simply regarded as ‘invitations to treat’ i.e. invitations to negotiate and do not have the status of a legal offer. If someone appears to accept what is only an invitation to treat, there is no contract. It is important to remember that the use of the word ‘offer’ does not mean that there has been an offer in the legal sense.
An invitation to treat as being either:
a) A step in the negotiations which leads up to the making of an offer (in other words, a pre-contract negotiation); or
b) A method of encouraging someone to make an offer (e.g. to buy or sell goods or services) which you can either accept or refuse. This situation is sometimes described as an ‘offer to receive offers’.