A guide for consignment and resale shops

How to sell consigned items on Shopify POS and credit the consignor

For a shop with a storefront, the counter is where a lot of consignment sales happen. Shopify POS rings up a consigned item like any other product, and the sale lands in the same orders as your website. The work is making sure each counter sale still finds its consignor. This guide covers getting items onto POS, ringing them up the right way, discounts at the register, and crediting the share. The last part shows how Still Works Consignment credits it for you.

1. Make sure the item is on POS

A product only shows up in Shopify POS if it is available on the Point of Sale sales channel. On the product page, check the sales channels (the Publishing section in most admins) and make sure Point of Sale is on, along with Online Store if you sell online.

Check the stock too. The item needs a quantity at the location where the register is, with tracking on and Continue selling when out of stock off, so a one of a kind piece cannot sell at the counter after it sold online.

2. Scan or search, never a custom sale

At the register, scan the tag's barcode with the device camera or a connected scanner, or search for the item by SKU or title. Either way, the order line carries the product, its SKU and its vendor, which is how you know whose it was.

Avoid ringing a consigned item as a custom sale with a typed price. A custom sale has no product behind it: no SKU, no vendor, and no stock change. The money comes in, but nothing on the order says which consignor it belongs to, and the product stays listed as if it never sold. If a tag will not scan, search for the SKU printed under the barcode instead.

3. Discounts at the register

A consignor's share comes from what the customer actually paid, not the tag price. If you take something off at the counter, apply it as a discount in POS so it is recorded on the order, and the share is figured from the lower amount. Sales tax and tips are not part of the sale price and stay out of the share. Tell staff which discounts your agreement allows on consigned items.

4. Credit the consignor from counter sales

POS orders land in Orders next to your online orders, so one export covers both. At your cutoff:

Go to Orders, filter to the dates since your last payout, and export with the line items included.
Or use the sales by vendor report under Analytics, then Reports, if your plan includes it.
Group the lines by consignor number (from the vendor or SKU), multiply each total by that consignor's split, and add a row to your payout sheet.

If you want to see counter sales on their own, the orders list can be filtered by sales channel or location in most admins.

5. Honest limits

Every counter sale still has to be found and added up by hand on payout day.
A custom sale or a typed price breaks the link to the consignor, and only a sharp eye on the export catches it.
Returns at the counter need the same care as online ones: the share comes back, and the item goes back in stock.

The same steps in Still Works Consignment

Items taken in through the app's Intake screen are put on your Online Store and Point of Sale, with tracked stock and the barcode set to the SKU, so a scan at the register finds the item. When an order is paid, online or on Shopify POS, the consignor's share is credited from what the customer actually paid: after any discount or markdown, without tax, shipping or tips. The share goes on their balance and their own page without anyone typing it in.

The app finds a consigned item on an order by its product, or failing that by its SKU, so a custom sale credits nobody. If a sold SKU looks like one of the app's (C12-004) but matches no item, Today lists it so you can add a correction on the consignor's page. A return at the counter takes the share back, even after a payout.

Unless you turn it off in Settings, an email each morning lists yesterday's consigned sales, what is owed, and what expires this week, and days with nothing new are skipped. Every night the app also re-reads the last two days of orders, in case Shopify missed sending one. On the Free plan, items are taken in at one location; a paid plan covers more. The app is free for up to 15 active consignors. 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.