Consignment without the guesswork: tracking your work across every shop that carries it
Somewhere out there, right now, your work is sitting on a shelf you can't see.
That's consignment. It's one of the best ways for a maker to get into real shops — and one of the easiest ways to lose track of your own inventory.
The consignment problem: your inventory, someone else's shelf
When a shop buys wholesale, the deal is clean: they pay, it's theirs, you move on. Consignment stays open-ended. The pieces are still yours, but they live in someone else's shop, sell on someone else's schedule, and get reported back to you whenever the shop gets around to it.
With one store, you can hold it in your head. With five, you can't. Which pieces are at the gallery downtown? Did the coast shop sell those earrings or are they still in the case? Were you ever paid for March? Every question means a text you feel awkward sending.
Why the spreadsheet always drifts
Most makers fight this with a spreadsheet, and most consignment spreadsheets are quietly wrong. Not because you're careless — because the information arrives late and out of order.
A shop tells you in June about something that sold in April. You drop off twelve pieces on a busy morning and update the sheet from memory that night — eleven make it in. A piece comes back damaged and gets set aside, still listed as "at the shop." Each little drift is nothing. Together, after a year, the spreadsheet is a story about your inventory, not a record of it.
And a number you don't trust is almost worse than no number: you still have to text the shop and count the case to be sure.
What "good" looks like
A consignment system you can trust answers three questions for every piece, per shop:
- On hand — still in your studio, available to sell or place.
- Placed — sitting at a specific shop, unsold. Still yours.
- Sold — sold at that shop, with the date, the shop's cut, and your share.
The test is that the numbers add up. What you made equals what's on hand, plus what's placed, plus what's sold. When a piece moves, it moves from one bucket to another — it never just disappears.
How AMS keeps consignment straight
AMS gives every shop that carries your work its own record: contact details, payment terms, their commission rate, and the running history of what you've placed, what's sold, and what they owe you.
Consignment stock is tracked separately from the stock in your studio, so your on-hand count and your placed count always balance — you can't oversell a piece that's sitting in a shop window three towns away.
And when a shop reports a sale, you log it once. AMS applies that shop's commission rate and your cost of making the piece, and shows what you actually earned — not the sticker price, the real number. Over time that tells you something no spreadsheet ever did: which shops are actually worth the shelf space.
The monthly check-in: minutes, not an afternoon
Reconciling with a shop stops being awkward when you arrive with a list. Once each store's record is current, the monthly check-in is short: here's what our records show you're holding, here's what sold, here's what's due. The shop confirms or corrects, you log anything new, done.
No detective work. No "I think we sent you a check?" Just two businesses comparing notes — which, it turns out, is what consignment was supposed to feel like all along.
Common questions
What's the difference between consignment and wholesale?
With wholesale, the shop buys your work outright — they own it, and you've been paid. With consignment, the shop displays your work but you still own it; you get paid only when a piece sells, and the shop keeps an agreed percentage.
How do I track which store has which pieces?
Record every placement — what you dropped off, where, and when — and log sales against that store as you hear about them. In AMS, each retailer has its own record, so the store's stock, sales, and payment history live together instead of scattered across texts and memory.
How do consignment commissions affect my actual profit?
More than most makers expect. If a shop takes 40% of a $100 sale, you receive $60 — and your materials and labor come out of that, not out of the $100. AMS calculates each sale's profit after the shop's cut and your costs, so you see the real number, not the sticker price.
What should a consignment agreement cover?
At minimum: the commission split, when and how you get paid, who covers loss or damage, how long pieces stay before they rotate back, and how either side ends the arrangement. Get it in writing — a friendly one-page agreement protects both of you. (General pointers, not legal advice.)
