Returning items to a consignor is a common workflow for consignment shops. Alternatively, items may be donated instead of being returned. To keep track of an item's lifecycle in your store, ConsignCloud uses an item's Status field.

When an item is received into inventory, it is given a status of Active, and an Expiration Date. If the item doesn't sell and its expiration date comes and goes, it will still have the status of Active — it's up to you to decide what should happen next.

To help you keep track of how you have agreed to dispose of an item, inventory also has a Terms field, which can be set either to "donate" or "return to consignor".

To see which items have passed their expiration date, visit the Inventory table and click View » Expired. Now that you have all expired items, you can determine what you would like to do with them.

To help you distinguish which items have been returned to their owners from items that have been taken out of inventory but not yet returned, we have two statuses: "to be returned" and "returned to owner". If you prefer not to think about this distinction, however, you can collapse the two at Settings » Policy.

To return or donate items in bulk, hit the checkbox next to the items you wish to return, then open up the Actions and choose Update Status.

From here you'll be presented with a preview of changes to be made, including a warning for items whose Terms field doesn't match the workflow you've selected. If you'd like to skip any of these items, simply click the X for that row.

To change the status for an individual item, visit its detail page, click on the three vertical dots at the top of the left pane, then click Change Status. Next, choose the new status, and finalize the status change.

In either case, if an item was returned or prepared for a return, and the Items Returned email template is enabled, a notification will be sent to all involved accounts when the batch is sent, usually early the next morning.