A guide for consignment and resale shops

How to let consignors check their balance online

Most consignment shops tell consignors to call or email for their balance. That works until the phone rings during a busy Saturday and someone has to stop, find a spreadsheet and add it up. This guide covers what consignors want to see, why plain Shopify cannot show it to them, the workarounds that hold up, and how to keep each balance private. The last part shows how Still Works Consignment gives each consignor their own page.

1. What a consignor wants to see

When a consignor calls, the question is nearly always one of these:

Which of my things are still in the store, and at what price now?
What sold, when, and for how much?
What is my share of that, and what have you already paid me?
What do you owe me today?
When do my unsold things need to be picked up?

If one page answers all five, most of those calls stop. A balance on its own is not enough, because the next question is always "for what?"

2. What plain Shopify can and cannot show

Shopify's customer accounts are built for buyers. A consignor who signs in sees the orders they placed as a shopper, not the items they brought in or what sold. There is no built-in page that shows a vendor their own sales.

One part does work. If you pay consignors in store credit, issue it from their page in Customers, and Shopify's newer customer accounts show them their store credit balance when they sign in. That is the credit you already gave them, though, not what you still owe.

Do not add consignors as staff in Shopify to let them look. Staff access shows far more than their own items, and it is not what staff accounts are for.

3. Workarounds that hold up

A statement email on a fixed day. Pick a day, such as the first of the month. From your payout sheet, filter to one consignor and paste their rows into an email: items sold, their share, payouts, and what is owed now. It takes a few minutes per person, so it suits a shop with a small list. Tell consignors the day at intake, and the calls between statements drop.

One shared spreadsheet per consignor. Make a separate file for each consignor, view only, shared with their email alone. Update it weekly from your Orders export or the sales by vendor report under Analytics, then Reports. Never use one sheet with everyone on it, even with tabs, because anyone with the link can see every tab. The weak spot is that the sheet is only as current as your last update.

Answer by email, not phone. If you keep answering by hand, ask for questions by email. You can answer them in a quiet hour, and the answer is written down for both of you.

4. Keep it private

A balance is personal. Whatever you use, follow a few rules:

Only the consignor sees their numbers. No lists on the counter, no group emails.
Use consignor numbers in your records, so two people with the same name never see each other's sales.
If a link or file reaches the wrong person, you need a way to cut it off and send a new one.
Make it read only. Changes to a balance go through you, with a reason written down.

5. Tell them at intake

The best time to explain how to check a balance is when the consignor signs the agreement. Tell them where to look, when sales show up, and when you pay. A short line on the intake receipt does the job.

The same steps in Still Works Consignment

In the app, each consignor has their own page, reached by a private link with no account or password. It shows their items in the store at the current price, what has sold and for how much, their share of each sale, what they have been paid, what they are owed right now, and what expires soon. It is read only, and it says that questions about a balance go to you.

On the consignor's page in the app, under Their page, you can open their page yourself, copy the link into a message, or press Email it to them. If a link ends up with the wrong person, Make a new link stops the old one working.

The link also goes out on its own. Every payout receipt email includes what was paid, what is still owed, and the link. The note the app sends before an item's end date includes it too. The page stays current because each item is linked to its consignor at intake, and their share is credited when it sells, online or on Shopify POS, from what the customer actually paid. A refund takes the share back, and the page shows it.

The app is free for up to 15 active consignors and never takes a percentage of sales. It is on the Shopify App Store.

Where to go from here

The Still Works Consignment page has the plain description of what the app does and does not do. If something here does not match what you see, email the studio and it gets fixed the same business day.