Return to Vendor with Purchase Order Entered

Shopify Discussion
1

Our clothing store has an agreement with some vendors to operate on a consignment/trade basis. If a product doesn’t sell within 30 days we can send it back and trade for different items to try to sell.

We enter the items via a purchase order when ordered, and receive them once they arrive.

Problem is when we want to sent the items back to the vendor, there is no way to “boot the items out” of our inventory without just updating quantities. Obviously for a financial, forecasting and analysis point of view - this is a problem.

Shopify doesn’t currently have a solution, nor a workaround that, in the world of debits and credits, actually works. They have suggested maybe some of the inventory management apps would accomodate this.

Was hoping someone might have some experience/insight with this issue and or apps that have resolved this?

Thanks

2

Hi @ChrisJames ,

Consignment inventory is a very common thing in fashion boutiques, especially in physical. However, it is not a common practice for online stores. That should be why there is no out-of-box solution for handling such cases within Shopify.

Although I don’t have the perfect solution, I have some ideas:

You mentioned purchase orders, are you using Shopify Transfers? If so here’s my workaround:

  • Create a virtual warehouse location called “Supplier”. When you receive the consignment inventory, create a transfer from the Supplier location to your main location.

  • When you want to return the consignment inventory to the “Supplier”, simply go into the initial transfer and duplicate it.

  • After duplicating it, reverse the locations in the transfer so it will act as the opposite of a purchase order.

I hope that makes sense, let me know what you think.

If you want to better manage your inventory and replenishment operations; I suggest taking a look at our app Virtual Inventory Assistant.

3

I’m also trying to find a way to process RTV’s with our vendors.

We run a grocery store and boutique.

Some of our products if we get returns we do RTV’s and get credited back but have no way just like you to process these without just doing a manual on hand adjustment which doesn’t attach the PO or even manage the claims/ RTVs that are open/waiting for approvals.