Tracking Inventory At Your Sale

The decision of whether or not to use your MSM account to track inventory at your sale is an important one, and you should give some thought to it before you make your decision. There are pros and cons with tracking or not tracking inventory, and they will be explained below. Please read over this information before making your decision.

IMPORTANT! - It is important for you to realize that you should make your decision on whether to track inventory BEFORE you begin allowing consignors to register for your upcoming sale. You are allowed to change your inventory mode selection at anytime, but changing it while registrations are open, and consignors are printing tags can cause confusion during your sale because you could have multiple tag types and formats appear at your sale. We strongly recommend that you make your decision, then stick with it for your upcoming sale. If you decide you want to change the selection after your sale is complete, and before you open registrations for the next one, that is perfectly fine and will not cause any problems.

Your decision about inventory greatly affects how your MSM account functions. Here is an overview of the main differences:

If you choose to use inventory:

• Your consignors are required to enter each and every one of their items online. Their barcoded tags are printed based on the items they have entered.
• Your consignors are required to print their own barcoded tags. You have the option to print tags for them via the admin portal. Barcoded labels are not available when your MSM account is using inventory mode.
• Gives you as the sale owner the ability to run reports and get counts of how many items are being entered in any given category, which helps with your space planning.
• During your sale, the POS will reject any item that comes through that is not in that consignors inventory. You have the option in the POS to enter that item into the consignors inventory, so it can still be sold.
• Because we can categorize each and every item when using inventory, sales tax can be applied on a per category basis. This means you can choose to charge sales tax for items in one category, and choose not to charge sales tax for items in other categories.
• At Seller Reconciliation, the seller report shows exactly what items sold for the consignor (shows item descriptions).
• When using inventory mode at your sale, you have the additional option of requiring that an item be checked in before it can be sold. This is really the only way to "guarantee" your inventory, but it requires additional time be taken during consignor check-in. Here is how it works:
  • As the consignor is checking in, you will scan each item they are checking in. The POS system will verify that the item being checked in is one of the items they entered online, and will mark it as checked in.
  • During your sale, if a tag is scanned that has not been marked "checked in" during drop-off, then it cannot be sold. You do have the option of checking in the item at that time so you can go ahead and sell it.
  • Pros of Requiring Check-in: allows you as the sale owner to know EXACTLY what was actually brought to your sale, rather than being dependent on just taking a consignor's word for it.
  • Cons of Requiring Check-in: Extends the amount of time needed during drop-off and the number of volunteers needed to staff drop-off.
• Pros of Using Inventory:
• Allows you as the sale owner to have more information about the items in your sale.
• Each and every item in your sale has it's own unique ID, which allows you to track information about each and every item in your sale.
• Allows consignors to print their own barcoded tags, relieving the sale owner of this responsibility.
• Provides more information to your consignors, allows them to see on their seller report what items (by description) sold and did not sell.
• Allows more accurate information to be provided to your shoppers on their sales receipt (actual item descriptions are listed).
• Provides overall tighter control of the sale to sale owners.
• Cons of Using Inventory:
• Requires more time of the consignor during tagging because they must enter each and every one of their items online.
• Sale owners lose control of the quality of their printed barcodes/tags. When consignors print their own, the sale owner cannot control factors like the quality of their printer, etc.

If you do NOT choose Inventory:

• Your consignors DO NOT have the option of entering each and every one of their items online. They just order barcode labels online by entering how many they want at what price.
• Your consignors DO NOT print their own barcodes. The barcodes they order online are sent to the sale owner via email and printed on a high speed barcode label printer.
• You as the sale owner will be able to see figures such as how many barcodes are ordered, but you will not be able to get counts of items in any specific category.
• During your sale, any item with a valid barcode can be sold, as long as the consignor id is valid. The POS only rejects items that do not have a valid consignor number.
• Because items cannot be categorized when not using inventory, sales tax is either applied to all items sold, or not applied at all.
• At Seller Reconciliation, the seller report only shows a listing of how many items sold and at what price. Item descriptions are not available.
• Because no "inventory related" information is gathered in this mode, activities that require inventory data cannot be performed such as: scanning items at drop-off, detailed seller reports (showing item descriptions) and item counts per category. Also, your sellers will not be able to see inventory related information such as what particular items sold. This is because with the non-inventory system, consignor inventory cannot be tracked because they do not enter enough information into the system for that to be possible.
• Pros of NOT Using Inventory:
• Sale Owners guarantee the quality of printed barcodes. Barcodes printed with the high speed barcode label printer are VERY high quality and always scan reliably.
• Tagging is easier for your consignors because they do not have to take the time to enter each and every one of their items online.
• Cons of NOT Using Inventory:
• Sale Owners take on the additional task of printing barcode labels for consignors. The high speed barcode label printer prints 4 labels per second and labels cost about 1/4 cent each. It is fast, but if you have a large sale, make sure you have the capacity to take this on.
• Sale Owners do not have specific information about each and every item in their sale, or specifically what items the consignor is bringing to the sale.