When we walk through our stores we always see vendors working their booths, juggling a mental inventory of what they’ve sold vs what they’ve got in storage, checking things off their last monthly report, and – most tedious of all – sorting through a stack of sold tags to make that mental inventory line up. If life were a movie, this is where I’d flash back to opening our first vendor mall in 2012 (50 vendors! So many!) and working late nights with handwritten receipts, Quickbooks, and an Excel spreadsheet that would bring tears to Bill Gates’ eyes.

There had to be a better way, but until we built Quail we didn’t know how to get there. But once we had a feed of everything we’re selling right in the vendor portal it was only a short jump to start tracking what we were buying, and then all kinds of useful information popped right out. How much we were spending on cleaning, how much money was tied up in those unsold chairs we bought at auction, or the discovery that our consignment fees were dwarfed by our spray paint spending (ahem, “artisanal furniture repair”).

Once we’d built that for ourselves, we could see how useful it would be for any vendor – and that’s Sandpiper. An inventory tracker built for people who don’t want to mess with a spreadsheet but want to really know what’s going on with their booth. It links with Quail to pull data on what you’ve sold; all you have to do is put in your items as you buy ‘em and Sandpiper will automatically let you know what you’re spending, what you’re selling, and how much you’re actually making.

If you obsessively check your vendor portal, you’ll love Sandpiper. Give it a look, let us know what you think – and if you like it, go ahead and start a free trial on us to kick the tires. We think it’s incredibly useful for power vendors, and we’re pretty sure you’ll agree.