Shopify Consignment Store: Consignors, Splits and Payouts

A consignment shop sells things it does not own. Every item on the rail belongs to someone else until it sells, and from that moment you owe that person a share of the price. So the shop needs three records an ordinary store never keeps: whose item this is, what share they get, and what you still owe them.

This guide shows how far Shopify's own Vendor field and reports take you, and where a spreadsheet or an app takes over. It then compares the seven consignment and vendor-payout listings we read on the Shopify App Store on October 13, 2026, and covers the counter, the payouts and the paperwork around them.

What Shopify Tracks for a Consignment Shop, and Where It Stops

The trade calls the owner of an item a consignor. In the Shopify admin, the field that can hold that person is the product's Vendor, which Shopify's documentation describes as the origin or source of the products you sell. Around that one field sit the product list, the sales reports and the order export.

That is also where the built-in help ends. None of the Shopify Help Center pages we read on October 13, 2026 (vendor management, sales and retail sales reports, order export, metafields, Shopify POS and its inventory pages, Shopify Payments payouts, Bill Pay and US taxes) describes a consignor as a record, a commission split for a consignor, or a balance owed to one. The table shows what that means, need by need.

One Vendor per Product

Shopify's rule is short: each product can be assigned to one vendor. For consignment that means one product, one consignor.

It suits one-of-a-kind items, where every piece is its own product. It does not suit an item two people own together; name one of them as the consignor in your agreement and let them settle between themselves.

The second rule catches people later. If a new product isn't assigned a vendor, the Vendor field defaults to your store name, so an item entered in a hurry is filed as your own stock and never shows up under its consignor.

Shopify itself points vendor data at the question a consignment shop asks. Among the benefits of managing vendor information, its Help Center lists performance evaluation:

Read that sentence for its verb. Vendor data helps you decide; the pages listed above describe no step in which Shopify works out a commission or pays one. The next section gets everything out of the field that it can give.

Tracking Consignors With the Vendor Field and Reports

The manual route uses three places in the admin: the product page, a metafield definition and the sales reports. Each step below names the menu item and the field as Shopify's Help Center names them, as read on October 13, 2026.

Put the Consignor in the Vendor Field

Vendors are created where they are used. In Shopify's words, you create vendors and assign them to products in the Product organization section of each product details page.

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Products and open the item, or add it as a new product.
2. In the Product organization section, enter the consignor in the Vendor field.
3. Save the product.

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Decide what goes in the Vendor field before the first item. Themes built by Shopify can show the vendor to shoppers: in the Featured collection section, for example, a Show vendor setting displays it for each product in the grid. If you would rather not put a consignor's name on your storefront, enter a code in the Vendor field and keep the name in your own records.

For a backlog of items, Shopify says vendor information can be edited in bulk with the bulk editor or a CSV file.

To see everything one consignor has with you, filter the product list:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Products.
2. Click the search and filter icon.
3. Choose the vendor filter (Product vendor in Shopify's Help Center, Vendor in our admin on October 13, 2026) and select the vendor you want to display.
4. Optional: click Save as, enter a name for the view and click Save view, so a regular consignor is one click away.

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Keep the Split and the Intake Date in Metafields

The Vendor field says who. It has no room for the terms. Shopify's metafields extend products, customers and orders with your own custom data, and for a consignment shop a few product fields carry the agreement to the item: the consignor's share, the date the item came in, and the date it goes back if unsold.

Which type each of those takes (a number, a date, a line of text) is covered in our metafields guide, under what a metafield can hold. To create a custom metafield definition:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Products and open a product.
2. In the Metafields section, click Add definition.
3. In the Name field, enter a name for the definition, such as Consignor share.
4. Click Select type, then search for or select the type that matches the value.
5. Click Save.

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Shopify notes that you can alternatively create definitions from Settings > Metafields and metaobjects. After you save, fill in the value on each product you take in. The value is a record for you and your staff; working out a payout from it is still the job described below.

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Read What Each Consignor Sold

Selling is where the Vendor field pays off. The Total sales by vendor report, which you open from Analytics > Reports, displays your vendors and the products provided by each vendor, and clicking the name of a vendor shows the list of products that vendor supplies.

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To bring the vendor into another report:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Analytics > Reports.
2. Click the report that you want to filter by vendor.
3. Click the Columns icon and select Product vendor to display it as a column.
4. Optional: click the filters icon, select Product vendor as the filter, include the vendor you want and click Apply filters.

Two limits shape how you use these reports. Not every report type includes product vendor as an available filter, because not every type displays product-focused data; Shopify names Acquisition and Behavior reports as ones that can't be sorted or filtered by vendor. And reports display a maximum of 1,000 rows; in reports that show totals, the totals still cover every row, and Shopify says you can export the report to access all of its rows.

For the arithmetic, a spreadsheet is easier than a screen. An order export is a CSV file, and its Vendor column holds the product vendor of each line item. Sales at the counter have a report of their own, covered under Shopify POS below.

Open Analytics > Reports in your own admin before you build a routine on any of this. This guide did not check which reports each Shopify plan includes.

Where the Manual Route Stops

Everything above ends with a list of sales per consignor. Four jobs still stand between that list and a paid consignor, and on the manual route each one is yours:

• The split. Multiply each sale by that consignor's share, on the amount your agreement names.
• The balance. Carry what you owe from one period to the next, less what you have paid.
• Refunds. Take a refunded item back out, including one refunded after you paid for it.
• The statement. Show the consignor the sales behind the number.

A spreadsheet handles all four for a small shop. The apps in the next section exist because, as the number of consignors grows, it stops being a pleasant job.

Consignment Apps on the Shopify App Store

Search the App Store for consignment and you meet two different kinds of product under one word. Some are apps in the usual sense: they read your Shopify products and orders and add the consignor layer on top. Others are complete consignment systems with their own subscription, for which Shopify is one of the places the stock is sold.

We read seven listings on October 13, 2026. Treat that as a dated snapshot of the ones we found, not as a list of every consignment app: App Store search results can't be proven complete, and two of the seven were less than a month old that day. Prices, trials and features are each vendor's own claims, and we installed none of the apps.

Consignify, JustConsignIN, Consignor Statement, VendorPayout and LedgerStar work on your Shopify catalogue; ConsignCloud and ConsignR are separate consignment systems that sync to it.

Four Things to Check on Any Listing

The seven differ on the same four points, and the same four questions work on any listing you find after this page was written.

• Does it send the money, or record that you did? Consignify's documentation says you pay the consignor outside Consignify and the app records the payment. Consignor Statement's listing says it does not move money or change your store. ConsignCloud and ConsignR list ACH payouts.
• Is there a consignor portal, and on which tier? Consignify lists a consignor portal with custom branding on all three of its tiers. ConsignCloud lists its Consignor Portal on the Pro tier. ConsignR describes a self-service portal where sellers submit items, and LedgerStar a portal where vendors track sales and request payouts.
• Where does the product live? Consignify's documentation says every product it tracks must exist in your Shopify store. JustConsignIN has you enter the item at intake and uses that same record to create the Shopify product. ConsignR's help center says changes made directly in Shopify will be overwritten by ConsignR.
• How old is the listing? JustConsignIN launched on September 22, 2026 and Consignor Statement on October 13, 2026, the day we read it; neither had a review. A young listing is not a bad app, but its claims have had little time to be tested by other shops.

Apps That Work on Your Shopify Catalogue

These five install from the App Store and work with the store you already run. Consignify, JustConsignIN and Consignor Statement are built around consignors. VendorPayout, whose listing is titled Vendor Payout ‑ Consignment, and LedgerStar are wider vendor-commission tools that a consignment shop can use; LedgerStar's listing speaks of vendors and commissions rather than consignment.

Pick by the job, then read the card for the price. For a statement and nothing more, Consignor Statement is the smallest step up from the manual route. For a portal your consignors log in to, Consignify lists one on all three tiers, and it was the one listing of the seven carrying Shopify's Built for Shopify badge on October 13, 2026. For intake that reaches both the counter and the online store, JustConsignIN's listing names Shopify POS and puts that sync on its $29 tier.

VendorPayout and LedgerStar price by the number of vendors, so count your consignors before you read their ladders: VendorPayout's entry tier stops at 5 vendors and LedgerStar's at 50.

The listings are of very different ages. On October 13, 2026, VendorPayout, launched in September 2014, showed a 4.9 rating from 45 reviews; Consignify, launched in August 2025, showed 4.9 from 23; and LedgerStar, launched in February 2026, showed 5.0 from 5. JustConsignIN and Consignor Statement had no reviews yet.

Consignment Systems That Sync to Shopify

The other two listings are a different purchase. ConsignCloud and ConsignR each run the consignment side in their own software, with consignor accounts, intake and payouts, and connect Shopify to it.

Read the two prices differently. ConsignCloud's listing carries its subscription, from $139 a month. ConsignR's App Store listing reads Free to install, and that is the price of the connection, not of the system: per ConsignR's own pricing page, read on October 13, 2026, the subscription starts at $99 a month, and the Shopify integration is a separate add-on included at no cost on every plan.

Both list ACH payouts on their entry tier, and ConsignCloud lists its consignor portal on Pro.

That trade is the honest limit of a Shopify-first consignment shop. If consignment is the whole business, with intake at the counter all day and consignors who expect a login and a bank transfer, the system of record is the consignment software, and Shopify is the storefront and checkout attached to it.

If consignment is one rail in a shop that mostly sells its own stock, the five apps above, or the manual route, keep Shopify at the centre.

Selling Consigned Items at the Counter With Shopify POS

Most consignment shops have a counter. Shopify POS syncs with your Shopify admin to track orders and inventory across your retail locations, online store and other active sales channels, so the product you created in the admin is the product your staff sell on the tablet. One requirement from the same page: multi-location needs to be activated in your store settings to use POS.

Card readers, subscription tiers and in-person card rates are a subject of their own, covered in our Shopify POS guide for retail.

Two parts of the manual route follow the item to the counter:

• The metafields. Shopify says most defined product and variant metafield types can be viewed in Shopify POS, from a product's View details screen under Metafields, so the consignor's share or the intake date is a couple of taps away. Undefined product metafields aren't shown, and the device has to be connected to the internet.
• The report. POS total sales by vendor displays your vendors and the products provided by each vendor, grouped by point of sale location.

Consigned stock is mostly one of a kind, which means one product per item and a quantity of one. Shopify lets you track, adjust, count and receive inventory from the admin or from POS; how to list and price single items is the subject of our second-hand store guide.

If you add an app, read its listing for the counter specifically. As of October 13, 2026, JustConsignIN lists Shopify POS under Works with and puts POS and online store sync on its $29 tier, and ConsignR's pricing page describes syncing your Shopify storefront and POS. For any other app, ask the vendor before you rely on it at the till.

Paying Consignors: Shopify Pays You, You Pay Them

A consigned sale moves money twice. The customer pays your store, and later you pay the consignor. Shopify is part of the first movement only.

Where Shopify Sends the Money

At checkout a consigned item is one more product in your store: the customer pays you. What happens next takes one sentence of Shopify's payout documentation:

One bank account, and it is yours. The payouts section of the Help Center, read on October 13, 2026, describes payment only to the merchant's payout bank account.

When that money arrives depends on your payout schedule, which our guide to how Shopify pays you covers under payout schedule options. It matters here because you can't pay a consignor from a payout that hasn't landed.

If customers pay through a third-party payment gateway instead of Shopify Payments, Shopify says you can't view payout information in your Shopify admin, so you reconcile against the gateway's own statements.

Expect the two numbers not to match. The vendor report shows what an item sold for; your payout is what reaches the bank after Shopify's deductions. Our accounting guide explains why your payout never equals your sales, and that gap is the reason your agreement has to say which amount the consignor's share is taken from.

Ways to Get the Money to a Consignor

That leaves the second movement. As of October 13, 2026, the sources we read describe two rails, and the table adds Shopify Bill Pay as a US option to ask Shopify about:

Of the three rows, Shopify Bill Pay is the one inside the Shopify admin. Read its page before you plan a payout routine around it; the row above quotes what Shopify describes it for.

When a Balance Becomes Payable

Take one sale as an example. The figures are ours, chosen for easy arithmetic; they are not a typical price or a usual split. A jacket sells for $120 under an agreement that gives the consignor 50% of the sale price, so you owe the consignor $60.

Now the buyer returns the jacket. If you had already paid, the consignor is holding money that is no longer theirs, and you either ask for it back or net it against their next payout. If you had waited, there is nothing to undo.

That is the whole argument for a payable date: a sale counts toward the balance at once, and becomes payable only when your return window has closed.

Apps make this visible; they do not make it go away. Consignify's documentation says it computes the commission due to each consignor in real time, and that a saved payout keeps the quantities and amounts recorded when it was created, which leaves a later refund as an adjustment for you to make.

A consignor can also ask for a payout from Consignify's portal, and its documentation is plain about what that is: a notification for you to review, after which you still prepare the payout and pay through your usual method.

Sales Tax and Consignor Paperwork: Where This Guide Stops

Two tax questions sit on top of every consignment shop: who is the seller for sales tax when the item belongs to someone else, and what paperwork follows the money you pay out. Both depend on where you and your consignors are, and this guide answers neither. What it can do is show what two official pages say, and where each one stops.

For stores that sell in the United States, Shopify's taxes page says that Shopify doesn't remit or file your taxes for you, with one exception it names: Shopify Tax with automated filing set up. How collection is switched on, and who can still use that exception, is covered in our US sales tax guide. The same Shopify page then draws its own line:

On the payout side, the document to start from in the US is the IRS Instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC.

The IRS pairs these instructions with the December 2026 revision of both forms, for filing 2026 information. Read on October 13, 2026, they say two things that touch a consignment shop. Their lists of payments for which a Form 1099-MISC or a Form 1099-NEC is not required both include "Payments for merchandise, telegrams, telephone, freight, storage, and similar items." And their Form 1099-NEC instructions tell payers to enter nonemployee compensation of $2,000 or more, a threshold that applies for tax years beginning after 2025 and may be adjusted for inflation beginning in calendar year 2027. Which of those a payout to your consignor is, a payment for merchandise or compensation, is a classification this guide does not make; it is the first question for your tax professional.

The Terms Your Setup Needs Before the First Item

A consignment agreement is a legal document, and this guide does not supply one. What it can tell you is which terms the tools take as inputs: Consignify calculates payouts from your commission rules, JustConsignIN adds consignors with commission rates, and Consignor Statement applies a share per consignor.

What those terms usually say is trade practice, not a Shopify fact. For one trade's version, our bookstore guide walks through the terms for books you hold but do not own.

If you are on the other side of the counter, placing your own work with a shop or a gallery, the consignor's view is in our guide for artists, under galleries and consignment.

Set It Up in This Order

The seven steps below apply to the manual route and to the five apps that work on your catalogue. On the app route, steps three and six change hands: the app holds the share and does the multiplication, so you check its numbers against the vendor report instead of building the spreadsheet. With JustConsignIN, step four starts in the app: its intake record creates the Shopify product, so check the Vendor field on the product it creates. Step one comes first on every route, and step seven is the one people skip.

If you chose ConsignCloud or ConsignR, steps two to four happen in that system, not in the Shopify admin: your consignor list stays there, and ConsignR's help center says changes made directly in Shopify will be overwritten.

The Bottom Line

Consignment on Shopify is less a feature than a habit: the same field filled in on every item, the same report read at the same time each month, the same terms applied to every sale. The tools differ in how much of that habit they take off your hands.

Frequently Asked Questions