Consignment services are helpful in selling products when the owner of the said products is not willing to sell or capable of selling the products by himself. In simple terms, the process when products
Consignment services are helpful in selling products when the owner of the said products is not willing to sell or capable of selling the products by himself. In simple terms, the process when products are sold by a third party shop or service (in exchange of commission) instead of the actual owner selling the items is called consignment service. The storage of the products is the responsibility of the shop or service selling it – the consignee- until they are sold. As long as the items remain unsold, the ownership of them lies with the actual owner – the consignor. By taking the help of consignment services the companies transfer to a third party the trouble of selling the products. The companies, thus, remain productive.
There are several steps to complete a successful consignment service. The steps are –
- Estimation of Value
- Pick-Up and transferring the assets to processing facility
- Inspection
- Embedding Identification technologies like bar code and saving all the information about the items in database.
- Project assignment
- Photographing the items
- Quality Check
- Putting the items into physical stores or listing them on online shopping websites.
- Actual Selling of The Items
- Transfer of payment to the consignor
- Shipping the items to customer
- Maintaining database and generating reports.
All these steps are severely important. The steps are explained in a simple terms below –
Value Estimation
In this step the consignee calculates an estimated selling price of the products. Many a times the consignor himself determines the selling price and it is written on the pro forma invoice.
Pick Up
The consignee picks up the consignment from the consignor’s place and ships to the inventory of the consignee. The charge incurred for things like shipping, protecting the items while shipping, theft protection are usually paid by the consignor. However, after sale, this type of charges are paid by the buyer.
Cursory Inspection
After the consignment reaches the warehouse, a cursory inspection is done to see whether there is any damage or dust. The products are then cleaned thoroughly.
Embedding Identification Technologies
In order to have an organized record of all the products brought from the consignor, the technicians of the consignee put barcode on every product and maintain detailed record of them on the computers.
Project Assignment
Since a consignee deals with several consignors, the products that came from a particular consignor is assigned project codes that separates the products from other consignments.
Imaging
In this step, the team of the consignee photographs the items. This is done mainly for two reasons – storing details of the items, and showcasing them on online shopping websites.
Quality Check
The qualified personnel then check the items externally and internally to see whether any item is unsuitable for sale.
Putting The Items for Sale
The items, after thorough, quality check, are then showcased shopping websites and second hand items website like Ebay (if the items are second hand). Sometimes the consignee displays the items in their physical store if they have one.
Selling
The items are then sold at the price that was fixed by the consignor. In this stage the right to possess the item is transferred from the consignor to the buyer.
Payment
A good consignee maintains a database of the products that were brought from the consignor right from their entry into the consignee’s warehouse till the sale of the items. Due payments are made to the consignor in accordance with the database.
Shipping
The products are then delivered to the buyer with due care.
Report Generation
A good consignee shows transparency in its transaction reports and uses technology to provide the consignor with live reporting of their products
Consignments are a great way of selling items in a hassle-free way. Consignment services help the consignor keep his peace of mind.