How to Open a Consignment Shop

There's plenty to think about before the doors open but it's probably a bit dangerous just to speculate, imagine and hypothesize about how things will go or how they 'should be'. Thanks to today's advanced communications, pre-opening can be a time of fruitful investigation and fact finding.

Talk to Owners of Other Consignment Shops

Personal contact is usually best but shops near you might view you as new competition. That problem becomes less with each mile further away from your locale but why waste the gas? You can commune with consignment, resale and thrift operators from literally around the world. Put that $2,000 you were going to waste on a 'convention' into your business, now or later.

Open Prepared

Pen and paper or computer? Tag supplier? Hired help? Pre-open advertising? Inventory? These are important considerations beyond a business license and a lease.

'Old school' says start out the hard way (pen and paper) until you're so overwhelmed you've aged 3 years in the first six months. Wait until that mound of paper reaches the ceiling then reach for a computer. There is no logic in shunning modern conveniences (like computerization) prior to opening a consignment business. Matter of fact it sounds a little foolish to set yourself up for failure.

Computerizing Your Business Prior to Opening

Look at it this way: If someone came in 2 months after you've opened and said you would have to start doing things by hand, they'd have a fight on their hands. Imagine sitting down to calculate (and hopefully correctly) every settlement for every consignor when your computer was doing it at the press of a keyboard key. Your back room computer was printing 1,000 price labels (with bar codes) while you were on the sales floor tending to business. A clerk in one hour entered the entire new inventory for the week using a computer. You've been printing professional-looking consignment agreements and sales invoices from day one and your customers are favorably impressed. Now you're going to write these things out by hand, or present Xerox copies?

Instead of working 10-hour days doing things that create more business, you'll revert to 16-hour days just trying to keep up with the business you already can't handle. Store profits will drop because you'll be forced to hire helpers to replace your computer. That opens a whole 'nother bunch of problems. You're computer never called in sick, talked back, demanded benefits and pay raises, gotten pregnant, walked out in a tiff...

Dare say one competent person armed knowledgeably with a dependable computer and a great consignment program can run 10 consignment stores, and guess what. There are people doing it. You are the master of your fate, and your success begins with good preparation, and part of that preparation is preparing you to handle the job effectively and masterfully before the doors open.

About Consignment Software

There is are 3 very distinct differences between 'black hat' software and 'white hat' vendors. The ones wearing black hats charge annual service fees and add-on fees after purchase. They don't sell their 'feeware'; they rent it via a 'license' which only grants you the use (not the ownership) of the software. And lastly, because consignment software is a small 'industry', there are several part-timers and moonlighters - individual programmers - trying to pick up a few extra bucks on the side by selling consignment applications online. Software can cost $15,000 over time, or $300 for similar programs. It's not necessary to spend hours comparing programs. Just write off those who charge annual fees, who rent their software and who answer your calls with an answering machine and you'll end up at the doorstep of Best Consignment Software.

Good luck from
How to Open a Consignment Business!