A product: variants, price and stock
A variant is the thing a customer actually buys: this product, in this condition (and this language, if you sell in several), at a price, with a stock count. A product with no variants cannot be bought at all. A graded slab is a variant too — one card, in its own case, with its certificate.
Adding one
The Add a variant panel sits above the table. Fill it in and press Add variant.
| Field | What it is |
|---|---|
| Condition | NM, LP, MP and so on. The same card in two conditions is two variants at two prices — which is the whole reason variants exist. Graded is a condition too, and choosing it reveals the slab fields below. |
| Language | Only with the multi-language feature. |
| Price | What you charge. Pre-filled with a suggestion where one is known. |
| Cost | Only with cost tracking. What you paid. If you're VAT registered the box asks for it ex VAT, because your shelf price includes VAT and the two have to meet on the same basis. |
| Stock | How many you have. A slab is always 1. |
| Follow the market price | Tick it and leave price blank. The box says the price it would get right now and where that comes from — for example £4.20 (NM sold prices × 90%) — worked out for the condition, language and grade you have chosen, so it changes as you change them. No market price for this yet means ticking it would leave the variant unpriced. See below. |
| Mint an SKU, Print a label, Both | Mint gives the new variant a SKU, starting with your shop's first three letters. Print a label prints its shelf label as soon as it is added, in your shop's default label style: in your browser's print dialog, or on the till's label printer where your plan has tills and one is connected. A label needs a SKU, so ticking Print ticks Mint. Both ticks or clears the two together. |
A graded slab
Choose Graded as the condition and four more boxes appear: Grading company, Label type, Grade and Certificate number. A slab is one card, so its stock is capped at 1 — a second slab of the same card, even at the same grade, is its own variant with its own certificate.
The certificate number becomes the slab's SKU. That is what the till, the trade-show phone and the stock scanner look up, so scanning the QR on the slab's label finds it straight away. For the same reason a certificate that is already in stock on another card is refused rather than added twice.
When a slab sells
A slab is one object, so once it sells — online, at the till, at a show or on eBay — it leaves the Variants list and the shop. Nothing is lost: its orders, cost and history are kept. A slab you have taken to a show stays listed while it is on the table.
If you buy the same slab back later — at the till, at a show, through a buylist, or by adding its certificate here again on the same card — it comes back as the same variant, but as a new purchase: what you paid this time is its cost, its old sell price is cleared for you to set again, and its next sale is accounted for on that new cost, VAT included. A certificate that was last sold from a different card is refused, with that card named, so buy it back onto that one.
A slab can follow the market only where the grader and grade have sold prices to follow. Where they don't, the tick is refused with No sold prices for ACE 10 yet and you price it by hand.
Follow market, or set your own
A variant is either priced by hand or follows the catalogue's market price converted into your currency. Following means it re-prices itself as the market moves and you never touch it again.
In the variant editor, Follow the market price shows the same figure: what this variant would sell at following the market, and where that figure comes from.
Switching to follow the market disables the price box rather than emptying it — your hand price is remembered and comes back if you switch off. And a variant that follows the market but has no reference price yet is badged Unpriced: it's not on sale, and the badge explains what's missing.
Editing one: the pencil, three tabs, one Save
The table shows each variant's SKU, price and stock; nothing on the row itself is editable. The Edit pencil at the end of the row opens the variant editor, which has three tabs — Details, Stock & cost (just Stock without cost tracking) and Photo. Whatever you change on any of the three, Save changes at the bottom saves all of it in one go, and Cancel drops the lot. Nothing saves until you press it.
| Tab | What is on it |
|---|---|
| Details | SKU / barcode — what the scanner reads at the till, so it must be unique in your shop; leave it blank for none. Price and Follow the market price. For a slab, Grader, Grade and Label type. |
| Stock & cost | In stock and a Note for the change. With cost tracking, what you paid — one line per purchase for ordinary stock, a single What you paid box for a slab — and Record a delivery. Delete variant lives here too. |
| Photo | A picture of this particular variant, shown on the storefront in place of the product image. |
"In stock" is a CORRECTION, not a delivery
The In stock box re-states what you have — after a recount, a breakage, a miscount. It carries no price, so use it when the number was simply wrong. To record stock you bought, use Record a delivery further down the same tab — how many, at what each, then Add to stock — which is a different act with a different consequence.
Correcting upwards joins the new copies to the ledger at whatever the last ones cost; correcting downwards is shrinkage, and the cost goes with them. Neither is wrong — but a delivery typed into the correction box loses what you paid for it. The Note is logged against the stock change if you make one, and ignored if you don't.
A slab has no delivery form: it is one card, so In stock is 0 or 1, and What you paid is one figure you can correct at any time — it restates the cost of the slab, it never adds another.
What you paid — one line per purchase
With cost tracking on, ordinary stock carries a line for each buy, and
it is not one number: 4 @ £12.00 each and
4 @ £13.80 each means eight in stock, bought at two different prices, and your margin
reflects which ones actually sell.
- The cost on each line is a box you can type in — for a mistyped figure, or to write down a lot whose value has collapsed. It saves with Save changes like everything else.
- A line is highlighted red when it cost more than the variant now sells for. That's stock you'll lose money on, visible without running a report.
- "3 with no cost recorded" means stock arrived without a price — an old correction, or something imported. It's not an error, just an unknown.
- Hovering a line tells you when it was bought and where from. Stock taken in on the buylist is marked, because there's no VAT on it to reclaim.
- Margin scheme on a line means it was bought second-hand without a VAT invoice, so VAT is due on the margin rather than the price. It is ticked by itself for buylist, show and till purchases unless you said the seller gave you a VAT invoice, and it is yours to change — but goods bought on an invoice that shows VAT are not eligible, so leave it off for those. A margin-scheme copy always sells at its own purchase price ahead of any Stock costing. The tick only appears when your shop is VAT registered with the margin scheme switched on under Settings. Record a delivery and Add a variant have the same tick for second-hand stock you add by hand (a slab bought back from a customer, say), with an optional Who sold it to you for the purchase invoice.
- Changing the cost of a lot, or its Margin scheme tick, after the VAT period it was bought in has ended does not rewrite that period: the difference goes into the current period as a dated adjustment. A cost that moves a lot over or under £500 moves it between the pool and item by item.
Quantity isn't editable on a line — how many you have is the In stock box above. A line says what a purchase cost, not how many are left of it.
Photo
Every variant can carry its own picture — a played copy with a visible crease, or the slab itself. Choose and position photo opens the same cropper as the product image, and Remove takes it away again. On the storefront it shows in the variant's row in place of the product image. A slab with a certificate from a grader we know (ACE) fetches its photo from the grader by certificate number if you don't give it one.
Deleting a variant
Delete variant is at the bottom of the Stock tab and only appears once In stock is 0. If nothing has ever been bought or sold against the variant it goes for good; if it has history it comes off the shop and the till but is kept, and adding the same condition and language again brings it back with that history.