Consignment Ease Software Solution

Alternative to Consignment Ease

Convert your program and data to Best Consignment Shop Software and put an end to those annual support fees.

Consignment Ease was originally written by Bill Hawkins and a programmer from India. Bill passed the software on to a couple in Colorado and it was subsequently passed on to another small outfit in Iowa which hopes to gain big bucks by 'updating' Consignment Ease to their program and by requiring ongoing never-ending support fees. The initial costs are high and the ongoing support fees 'should be' completely unnecessary.

The best alternative to 'Consignment Ease' is Best Consignment Shop Software - a far better design and no annual or monthly support fees. Conversion is fairly simple and live training is available to make the transition an easy one.

Most importantly, the initial cost and the long-term cost are well below all other alternatives.

Another avenue of savings with BCSS is integrated credit-card processing. While most card processors quote a low rate for 'qualified cards' most cards are not 'qualified' in that they are the more costly rewards/travel/business cards which double the quoted rate. It's quite likely that the cost of accepting credit cards will also be reduced by taking advantage of the credit-card integration in BCSS (which apparently wasn't available in Consignment Ease).

BCSS includes an option that will allow for the deduction of a percentage at settlement for credit-card sales. The percentage can be based upon the consignor's share or it can be based upon the total amount of the sale. Requiring consignors to share in the expense of accept payment by plastic gives a boost to store net profit.

Other features in the new program that may not have been included in Consignment Ease:

  • Rewards Program awarding points to shoppers to be used for future purchases
  • Multiple discount schedules can be applied to a variety of inventory categories.
  • A different consignor % can be assigned to each consignor and/or to each inventory item.
  • Pictures can be taken, stored and recalled (at POS) to prevent tag switching
  • Employees can be denied access to any part of the program or data and they can be prevented from granting discounts at POS and/or voiding sales.
  • Information about buy-outright items and sellers can be recorded (and where required, reported to the police with BCSS Virtual).
  • A variety of thermal adhesive and non-adhesive price labels can be printed with or without barcodes.
  • Buy/Sell price suggestions can be offered by the program (optional feature).
  • Floor space in malls and flea markets can be managed. Expenses including rent can be deducted from sales proceeds.
  • With BCSS Virtual, consignors can view the account information and add inventory items online.

Best Consignment Shop Software is tied in price and features. BCSS Deluxe at $395 satisfies the needs of most small stores, printing agreements, price labels, hang tags, receipts, reports, settlements and checks using a common ink printer. It supports the use of a cash drawer, receipt printer and bar-code scanner. Again, there are no annual or monthly support fees.

Consignment Software Buyer's Guide

Types of Software and Providers
 
1. Feeware - Endless charges after purchase. If you're going to be in business for 20 years, then expect to pay from $2,000 (minimum) to $12,000 in 'service fees'.

BCSS™?  No Fees!  "Anything 'wrong' with software should be fixed free of charge. If there's nothing wrong with the software, there's no need for 'service', so why 'service fees'?"

Feeware providers: CCE, Conpro, ConsignmentTill, Liberty, My Sales Manager, Rico, Simple Consign, Stoker, The Consignment Shop, Traxia (Simple Consign), TriTech (AIMsi)
2. Rentalware - You pay for the use of the software. You don't own it.

3. Soloware - In the past 10 years a half dozen or so individuals have tried and failed at selling consignment software 'on the side'. Their customers lost their 'investment' and had to buy and learn another program.

BCSS™? is a software development company!  "We are not programmers and we are not programmer-dependent. We hire independents who specialize in programming and that leaves us to concentrate on service."

Soloists: Everyone but Liberty and BCSS™. Don't be fooled by posers with websites, company names and toll-free numbers. If you're talking to the 'programmer' who is also the 'salesman'...
4. Surpriseware - Costly discoveries (often after the money-back period) of fees and adverse policies which weren't given adequate disclosure prior to purchase.

BCSS™?  No Surprises!  "We provide a written disclosure of prices and policies prior to purchase."

Here's a prime example from CCE in Boulder: Most programs include layaways, special promotions and buy outright (resale) as standard features. These features are included in CCE's $395 program demo which can give the demo user the impression that these features are included in the program and in the price. Upon purchase these features are disabled (without any fanfare). The buyer is left to discover some time later that these features that worked in the demo don't work in the purchased version and he or she must pay an additional $180 to reenable them. Surprise! This sham allows CCE to advertise a $575 program for $395.

Another: As your business grows you'll need more computers which will require additional copies of the software. Each additional copy of BCSS Deluxe™ is $99, Diamond™ or Virtual™: $199. Each additional copy of Liberty or Conpro is $295. With 5 copies of the software Liberty's fees are $600+/year! Conpro: $250. "Back-end loading" What happened to those up-front claims on home pages about being 'competitively priced'?

And another: Some providers herald updates to their software as "FREE!" then do a little arm twisting to make sure fees get paid by withholding those 'free updates' if fees aren't paid. Oh, and service is also denied.

5. Dirtypoolware - The providers with the highest fees won't lower prices and compete fairly in an open market but they do lower themselves to slandering lower-priced competitors and piling on fees after purchase.

BCSS™:  "We provide a free demo so users can determine that the software is right for them without cost, and we confirm the full cost in writing prior to purchase. Over 20 years BCSS™ will cost $400-$600. Liberty or Conpro will cost more than $10,000. Here's their past and present 'ideas' for add-on fees in addition to annual service fees: home copy $295, data conversion $200, credit-card processing 'integration' (totally unnecessary) $245, transfer fee $500, hardware mark ups +40%, shipping charges +5%, cables $15, printer/barcode support $75/incident, computer diagnosis $50/incident, antivirus troubleshooting $75/incident, Windows support $100/HOUR, network support $120/hour, data recovery $150/hour, phone time $100/hour, data storage $72/year, database 'tune up' $69/incident.
6. Trapware - Some consignment software vendors push 'X-Charge' credit-card services. Why? Lowest rates? No. They do it because X-Charge kicks a portion of every sale back to the vendor. Find where that is disclosed on any of their websites or pre-sale materials. (It's a common practice of such vendors to push kick-back services without disclosure, like FormsPlus for forms and labels- https://formsplusinc.com/collections/tags/products/laser-inkjet-labels-nonstick.)

If you were to go the X-Charge route, you'll be trapped, having paid $x,xxx for consignment software 'integrated with X-Charge'. If at some point you want to change to a different credit-card processing system, you won't because you paid $x,xxx for the consignment software and you don't want to lose that money. You would be trapped.

This also applies to annual service fees. Once you're locked into a software program, you can count on frequent increases in the 'annual service fee' and you can expect to be hit with new fees as these vendors lose market share and attempt to make up their loses by taxing your shop profits.

BCSS™:  You can use any credit-card processor and merchant account because they are completely independent of the consignment software. Credit-card providers often employ a little arm twisting of their own - raising fees as time progresses. If and when that happens, you will have the freedom to take your credit-card business elsewhere and save money while you continue to use BCSS™ uninterrupted.

BCSS™:  has recently been integrated with credit-card processing with the First National Bank of Omaha as the back-end provider. It is not necessary to enroll in this service but rates are lower than most: Visa + .1% + 5c per transaction, no application or termination fees.

Also, BCSS does not have annual service fees, so there are no annual-fee rate increases!

While on this subject, many store owners obtain merchant accounts from their local banks (where they are known and applications are quickly and easily accepted).
7. Payforeverware - Similar to Feeware but web based.

Web-based means the software is installed on a remote computer (somewhere) and the software program is accessed using a web browser. In addition to the risk of depending upon the Internet to run your business, web-based is slower than computer-installed software, and there's a monthly fee that never ends. Providers of this type of software proffer sales slogans like "Low start-up cost!" and "No long-term contract!" without equally emphasizing that the cost of the software over a short 5-year period can be $6000 to $9000 (depending upon the number of registered users) - and NO equity.
8. Bad Appleware - Every industry has a bad apple and this one is no exception.

Wilson of 'Conpro' was exposed in a public forum for targeting a group of his users for fee extortion. The group had elected not to pay optional annual service fees for the past few years. Wilson offered them an alleged 'free update' to their software which disabled their software a few days later. When contacted about the problem, Wilson refused to unlock the software (remove the 'bug' as he called it) until he was paid off. He bragged in the same forum thread about 'firing' customers when "they cost you more than they earn you". Bad grammar aside, the original post has been removed.


BCSS™ vs the Competition
 

Software providers with big price tags absurdly guarantee that paying (literally) thousands of dollars will yield a better program and better service - no - a superior program and superior service. Nonsense! The fact is, for them it's better to have one person paying $10,000 than 20 people paying $500 - one person to service - not 20.

Software providers with big price tags are fully aware of your situation and they shamelessly exploit it. You're nervous but excited, apprehensive but hopeful, and covered up in details and decisions. Here are just a few strategies to get you hooked into a program that (literally) costs $1,000s:

  1. Hang out in forums and post tid bits of information in hopes of being perceived as the good neighbor who's 'just trying to help'.

  2. Use websites to splatter sales pitches on the home page and scatter fees on sub pages. (Currently it takes 22 mouse clicks to view all of Liberty's fees on their website.) It is vital to your success to know all costs prior to jumping in. Why aren't fees up front where they can be easily found?

  3. Purposely avoid giving proper emphasis to costs which will emerge later on. For example, as your business grows, you'll need more computers to process the business. Each computer will need a copy of the software. Liberty and Conpro: $395 per machine. BCSS™: $99.

  4. Another example: With 5 machines in use, Liberty's MONTHLY service fee increases to $51 ($600+ per year). Conpro fees increase from $125 to $250 per year.

We have 3 competitors who employ slander as part of their attempts to steer our prospective customers away from us: Liberty, Conpro and CCE (Boulder, CO). Liberty circulates a preposterous email with gross misrepresentations of our software. Wilson would have you believe that we have had unhappy customers and we haven't. CCE (Bill Hawkins in hiding) mimics our name (using Best Consignment Software and URLs like bestconsignmentsoftware.com) in hopes of pilfering business from us, so why target us?

We are #1 in the search engines for all keywords related to our business and we have been since our inception in 2001. When people search Google for 'consignment software' they find our site listed first (in the free listings). Our program is absolutely loved by most people who use it. (The ones who aren't thrilled are the ones who also have trouble knowing how to use computers in general.) Sure we've had a few people who were disgruntled. What company hasn't? The simple fact is that over 1,300 BCSS™ users have saved $1,500,000+ (that's one million five hundred thousand dollars) in 8 years by choosing our software and not our competitors'. Our reward is knowing that our competitors will fail in the end and deservedly so.

Replace CCE with Best Consignment Shop Software


Best Consignment Shop Software has a layout that is similar to 'Consignment Success' so you're already familiar with where things are and how to use them.

Dissimilar to Hawkins and most consignment-software vendors, Best Consignment Shop Software does not charge an annual service fee. Moreover they don't play the 'optional annual support fee' game by withholding software updates if the 'optional fee' is not paid. Vendors put it a different way: "Free updates with paid annual support!" which is a sales slogan for 'if you don't pay the annual fee, we'll force you to pay it by withholding software updates and if that doesn't pry your money lose, you'll be denied support in any form'.

Best Consignment Shop Software is completely compatible with any hardware that was compatible with CCE.

Your current data can be converted for use in Best Consignment Shop Software. The conversion provides the opportunity to do away with old records in your new program. Existing data can also be saved in spreadsheets for reference and for print out.

The inherent risk of most consignment-software programs written by an individual (as CCE was) is that the 'author' or 'programmer' will one day no longer be available, as is the case with Mr. Hawkins passing away this past summer. Resaleworld and Best Consignment Shop Software are the only consignment-software programs available which are not reliant upon one person for future software support.

It is true that Hawkins had sold out to a couple in Boulder, CO who didn't hold it for long before passing it on to another mom-pop shop in Iowa which falsely insinuates that 'they' are Best Consignment Shop Software by advertising in Google as 'Best Consignment Shop Software Solution'.

A free live tutorial is available prior to purchase. Call 888-427-5779.




These are the questions to ask and things to know when looking for a replacement for 'Computer Consultants Exchange's' CCE program:

  • Did you write the program? If "yes" the same risk exists as did with CCE.
  • Do you hold yourself out to be a company? If so, how many people are employed by you? (You will need proof of this because conpro for one will lie about it.)
  • Are software updates free? If "yes", do I have to pay annual support fees to acquire the updates?
  • Do you have an annual or monthly support fee?
  • Are there additional fees for training?
  • Is training included in your repetitive fee? If so, what are the limitations?
  • If you are offering software on a lease, for how long is the lease payable? Is there any equity?
  • Do I have the right to resell your software? If "yes", what are the conditions?
    • Conpro will tell you that his software can be resold and will purposely avoid telling you that the software CANNOT be sold to just anyone. It can only be sold to a person buying your store AND continuing to use your business name, address and phone number, which rarely happens.
    • Resaleworld will determine that value of their software and charge the purchaser 50% in addition to what you are to be paid by the purchaser, effectively killing any chance of reselling their software.
  • Web-based programs never have any equity value.
  • How often have you raised prices in the past 5 years for software and hardware? How much?
  • How often have you raised prices for support? How much?
  • Do you practice anti-selection against your customers?
    • Wilson at Conpro reserves the right to 'fire' customers when he determines they (in his words) "cost you more than they earn you" and claimed in a public forum to have been taught this practice by a 'business school'.
    • Have your 'fired' customers in the past? If so, did you refund their money?
  • Do you bash your competitors on your website or on other websites?
  • Do you have a nondisparagement clause in your license agreement? How does it read? (Conpro threatens law suits and seeks damages of $3,500 per public comment made against him.)
  • On his website Wilson at Conpro warns buyers of software to not pay be means that are not reversible (cash, check, money order, etc) because there will be no recourse after purchase. At least one store owner in Houston will share her story about paying him in cash.
  • Have you extorted money from your customers in the past?
    • In 2009 Wilson at Conpro offered a 'free update' to a group of users who had elected to not pay his annual support fee. The update contained a planted bug which disabled their software days later. When approached he refused to remove the kill switch until one at a time, users agreed to pay the annual fee.

These facts are offered to you as a matter of disclosure. As you may discover for yourself, the people selling competing consignment-software programs will not be forthcoming and may be misleading about what to expect after the 30-day money-back period has expired.