Introduction
Selling on consignment means you sell an item on behalf of its owner (the consignor), keep a fee, and pay them the rest once it sells.
Common Ground does not have a dedicated consignment feature: the fee is not calculated automatically and no payable is generated when the item sells. You can still manage consignment reliably with three existing tools: the Supplier field, the Item cost / Supplier price field, and the Export sales for listings export.
The principle is simple:
The Supplier identifies who owns the item.
The Item cost / Supplier price holds the amount you owe them when it sells.
The sales export lists what sold over a period, with both values on each line.
Create the consignor as a supplier
Go to Inventory and select Suppliers.
Select Create a supplier.
Enter a Supplier name that clearly identifies the consignor, then Submit.
You can also type a new name directly in the Supplier field while editing a listing; it will be created on the fly.
Note: Use one supplier per consignor, and a naming convention that separates them from your regular distributors, for example "Consignment - J. Smith".
Set up a consignment listing
Create the item and its listing as usual, then fill in these fields:
Price: the selling price.
Item cost / Supplier price: the amount owed to the consignor for one unit.
Supplier: the consignor.
Example: an LP is consigned for sale at $100 with a 30% consignment fee.
Price: 100
Item cost / Supplier price: 70 (100 minus the 30% fee)
Supplier: Consignment - J. Smith
Info: The cost is a fixed amount, not a percentage. If you change the price of a consignment listing, update the Item cost / Supplier price as well.
The Item cost / Supplier price is private. It never appears on your Eshop or on invoices.
Find out what you owe a consignor
Go to Inventory.
Filter by Supplier and choose the consignor.
Select Export, then open the Export sales for listings tab.
Under Filter by, choose Order payment date and select the period, for example last month.
Select Export sales for listings.
Download the CSV from the Exports / Jobs page when it is ready.
Each sold unit appears on its own line. The columns you need are:
order_line_listing_supplier: the consignor.order_line_price: the price the item sold for.order_line_listing_cost: the amount owed for one unit.order_line_quantity: the number of units sold on that line.order_payment_date: when the order was paid.
The amount owed for the period is the sum of order_line_listing_cost multiplied by order_line_quantity.
Note: Filtering by Order payment date exports paid orders only, so you never pay out on an order that has not been paid.
Pay the consignor
The payout itself happens outside Common Ground, by cash, bank transfer or any method you agree on. Keep the exported CSV as the statement for that period.
Share stock and sales with a consignor
You can give a consignor a private page showing their items, without giving them access to your Backoffice.
Go to Inventory > Suppliers.
Open the menu of the supplier and select Generate reporting link.
Choose what the link shows: Show prices, Show sales, Allow CSV exports.
Copy the link and send it to the consignor.
The page lists their items with the quantity in stock and, depending on the options, the selling price, the number sold and the last sale date. It does not show the amount owed.
Important to know
Items sold before the Supplier and cost were filled in will appear in the export without those values. Set them up when the item is consigned.
If the consignor takes an unsold item back, set the listing stock to 0 or change its status to Draft.
Info: Consignment sales may have specific tax and bookkeeping rules in your country. Check with your accountant how they should be reported.