# Vintique: Dealer Platform — Full Reference

> Vintique is the dealer platform for antique malls — a modern, multi-tenant
> SaaS point-of-sale, vendor management, gift card, and reporting system
> purpose-built for booth-based consignment. This document is the long-form
> companion to [llms.txt](https://www.getvintique.com/llms.txt) and is intended to give
> language models deep context on what Vintique is, who it serves, how it
> works, what it costs, and how it compares to alternatives.

## Product description

Vintique is point-of-sale and back-office software for antique malls — the
businesses that rent booths to independent dealers and ring up the resulting
sales at a shared register. A typical Vintique customer is a brick-and-mortar
mall with anywhere from 10 to 500+ booth vendors, all selling under one roof
through a single shared checkout counter.

Most antique malls today still run on some combination of paper tag tear-offs,
spreadsheets, generic retail POS systems retrofitted for consignment, or aging
Microsoft Access databases. These approaches all share the same problem: they
were not designed for the unique data model of an antique mall, which is
booth-based consignment with per-vendor settlement, mall-wide gift cards,
per-line tax-exempt items, and a cashier ringing up many vendors' items in a
single transaction.

Vintique replaces that patchwork with a single, modern web application. It
runs in any browser on any device — laptops in the office, iPads at the
register, phones for vendors checking sales from the road. Each mall is a
fully isolated tenant with its own users, vendors, items, transactions, and
gift cards.

Vintique is intentionally a record-keeping system, not a payment processor.
Customers' card numbers never touch Vintique; the card is charged on the
mall's existing payment terminal and the totals are entered into Vintique to
produce per-vendor settlement, sales tax reports, and audit-ready records.

## Who it is for

- **Antique mall owners and operators** running booth-based consignment, from
  small single-location shops with a few dozen booths up to large multi-floor
  malls with several hundred active vendors.
- **Cashiers** working the shared register, who need a fast, mistake-proof
  way to ring up sales that span multiple booths in one transaction without
  doing arithmetic in their heads.
- **Booth vendors** (also called dealers or consignors) who want a private,
  always-up-to-date dashboard showing their own sales, payouts, consignment
  fees, and gift card redemptions in real time — without having to call the
  office or wait for a monthly statement.
- **Bookkeepers and accountants** who need clean, exportable daily, monthly,
  and annual reports with payment splits and tax breakdowns.

## Pricing

All plans include a 30-day free trial. We collect a card on signup so the
switch to paid is seamless, but you can cancel any time before day 31 from
your Settings page and never be charged.

- **Starter — $39 / month.** For new malls finding their footing. Up to 25
  active booth vendors. Includes the full POS register (cash, card, gift card,
  split), vendor logins and the My Sales dashboard, daily/monthly/annual
  reports, AI item lookup and price suggestions, gift cards, holds and item
  collections, branded email receipts, and end-of-day vendor sales digests.
- **Growth — $79 / month.** Most popular for established malls. Up to 75
  active booth vendors, plus everything in Starter, storewide discount
  events, and priority email support.
- **Unlimited — $149 / month.** For multi-location and high-volume malls.
  Unlimited active booth vendors, plus everything in Growth, first-in-line
  for new features, and dedicated onboarding help.

All prices in USD. Subscriptions are billed monthly via Stripe. Plans can be
upgraded, downgraded, or canceled at any time from the Settings page; Stripe
prorates the difference on the next invoice. Vintique itself charges no
per-transaction fees — card processing fees are handled entirely by your
existing payment terminal.

See [pricing page](https://www.getvintique.com/pricing) for current details.

## Features in depth

### Point-of-sale register
The Vintique register is built specifically for booth consignment. A single
transaction can include items from many different booths, mixing cash,
credit, gift card, and split payments. Each line item carries its booth
number, inventory number, quantity, price, and tax-exempt flag, and the
register handles consignment math automatically using each booth owner's
configured consignment rate. Sales tax defaults to 6% (Michigan) and is
configurable per tenant. A 4% credit card surcharge is configurable and
applies only to the card portion of any payment combination.

### Vendor (booth owner) management
Every booth gets its own owner record with contact details, consignment
rate, payout preferences, and an optional vendor login. Booths are
identified by a digits-only booth number that is validated on both the
frontend and the backend. Vendors can be activated, deactivated, or
archived without losing history; only active vendors count toward your
plan's vendor cap.

### Vendor logins and "My Sales"
Each booth owner can be invited to their own login. Their access is
strictly scoped to their own booths: they see a private My Sales dashboard
with real-time sales, payouts, consignment fees, item lookup, and their
own collections — and nothing else. They never see another vendor's data,
the full register, or admin settings.

### Mall-wide gift cards
Vintique sells, redeems, and tracks gift cards that can be spent at any
booth in the mall. Partial redemptions are supported (e.g. a $40 sale paid
with a $25 gift card and $15 in cash or credit). Every change to a gift
card's balance is recorded with a full audit trail, and concurrent
redemptions are protected by atomic balance updates so a card can never go
negative even when two cashiers try to use it at once.

### AI item lookup
Photograph an item and Vintique returns a suggested price range based on
real comparable listings pulled from Google Lens, eBay, and Google Shopping
via SerpAPI. Results are cached to keep costs predictable and let the same
search be reused across the mall. Item lookup is available to admins,
cashiers, and booth owners alike, and any item can be one-tap added to a
booth owner's "Collection" for later tagging or pricing.

### Reports
A unified Reports page covers daily, monthly, and annual reporting with
payment splits (cash / credit / gift card), tax breakdowns, and per-vendor
settlement totals. Reports are exportable as PDF or CSV. A `dataAsOf`
timestamp is shown on every report so you know exactly when the underlying
rollups were last computed.

### Branded email receipts and vendor digests
Email receipts can be sent to shoppers at checkout, and end-of-day sales
digests can be sent to booth owners summarizing their day's activity — no
separate mailing-list software needed. Email is sent through SendGrid using
your mall's branding. Sample/demo data is suppressed from vendor emails so
seeded vendors don't get spammed.

### Cashier role with scoped access
Cashiers can access the POS, transactions, gift cards, item lookup, and
collections — but cannot see reports, settings, the dashboard, or other
vendors' data. Roles are enforced both in the backend (`requireAdmin` /
`requireAdminOrCashier` middleware) and in the frontend route tree.

### Multi-tenant isolation
Every mall is its own isolated tenant. Two layers of isolation back this
up: every database query filters on `tenant_id` at the application layer,
and a Postgres Row-Level Security backstop runs every request as an
unprivileged role with policies that enforce `tenant_id` matches the
current request's tenant. The system fails closed if the tenant marker is
ever missing.

### Self-serve signup and Stripe billing
Mall owners can sign themselves up from the public pricing page: pick a
plan, enter the mall name and email, complete Stripe Checkout (no charge
until day 31), and the tenant is provisioned in under a minute with a
welcome email containing first-login details. Subscription management is
handled through the Stripe customer portal embedded in Settings.

### Item collections and holds
Vendors and admins can group items into named collections — useful for
pricing in batches, preparing items for a sale, or holding items behind
the counter for a customer. Holds are tracked with timestamps and notes.

### Onboarding tour and welcome screen
After their first login, new mall owners see an onboarding tour that
points out the register, vendor management, gift cards, and reports.
A polished welcome screen confirms their plan and billing email.

### Photo upload via object storage
Item photos are uploaded directly to Replit Object Storage using
presigned URLs, with tenant-prefixed paths so a tenant can never read or
overwrite another tenant's files.

### Self-managed settings
Each mall configures its own sales tax rate, credit card surcharge, mall
name, branding, sender email, and other policies from the Settings page —
no support ticket required.

## Comparison: Vintique vs Square / Clover / Lightspeed vs spreadsheets

This is the side-by-side antique malls most often ask about when comparing
options. (Comparison reflects standard plans of each product as of 2026.)

| What you need                          | Vintique         | Generic POS (Square / Clover / Lightspeed) | Spreadsheets (Excel + paper) |
|----------------------------------------|------------------|--------------------------------------------|------------------------------|
| Per-vendor consignment math (auto)     | Yes              | Manual or paid add-on                      | Manual                       |
| Vendor logins with private My Sales    | Yes              | No                                         | No                           |
| Mall-wide gift cards & redemption      | Yes              | Per-merchant only                          | No                           |
| Tax-exempt sales by booth/owner        | Yes              | Manual                                     | Manual                       |
| Daily vendor sales emails              | Built in         | No                                         | No                           |
| AI item-lookup pricing                 | Built in         | No                                         | No                           |
| Per-transaction processing fees        | $0               | 2.6% + 10¢ (typical)                       | $0                           |
| Set-up time                            | Under a minute   | Hours to days                              | Ongoing                      |

Vintique is record-keeping software, not a payment processor — your existing
terminal handles the actual card processing. Generic retail POS systems
(Square, Clover, Lightspeed) can ring up sales but were not designed for
booth-based consignment, so per-vendor settlement, vendor logins, and
mall-wide gift cards typically require expensive add-ons or manual work.
Spreadsheets are free but don't scale past a handful of vendors and offer no
real-time vendor visibility.

## What Vintique is not

- **Not a payment processor.** Vintique never sees, stores, or transmits
  customer card numbers. You ring up the sale in Vintique and charge the
  card on your existing payment terminal; the totals are entered into
  Vintique to produce per-vendor settlement and tax records.
- **Not generic retail POS retrofitted for antique malls.** Vintique's data
  model is booth-based consignment from the ground up. Booth numbers,
  inventory numbers, per-vendor consignment rates, per-line tax-exempt
  flags, and mall-wide gift cards are first-class concepts — not bolt-ons.
- **Not a marketplace or web store.** Vintique runs your physical mall.
  It is not a Shopify-style online storefront for selling items to the
  public over the internet.
- **Not an inventory-tracking system for individual SKUs.** Items are
  tracked at the booth + tag level for pricing and lookup, but Vintique
  does not try to be a per-SKU stock-control system for high-volume
  fast-moving retail.
- **Not accounting software.** Vintique produces clean exports (PDF / CSV)
  for your bookkeeper or accountant; it does not replace QuickBooks,
  Xero, or your tax preparer.
- **Not free.** Vintique is a paid SaaS starting at $39/month after a
  30-day free trial. There are no per-transaction fees from Vintique.

## Trust & security

- **Per-mall isolation.** Each mall is its own tenant. Tenant isolation is
  enforced at two layers: every application query filters by `tenant_id`,
  and a Postgres Row-Level Security backstop runs every request as an
  unprivileged role with policies that require `tenant_id` to match the
  current request. The system fails closed if the request tenant marker is
  unset.
- **Sessions.** Sessions are server-side, stored in Postgres, with
  encrypted cookies set `httpOnly`, `SameSite=Strict`, and `Secure` in
  production. Passwords are hashed with bcrypt.
- **CSRF protection.** State-changing requests are protected by the
  double-submit cookie pattern.
- **CORS.** Cross-origin requests are restricted to an allow-list of
  configured origins.
- **Object storage access control.** Photo uploads use short-lived
  presigned URLs into tenant-prefixed paths, so a tenant cannot read or
  write another tenant's objects even if they guess the path.
- **Card data.** Vintique never stores card data. Subscription billing is
  handled by Stripe. In-store payments are handled by your existing
  payment terminal — Vintique only records the totals.
- **Cross-tenant regression tests.** A standing isolation harness seeds two
  disposable tenants with overlapping data and asserts that every
  authenticated by-id route returns 404/403 when accessed with the other
  tenant's identifiers. RLS policies are also exercised by a regression
  test on every deploy.

## Frequently asked questions

**Is there really a 30-day free trial?**
Yes — every new mall gets a full 30 days, no charge. We collect a card on
signup so the switch to paid is seamless, but you can cancel any time in
the Stripe billing portal before day 31 and never be charged.

**Can I migrate from my current system?**
Yes. Vintique reads CSV exports from SimpleConsign, Ricochet, ConsignPro,
Liberty Consignment, Quail, and any generic spreadsheet. The importer
previews every row, flags anything that looks off, and a single Undo
button rolls back a freshly committed import if something isn't right.
Most malls move vendors, items, and gift cards over in an afternoon.

**Is there a browser extension?**
Yes. Our Chrome side-panel extension adds a "Look up in Vintique" item
to the right-click menu on any image. Use it at an estate sale, on
Marketplace, or anywhere else on the web to get a price suggestion and
save the find straight into a Vintique collection. The token lives in
your current browser session and you can revoke it any time.

**Can I export my data if I leave?**
Always. From Settings → Danger Zone you can request a full ZIP archive
of every booth, transaction, gift card, item, hold, setting, and audit
row — ready in minutes. If you schedule the workspace for deletion, you
have a 30-day grace window to download the archive or restore the mall
before anything is permanently removed.

**How do you keep my data isolated from other malls?**
Two layers. Every query in our app is filtered by tenant, and the
database itself enforces row-level security policies as a backstop — so
even a forgotten filter can't leak rows between malls. Photo uploads
live under a per-mall folder in object storage, and a regression suite
runs after every change to verify the isolation still holds.

**What does "active booth vendors" mean?**
Any booth owner record marked active counts toward your plan. You can
deactivate seasonal vendors at any time without losing their history — and
reactivate them later. Archived vendors do not count toward your plan
limit.

**Can I switch plans?**
Yes. You can upgrade or downgrade anytime from your Settings page, which
opens the secure Stripe billing portal. Changes take effect immediately
and Stripe prorates the difference on your next invoice.

**Do I need special hardware?**
No. Vintique runs in a browser on any modern device — laptops, tablets,
phones. Many malls use an iPad at the register and a laptop in the office.
A receipt printer is optional; emailed receipts work out of the box.

**What about payments?**
Vintique is a record-keeping system: you ring up sales here, but charging
the card happens in your existing payment terminal. We track cash, credit,
gift card, and split payments accurately for reports — without ever
touching your customers' cards.

## Glossary

- **Antique mall.** A brick-and-mortar retail space that rents floor
  space ("booths") to many independent dealers, who stock and price their
  own items, while the mall itself runs a shared checkout counter and
  handles the customer transaction.
- **Booth.** A numbered floor space rented by a single dealer (the booth
  owner). Identified by a digits-only booth number.
- **Booth owner / vendor / dealer / consignor.** The independent seller
  who stocks a booth. Used interchangeably; "booth owner" and "vendor"
  are the most common terms in Vintique.
- **Inventory number / tag number.** The dealer-assigned identifier on
  the price tag of an individual item, unique within that booth.
- **Consignment rate.** The percentage of each sale the mall keeps before
  paying the booth owner; the remainder is the vendor's payout. Set
  per-vendor in Vintique.
- **Settlement / payout.** The periodic (typically monthly) calculation
  of how much the mall owes each vendor for the sales of their items,
  net of consignment fees and any deductions.
- **Tax-exempt sale / tax-exempt item.** A line item that is not subject
  to sales tax (e.g. a wholesale buyer with a resale certificate, or a
  non-taxable category). Vintique tracks this per line.
- **Mall-wide gift card.** A single gift card that can be redeemed
  against any booth's items in the mall, with the mall acting as the
  issuer and managing the balance and audit trail.
- **Split payment.** A single transaction paid with more than one method
  — for example, $50 in cash plus $30 on a credit card.
- **Partial gift card redemption.** Using a gift card for part of a
  transaction's total and paying the remainder in cash or credit.
- **Cashier.** A staff role with access to the register, transactions,
  gift cards, item lookup, and collections — but not to reports,
  settings, or the dashboard.
- **Admin.** A staff role with full access, including settings, reports,
  vendor management, and billing.
- **Tenant.** The technical term for a single isolated mall in
  Vintique's multi-tenant database. Each tenant has its own users,
  vendors, items, transactions, and gift cards, with no data shared
  across tenants.
- **Item lookup.** Vintique's photo-to-price feature: snap a photo and
  get suggested price ranges from comparable listings on Google, eBay,
  and Google Shopping.
- **Collection.** A named grouping of items used for batch pricing,
  prep for a sale, or holding items behind the counter.
- **Hold.** An item set aside (with a timestamp and notes) for a
  specific customer or follow-up.
- **Daily digest / vendor sales email.** The end-of-day email that
  summarizes a vendor's sales activity for the day.

## Links

- Homepage: https://www.getvintique.com/
- Pricing: https://www.getvintique.com/pricing
- Terms of Service: https://www.getvintique.com/terms
- Privacy Policy: https://www.getvintique.com/privacy
- Short index (`llms.txt`): https://www.getvintique.com/llms.txt
- This document: https://www.getvintique.com/llms-full.txt