How do I Use Discounts?
Discounts are used at point of sale to reduce the price of an item or an entire sale. Discounts can be used for short-term promotions, or for supporting long-standing policies, like an incentive to get consignors to spend their credit in-store.
Note that discounts are only available using ConsignCloud Register, our advanced Point of Sale add-on. Learn more about the ConsignCloud Advanced POS in the article below:
You can create a discount by pressing "Add Discount" under the "Discounts" tab in the ConsignCloud Register settings.
Discount Types
There are three basic discount types:
Store Discounts can be used to take a discount entirely from the store share of the sale and leave the consignor's portion untouched.
Consignor Discounts are likewise used to take a discount entirely from the consignor's portion. If this isn't possible, the remainder will be taken out of the store's portion.
Shared Discounts impact both consignor and store portions evenly.
Like surcharges, discounts can generally be set up to be either a fixed amount or a percentage adjustment using the value type field.
NOTE: There is currently no option for changing the price of an item as a discount (e.g. all dresses are $6 on Monday) in discount creation/editing.
Discount Rules and Schedules
Rules
Stores can add Rules to their Discounts if they want their Discounts to automatically apply to certain items in their store whether by tags or categories. For example, a store has a sale day where everything with the tag "SUMMER SALE 2025" is 20% off. They can use this Rule field to associate all items with the tag "SUMMER SALE 2025" with the 20% off discount.
NOTE: Applying a Discount to a tag will only work if the tag has already been created.
In the Rules field, click "+ Add a Rule" and apply the discount to all items with your correct tag. Also note that if multiple rules are specified, only one rule has to match for the policy object to be applied.
This same rule can apply to Categories too. If that same store had a sale where all dresses are 15% off, they could change the rule to apply to all items with Category "Dresses".
Schedules
Schedules can also be added to a discount. This incentivizes store owners to cycle through their inventory faster. To apply a scheduled discount to a sale, scroll to the bottom of the discount creation screen and click "+ Add a Phase". You can add an unlimited amount of phases to your discount schedule, which you can edit based on your store's policy.
NOTE: When using a discount schedule, remember to keep in mind your initial discount value. This amount will usually start at 0% and increase as the phases of the schedule start rolling out. The discount value percentage is where the discount will start at the beginning of the schedule.
NOTE: You can also set discounts up to be applied on a buy-on-get-one basis using the BOGO Threshold field.
Using your Discount in the POS
Once a discount has been created, a button will appear for it under shortcuts at point of sale. If you wish to apply a discount to every item in the sale — for instance, on a 20% off everything day — use this button. You can disable this button when creating a discount by toggling off "Add Quick Button to POS".
Discounting One Item in a Sale
If you wish to apply a discount to just a single item in a sale, first add the item to the sale, and then click on its name in the Sale Summary. Find the Discounts section and check the box of the discount you'd like to apply. When it has been applied, the name and amount of the discount should appear directly under the item in the Sale Summary.
Discounting All Items in a Sale
To Discount All items in a sale, you can either click on the Shortcuts Button for your Discounts to discount the entire cart. If you haven't created a Shortcut, you'll need to add it to each item individually using the method illustrated above:
Discounts are listed individually in your Sales Summary. This can be helpful for limited-time sale events, where it's important to compare the discounts given against the boost in sales. It is also important to evaluate the effectiveness of long-standing discount policies over time — even though they are popular, they may not pencil out for your particular store and customer base.
FAQs
Can I add a premade discount to an item at the time of Item Entry?
No, discounts are not added on items directly but are added when the items are in the POS. One of the key rules of Discounts is that they are not linked with items automatically—discounts are a part of the selling process. They are variables applied to prices when the item sells.
For this reason, if stores are augmenting their discounts, they do this either in the Discount Settings or in the POS.
If you want to Discount just one item, the best way is to just amend the price of that item.
I am running a fire sale this weekend and I want all dresses to be discounted to $1. How do I do this?
Unfortunately, ConsignCloud does not currently have the ability to run a Discount to set the price to a certain point. Currently our only options for a discount are to discount the full price of an item by a certain percentage or a fixed amount.
There is a possible workaround for this type of discount though, in which you export a set of items you want to discount, you then Bulk Edit all the prices of a set of items to a certain Tag Price (I.E. All dresses are $1), and then after your sale you must re-upload the inventory and update the prices back to the former Tag Price.
I see your Discount Rules can be applied to Categories and Tags. Can they be applied to other fields like Brand, Account, or Custom Fields?
No, right now the only fields you can apply Discounts to by rule are Category and Tags. However, indirectly this does mean that you can absolutely apply the discount by rule to of those other fields. Simply go to the Inventory Table, tag all the Inventory in the field you want to discount, and then add that Tag to the Discount Rule.
I am a store that just transitioned to ConsignCloud. What do I need to know about Discounts?
If you are an existing store that just transitioned to ConsignCloud, the best thing to be aware of is that your data needs to be somewhat organized to make the best use of our Discount Rules. Some other consignment data systems do not incentivize keeping clear track of your Categories in particular, so when new stores transition to ConsignCloud, they might have 4,000 Categories coming from their old system. Because ConsignCloud adds Discounts along the lines of Categories and Tags, the best thing you can do is keep your Category data clean and organized so that Discounts can be automatically applied and so you can use ConsignCloud to its maximum potential!