How to Track Consignment Inventory
Consignment inventory isn't like regular stock. Every item belongs to someone, and you owe them an account of exactly what happened to it — whether it sold, what it sold for, or when you gave it back. Lose track of that, and you have disputes. Here's how to stay on top of it.
The core tracking problem
A typical retail inventory system asks: what do I have, and how many? Consignment asks something harder: what do I have, who owns each piece, what are their terms, and what do I owe them? That distinction is why generic inventory tools fall short — they track stock, but not ownership.
What you need to record for each item
- Consignor. Which person brought it in, with their contact details and agreed split.
- Item description. Enough to identify it on the floor or in a photo — name, colour, condition, any reference code.
- Intake date and agreed terms. When it came in and how long you're keeping it before returning unsold items.
- Asking price. What it's listed at, and whether the consignor has approved markdowns.
- Status. On floor, sold, returned, or donated — every item should have a current state at all times.
The intake process
Getting intake right is the most important step. Once an item is on the floor without a clean record, everything downstream gets messy. A solid intake flow:
- Create a consignor record if this person is new.
- Log each item separately with its own description and price.
- Print or email an intake receipt — one copy for the consignor, one for your records.
- Tag the physical item with a reference that ties back to your system.
That tag is the link between the floor and your records. When the item sells at the register, the sale needs to flow back to the right consignor automatically — not be matched up later by memory.
When something sells
The moment of sale is when the tracking really matters. The sale price has to hit the right consignor's account, with commission calculated and a record kept. If you're on Shopify, the cleanest approach is software that links each product to its consignor at the point of sale — so the ledger updates itself, and payout day is just a review rather than a reconstruction exercise.
Unsold items
Consignment tracking doesn't end when items don't sell. You need a process for items that have passed their agreed period: mark them for return, contact the consignor, and close the record cleanly. Unsold items that drift in limbo are the most common source of consignor disputes.