How to keep track of reseller inventory

What inventory means in reselling

Inventory for a reseller isn’t what it is for a shop with barcodes and reorder points. Most of what you sell is one of a kind. A 1960s Pyrex bowl in a particular pattern, a quilt with a repaired corner, a single brass lamp. You can’t reorder it, and when it’s gone, it’s gone.

Alongside the one-offs, there’s usually some quantity stock (a bin of matching napkins, a case of mason jars) and a “death pile”: things you’ve bought and haven’t cleaned, photographed or listed yet. A useful inventory system has to handle all three, and it has to answer a few plain questions:

• What do I own right now, and where is it?
• What did I pay for this piece?
• What’s been sitting too long?
• What sold, and for how much?

Where Sellers Almanac stands

Inventory items are in development: each piece with its photos and cost. They aren’t in the test build yet, and there’s no date. See the roadmap.

What exists today is the money side. You can record each sourcing Purchase, each Expense and each Sale, add a note to every one, and see what you spent and what customers paid for Today and This week. That covers the “what did I pay” and “what sold” questions in aggregate, but not per piece. Per-item cost, item status and photos are part of the planned inventory work.

A working inventory system for now

You don’t need software to run a sound inventory. Here’s a system that works with a roll of masking tape and one list, and fits alongside the records Sellers Almanac keeps today.

1. Number every piece when it comes home. A tag or strip of tape with a short code: “E-112”. Use a letter for the source if it helps: E for estate sales, T for thrift.
2. Keep one inventory list. A notebook or a spreadsheet, one row per piece: number, description, date bought, where it came from, what you paid, where it’s stored, status (to clean, ready, listed, sold).
3. Record the purchase with the numbers in the note. “Estate sale, Maple Ave: E-112 to E-130.” Now the money record and the inventory list point at each other.
4. For box lots, divide the cost on the list. If eighteen pieces came in one $90 lot, decide how to split it (evenly, or weighted by what you expect each to sell for) and write each share on the list. Be consistent.
5. Record each sale with the number in the note. “E-118, Pyrex bowl, Facebook Marketplace pickup.” Then mark it sold on the list.
6. Once a month, walk the shelves. Anything still marked “to clean” after a month goes on the next listing day. Anything listed for months might move better at a lower price or in a different place.

Vintage and antique specifics

For one-of-a-kind goods, the inventory list earns its keep in the details. Note condition at the time you buy, before you forget what was already chipped. Note measurements for furniture and textiles; buyers always ask. Note anything you learned about a piece’s history from the estate sale company. None of it fits in a price tag, and all of it helps sell.

What inventory items will add

Inventory items, now in development, bring that list into the app: individual items with photos and their cost, from the day you buy them to the sale. It’s also the foundation for item-level cost and, later, profit figures worked out from recorded amounts. Marketplace connections are planned separately, for a later phase still.

Until then, the habits above will make moving into it straightforward. Every piece numbered, every purchase and sale noted, and nothing guessed.

Related reading

If profit per piece is the question behind your inventory, the page on profit on your flips explains what can be recorded today. If you’re currently running everything from a spreadsheet, see the spreadsheet alternative. And for what works today, start with recording in seconds.

Sellers Almanac is in founder testing on iPhone and isn’t available to download yet.