ConsignHQ

There are thousands of independent consignment and resale shops across the country. Most of them run on software that looks like it was built in 2005, because it was.

The dominant player in the space, ConsignPro, is a Windows desktop application that stores data locally, prints to thermal printers via serial drivers, and requires you to be physically standing at your store's computer to do anything meaningful. It works. It's reliable. And it hasn't meaningfully evolved in over a decade.

The problem is, the world has. Shop owners want to check inventory from their phone. Consignors want to see their account balances without calling the store. And nobody wants to configure Zebra printer drivers in 2026.

ConsignHQ is the modern replacement.

What It Is

ConsignHQ is a cloud-based platform for consignment and resale shops that handles everything: inventory management, point of sale, consignor portals, settlements, reporting, and the dozens of small workflows that make a consignment shop different from a regular retail store.

The consignment model is deceptively complex. Every item has an owner who isn't the store. Every sale triggers a split: some percentage to the consignor, some to the shop. Some shops use flat splits, some use sliding scales based on how long an item sat on the floor. Some shops do buyouts. Some do vendor accounts. Some do layaways. The combinations are endless, and general-purpose retail software doesn't handle any of it.

ConsignHQ does. It's built specifically for this industry, by someone who spent months studying exactly how these shops operate.

Why It Exists

I've been building software professionally for almost 30 years. When I started looking at the consignment software market, I couldn't believe what I found. The tools shop owners rely on daily are desktop-only, single-store, and completely disconnected from the modern web. There's no API. No mobile access. No consignor self-service. No cloud backup that doesn't involve USB drives and prayer.

And then ConsignPro started forcing upgrades. Shop owners who had been running the same version for years were suddenly told they needed to move to a new system, and the path forward wasn't clear. Facebook groups lit up. People were frustrated, confused, and looking for alternatives.

That's when I knew there was a real opportunity. Not just to clone what already existed, but to rethink what consignment software should look like in 2026.

What Makes It Different

ConsignHQ isn't a desktop app with a web wrapper. It's cloud-native from the ground up.

Every shop gets its own branded storefront subdomain. Consignors log in to check their balances, review sold items, and track settlements without calling the shop. Staff can ring up sales from a tablet or a phone. Owners can pull reports from anywhere.

The platform is multi-tenant, so adding a second location doesn't mean buying another license and syncing databases over a network share. It just works.

And we're building in things that legacy software never touched: AI-assisted pricing, automated markdown schedules, marketing tools to help shops actually grow their business, not just manage their inventory.

The Stack

• React 19 frontend
• FastAPI (Python) backend
• Clerk for authentication
• Vercel for hosting
• Multi-tenant architecture with organization-based separation

Where It Stands

We're in alpha right now with a real shop owner testing the platform and providing daily feedback. The core modules — inventory, consignors, POS, settlements — are functional. We're working through the kind of workflow polish that only comes from watching someone actually use the thing in a real store.

Beta is planned for Q1 2026. If you run a consignment shop and you're tired of software that feels like a time capsule, we'd love to have you on the waitlist.

The Part I'm Most Proud Of

The AI. ConsignHQ has an AI assistant baked directly into the platform, and it's not a gimmick or a chatbot bolted on the side. It understands your store's data. You can ask it plain-English questions like "what were my top-selling categories last month?" or "which consignors haven't brought items in 90 days?" and it gives you real answers from your actual numbers.

But the assistant is just the starting point. We're building AI into the bones of the platform. Snap a photo of an item and AI suggests the category, brand, condition, and a price based on what similar items have sold for. It generates product descriptions for your online storefront. It flags slow-moving inventory and recommends markdowns before items go stale. It predicts which consignors are at risk of leaving so you can reach out before they're gone.

None of the legacy tools in this space have anything close to this. ConsignHQ is being built now, which means we get to weave intelligence into every workflow instead of tacking it on after the fact.

Check It Out

Head to consignhq.com to learn more and join the waitlist. Early adopters get founder pricing that locks in for as long as they stay.