Our rug study found 63 stores praised for low-pressure selling for every 2 with a pressure complaint. Letting a customer take a piece home on goods on approval terms is about the lowest-pressure way to sell a rug, a ring or a chair.
The hard part comes after the piece leaves. You need to know who has it, when it is due back, and whether it went back into your stock count when it came home.
This post is built from three sources: our own study of 276 U.S. rug retailers and 3,242 Google reviews, the Octabiz release notes, and a few outside legal sources (linked where I use them). Below, I'll walk through why shops do approvals at all, where paper tracking breaks, how goods on approval works in Octabiz, and a counter script with blanks you can fill in.
In short
Key takeaways
Make one approval slip for every piece that leaves the shop, with a due date on it.
A deposit is optional; if you take one, it is applied when the customer approves.
Reminders go out at 9am local time, and returns go back into stock at the cost they left at.
Why shops let customers take goods on approval at all
A rug looks different on a client's floor under their own lamps. A ring looks different on their own hand. A chair has to fit their own room. For these pieces the customer often needs to see it at home before saying yes.
Our rug retailer study looked at what customers write about in reviews, and the pattern was clear: shoppers reward shops that let them decide at their own pace.
- 276
- U.S. rug retailers in our study
- 3,242
- Google reviews read
- 63 for every 2
- stores praised for low-pressure selling vs. stores with a pressure complaint
One plain line on the legal side, and this is not legal advice: under D.C. Code § 28:2-326, goods held on approval are not subject to the claims of the buyer's creditors until acceptance. LSD.Law describes a sale on approval as one where ownership and risk of loss stay with the seller until the buyer accepts. While the rug sits in the customer's living room, it is still your rug, so it still belongs on your books.
Where paper and spreadsheet tracking breaks
Many rug shops still run inventory on a spreadsheet or a paper log (we covered this in how rug retailers are using AI to run the whole store from one app). An approval book usually sits right next to it.
The weak spots are easy to name. A book does not remind you when a piece is due. It does not move the item out of your available stock when it leaves. It does not put it back (at the right cost) when it returns. Ironclad makes the same point for contracts in general, saying manual tracking of approval deadlines and asset locations increases the risk of costly errors.
Paper book
You remember to check the due dates
Stock count is fixed by hand later, if at all
Deposit noted in the margin
Approval slip in Octabiz
A reminder goes out at 9am local time
Units return to stock at the cost they left at
The closed slip shows what happened to the deposit and the items
How Goods on Approval works in Octabiz, step by step
Goods on Approval is available to every Octabiz account as of release v1.20.307 (see the release notes). It ties into both inventory and accounting so the piece is tracked from the moment it leaves.
The life of one approval slip
- 1
Make the slip
Create an approval slip for each piece that leaves the shop, with the customer and the due date on it.
- 2
Take a deposit if you want one
A pending deposit is applied when the customer approves (v1.20.267). The slip will not take an issue date in the past, and tax is never left out silently.
- 3
Let the reminders run
Approval reminders arrive at 9am local time, catch up after a missed day and retry if one fails (v1.20.406).
- 4
The customer buys
The slip closes into an invoice, and the closed slip shows what happened to the deposit and the items (v1.20.344).
- 5
The customer brings it back after buying
Refunding that invoice returns the units to stock at the cost they left at and reverses the cost of goods sold; voiding the refund reverses that too (v1.20.408).
If you delete or void by mistake
Octabiz shows a clear message before you delete a Goods on Approval invoice (v1.20.311) or void the invoice behind a closed slip (v1.20.344), so you know what will happen to the slip first.
The part I would point out to any owner who has fixed a stock count by hand is the refund step: the piece comes back at its original cost, so your margin reports and your cost of goods sold stay right without a manual journal entry.
What to tell the customer when the piece leaves the shop
You set your own terms. The release notes cover how the software behaves, and the length of the trial, the deposit and the damage rule are your call (and worth checking with your own adviser). Here is a script with blanks you can copy and fill in:
Counter script (fill in the blanks)
"You're welcome to take this home and live with it for [number] days. It's due back by [day and date], and you'll get a reminder that morning. I'm taking a deposit of [amount] today, and if you keep the piece it goes toward the price. If it comes back damaged, [your rule here]. Any questions, call me on [number]."
Whatever you choose, put the same terms on the approval slip so the customer and your team see one set of dates and amounts.
Common questions
Your next step
The next time a rug, a ring or a chair goes out the door for the weekend, make an approval slip for it before the customer leaves. Put the due date and the deposit (if any) on it, and let the 9am reminder do the remembering.
How many pieces do you have out on approval right now, and could you name every customer who has one? If that question makes you reach for the notebook, start with that one piece.
Track every piece that goes home on approval
Where this came from
The research, methods, and photos behind this article.