Exclusive AMA: Optimizing your Inventory Management with Shopify Experts!

[Jacqui]

Join Us for an Exclusive AMA on Optimizing your Inventory Management with Shopify Experts!

Date: September 10th, 2024

Time: 10 AM EDT - 12 PM EDT  

Inventory management and meeting demand can be particularly challenging during BFCM. This AMA will provide you with the knowledge and tools to optimize your inventory, reduce stockouts, and ensure a smooth sales period using Shopify’s solutions. Post your questions below, and the Shopify Product and Marketing team will be here to answer them during the live session.

What to Expect

Real-Time Q&A: Have questions about optimizing inventory, preparing for BFCM, or using Shopify’s inventory management solutions? Ask them below!

Expert Advice: Get direct answers from Shopify's Product and Marketing teams.

Community Engagement: Connect with other Shopify merchants, share experiences, and learn best practices.

How to Participate: No pre-registration needed! Join the Shopify Community on September 10th between 10 AM and 12 PM EDT. Post your questions below, and our experts will respond directly.

Read our Rules of Engagement before participating

*Please note, there is no video component to this AMA. This is a text based AMA. Your questions will be answered LIVE via text during the time period listed above. 

[FishHead-Greg]

I'm no expert but I run a busy business with Shopify. I use Stocky and Report > Sku/ Variant then add filter to run reports for sales data during specific time frames. I use this all the time when placing order. I was also just introduced in this session to Shopify Analytics > Report > Sell Through Rate by Product. I'm exploring this new to me report soon. 

[petgrocer]

I wish they had a way to exclude archived items in that sell through rate report. It's a pain to have reports with irrelevant data points, just extra steps to try to remove those when you download them. I do, however, really like the new feature at the top of each report that explains what the report is!

[mariaacle]

Hello @mmehmen apologies for the delay! I was checking for the answer with the appropriate teams. The 28 day date range is the only available period for now, but I do know that our Analytics team's is aware of this limitation and are working to improve it.

You should be able to see the results for the whole product if you change your displayed columns and remove variant related ones.

 

[VST]

I couldn't find a location to start a thread to post my question. 
Our inventory changes often with different items, prices, colors and quantities.  I need help with the efficient steps on these changes . Here's what I am currently doing - and its alot of manual input. 

I have been exporting inventory by categories individually first, example violin strings.  I export from our point of sale and inventory system.  Then I copy the categories I need into the shopify sheet with the headings, such as title, sku, quantity.  I make all the titles, alt text, descriptions, url,  Put everything into draft, then download to a csv file.  I take that csv file and upload into shopify. I pull the draft products of that category - in this example violin strings.  Then one by one manually I open the product, add images, add the category and then set active. I do this for each category.  we have 12 categories. 

For example I did this for the violin strings  - all 162 products last week, today there are different prices and quantities. How do I get the new prices and quantities on Shopify without loosing all my alt text, url, descriptions, photos. etc? 

[petgrocer]

We frequently end up with different or new products, discontinued items, new prices, etc. Unfortunately there is no way to track price changes in this system. So I can't tell you what my pet food for company x cost me last year vs this year. Shopify does not offer that tracking, like other POS systems do.

To update your products by colour, varient, or prices, you still must manually do it. We found the inventory download and re-upload to be prone to error, so we manually search every single item that needs to be updated, and go into the section that needs updating (for example, our prices fluctuate a lot, so we are constantly updating our cost and retail price). We also do case breaks manually, but use Stocky for this and do a stock adjustment. Shopify does not offer a case break system, or even an app, though many people have offered to give us code to do exactly this. Since Shopify has changed and nothing works with the 1.0 themes (which we paid nearly $700 just for the theme) we are stuck with not being able to use those code recommendations that random people in the forums have said was easy enough to implement. (Not a code person so I don't understand the intricacies).

Your stock levels should not be giving you issues. If you are selling online and you have selected 'track on shopify' your inventory (in theory) should be correct after each sale.

You may wish to look at using variants if you aren't already. Just be aware that Shopify does NOT allow you to archive a variant and it will forever remain as out of stock on your website unless you archive the entire product and all variants and rebuild it. You lose your historical reporting on sales for it if you do that. If you have a POS that is not integrated with Shopify, there is no solution for you. We tried in the start to have separate systems (our old POS system is AMAZING and I miss it deeply), but we couldn't stay on top of the inventory control. I strongly urge you to give up your beloved and non-integrated POS and learn to deal with the shortcomings of the Shopify POS. At least you aren't manually updating your inventory anymore.

There are still a phenomenal number of actions in Shopify which are manual, and once you learn it, they will immediately change how it operates. Our way of dealing with this was to learn mindfulness and acceptance, and encourage them to improve with feedback in the forums.

[mariaacle]

Hello @VST thanks for your question!

Have you had a chance to try the bulk editing capabilities in the Products and Inventory pages? You can use the Products page to edit prices and other fields related to your product details, and this will maintain product images. Then head over to your Inventory page to bulk update quantities for your product across your locations. I will however pass on this feedback about your experience updating products to the appropriate team!

[infomovie]

Please respond to the bundles question about inventory for individual products sold in bundles. It will help a lot of us out. 

[kristyrthompson]

Hi Maria,

I have been using Shopify and Stocky for 4 years now and have found it wonderful until recently.  Over the past 6 months or so we are finding that our inventory is not accurate after doing stocktakes in Stocky, and year-end inventory.  We have done accurate counts, adjusted the inventory and are still finding our system showing quantities for items we had not counted.  Has there been a change in the past 6-8 months that might be affecting this or have you heard of any others with similar issues?

Thank you.

[petgrocer]

LOTS of changes that are causing a disruption in service in our business as well. We are hoping that the devs will start to listen to the user base and work on a more controlled manner of change management!

[owenmillera]

When are we getting the new variant limit??

[mariaacle]

Hi @owenmillera thank you for your question! We are definitely aware that this is a limitation and I am happy to inform you that the Product Merchandising team is actively working on a solution. At the moment though, the only way you can have more than 100 variants on one product is to use a third-party app from the Shopify App Store, or customize your theme code to extract line item properties.

Stay tuned for updates about this in our upcoming Editions!

[BryanRatcliffe]

Great. I use Shopify a lot. What is the best way to Create large and bold SKU descriptions for products so that it is more difficult to not send the wrong item. Often when I’m looking at the orders things can blend together and mistakes have been made

[HENRYTOM]

I actually downloaded and modified the packing slip template.  It’s more legible than the default one

[FishHead-Greg]

Could you share more info on how to do this or a link to help me attempt this?

[HENRYTOM]

https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/fulfillment/managing-orders/printing-orders/packing-slips/printin... 

I have to find the code for you

[HENRYTOM]

In case I can’t right now (I’m on phone) email me at henry@natureaquariums.com 

and I’ll copy the code and email it to you

[mariaacle]

Thanks for your question!
To confirm, you're having issues with the font size in the Orders section? Or is this on packing slips? It could be that your browser is set to be zoomed out significantly which would impact your ability to see the orders correctly. It could also have to do with your screen resolution making things smaller.
If it is on the packing slips though I can definitely pass along the suggestion! In the meantime you can often zoom in using the Scale option before printing which should fix the issue.

If you're still experiencing issues with the font size and it isn't what I said above I recommend reaching out to support so you can have them log your suggestion for our developers to look into!

[Thetxboutique]

Is there a way to track inventory/sales if I use payment options such as venmo, PayPal, and zelle through shopify? I always lose track of my inventory bc someone will pay with venmo for example and I can't track it through my shopify inventory. TIA!

[HENRYTOM]

Hi do you run the sale through Shopify and use external payment option. That way you’ll have a record of the transaction. Here we have a brick and mortar and online and when people pay with a check or we use our back up credit card terminal from another provider we use external payment type. 

[SinzsNathan]

If it’s in person sales, I had something created on POS as a custom sale option whether that being paypal, Venmo, etc. and marking it under that. It’ll prompt that they would’ve paid outside of Shopify and it’ll update the inventory and sales numbers. To add to that, I have a separate POS terminal and don’t use Shopify’s payment system so I have my custom option selected for all card sales.

[LouisAnthonyEnt]

Where's the link to join the live???

[FishHead-Greg]

I was looking for awhile too.  " *Please note, there is no video component to this AMA. This is a text based AMA. Your questions will be answered LIVE via text during the time period listed above. "

[elinenberg]

Why is there _still_ a limit of 90 days of inventory adjustment history?  Is there any plan to extend this?  Or at least make this data available via the API?

[petgrocer]

Such a silly limitation. I have never enjoyed the changes they made to the adjustment history - it's extremely clunky and difficult to work with. If we didn't have Stocky I would have lost my mind by now. Stocky solves this.

[mariaacle]

Hello @elinenberg thank you for your question and apologies for the delay! We understand that having access to a longer history of inventory adjustments is crucial for comprehensive inventory management and tracking.

This feature is on our radar, and we are considering ways to extend the inventory adjustment history period in future updates. In the meantime, you might consider using third-party inventory management apps or exporting your inventory data regularly to maintain a longer history. However, to be clear, these third-party apps won’t have historical data immediately; they will start saving the data from the point of integration and keep it longer than Shopify does.

[GhostApps]

 Inventory History Guardian was created to address this issue, it allows you to create inventory adjustments, add notes and see all adjustments across your store whilst being completely integrated with inventory in Shopify. It also logs the inventory level of every product variant in your store once a day to help analyse and forecast stock levels.

[amckay]

Is there a way to track your inventory adjustments past 90 days, or deal with best practices to maintain this record for extended periods?

[mariaacle]

Hi @amckay thank you for your question and apologies for the delay! I was connecting with the relevant team. We understand that having access to a longer history of inventory adjustments is crucial for comprehensive inventory management and tracking.

This feature is on our radar, and we are considering ways to extend the inventory adjustment history period in future updates. In the meantime, you might consider using third-party inventory management apps or exporting your inventory data regularly to maintain a longer history. However, to be clear, these third-party apps won’t have historical data immediately; they will start saving the data from the point of integration and keep it longer than Shopify does.

[Mo180]

Hi! Thank you so much for this. I have three questions: 

1) I added a feature on the admin page where i can filter using the metafields, which is a very important feature for my business. I cant find that feature on the mobile app. Is it available on the app? 

2) One of my metafields is size, but it is limited to a single line text, cant seem to figure out how to be able to select multiple options in that metafield, like i am able to do with another metafield.

3) Would we be able to get the ability to checkout customers on the POS app on items that are set to drafts. Many items I have that are not ready to go live yet, but for inventory management, it would be a huge help to be able to checkout the customer when the item is still in drafts, without going into each item and making them active with the selling channels only being POS, its too cumbersome. 

Thank you, looking forward to your response. 

[HENRYTOM]

Hi same situation here. Make them live but uncheck all the sales channels except pos. 

that way they are hidden from the online world but available for in store. 

we use that for things we do not ship

[Mo180]

Thanks! I have been doing that, its just a nuisance to go thru that many products before a sale, and have to readjust it after the sale. These products I would like for it to go live on my online store as well, they are just not ready. Wish Shopify would just allow draft items in the app, don't see a downside on their end to allow drafts as well.   

[Mo180]

Jacqui, Is there any way to help with these issues. 

Thank you 

Nathan

[Iniquity]

how did you get a feature on the admin page to filter out metafields? are you able to share a pic? 

[Mo180]

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Custom data.
2. Depending on the metafield definition that you want to use for filtering, click Products.
3. Click the metafield definition that you want to use for filtering.
4. In the Options section, turn on Filter in product index.
5. Click Save.

[mariaacle]

Thank you for your questions, @Mo180  and apologies for the delay!

Mobile App: Currently, the mobile app does not have feature parity with our web admin. We are aware of this limitation and are actively working on enhancing the mobile app experience. You can expect improvements in the coming months.

Metafields: Once a metafield is created, its type cannot be changed. To achieve the functionality you need, you will have to create a new metafield with the correct type that allows for multiple options. This should enable you to select multiple values as required.

POS App and Draft Items: At this time, the POS app does not support checking out customers with items that are set to drafts. I can pass on this feedback to the POS team however today. For now, the workaround would be to make the items active with the selling channels set to POS only, although we recognize this can be cumbersome.

[mscmith11]

Hi Jacqui,

I am excited to pose this question to the team this morning in relation to "Inventory Management". 

Our company has been in business for almost 24 years as a multi-channel retailer (online and brick & mortar). Approx 2 years we made the move from a custom made SQL based online ecommerce site to Shopify. The switchover was difficult, but we could definitely tell within a short period of time that it had been in our best interests to do so. However... and here it comes. The one biggest issue we are facing with the backend is exactly that, the management of inventory or should i say the lack there of. 

For some reason, individual product variants ONLY show the last 90 days of inventory. I could begin to start to recite all the problems that arise from this but it would take all day. All I can say is that a merchant is 100% not able to control, maintain to interpret product data without having access to the entire historical data of each variant. I will provide you with this Shopify thread, ongoing since 2020 so you can review at a later time your customers are trying to get across to your developers, they are extremely important aspects that perhaps Shopify is not paying attention to:

https://community.shopify.com/c/shopify-discussions/can-we-access-inventory-history-beyond-90-days-i...

Your response to this would be appreciated.

*Just to add for reference, as a merchant if I really wanted to know the history of a particular products adjustments, I could search for that exact item within my historical "orders" and the system will show results with all orders in which that item was sold. So why is it then, that Shopify is not displaying that information under the product "adjustments" themselves? The data is all there, its simply a matter of displaying it.

Thank you for your time.

[mscmith11]

It would be very helpful if @Shopify  @mariaacle  @Jacqui  could acknowledge this issue even in the slightest bit.

[Jacqui]

Hey @mscmith11!

Thanks for joining us today for this AMA!

Our team is currently working through all the questions and plans to reply as soon as possible. You'll get a notification that you have been replied to once the team has made it to your question. 

[mscmith11]

I would hope that if time runs out that the Shopify team would address all these issues at a later time then.

[FishHead-Greg]

Amen! "The data is there, it's just a matter of displaying it." I really wish inside developers would jump in and work retail as a business owner or buyer for one day to see limitations. I'm in the same boat as you, omni channel retailer since 1984, est 1962... made switch from ancient FoxPro database IMS/POS that was very powerful but archaic and buggy. Migration was difficult but now Shopify has been a huge help; however there are limitations and I don't want to bring in third party solutions to build and depend on a tech stack for things that really should be part of the Shopify platform. Please listen and help Shopify! It will benefit all and only make the product / platform more robust and competitive.

[mscmith11]

Yes, this is a basic basic basic function of any ecommerce platform. I know that Lightspeed has excellent historical data options. And in excellent I mean, they don't hide your own numbers/data from you.

[Iniquity]

THIS!!!! 100% THIS!!!

Also don't get why shopify's permission is so weird.... They also don't track changes made to inventory so if a staff goes and changes the inventory to lower to 'steal' it, there's no way to get alerted of this change or see it pass the 90 days window that they made the change... 

Why can't shopify just let us load more than 90 days if we want to if it's a bandwidth problem? 

[mscmith11]

Def not a bandwidth issue. And yes, that is on the list of horrendous things that could occur. 

There is no stopping an employee from going in and adjusting/removing inventory quantities as they choose.  MAJOR PROBLEM.

Does Shopify not see the importance of this? 

[Iniquity]

staff permission is crazy stupid when they don't account for staff 'not part of the business'

it took them a whole maybe 4-5 years to allow staff access to product section without seeing the cost however just recently, the mobile app requires the staff to have access to view the cost to access the product page, 

like what? Why? Why can't we just have staff access to product page to help with description and see inventory for sales/stocking purpose. they dont' need to see the cost.... SHOPIFY PLEASE LISTEN TO BUSINESS OWNERS!!! these are basic things

[petgrocer]

TRACKING WHO MADE CHANGES and what changes is such a basic needed feature I'm shocked it hasn't been added. We are extremely careful with who has access to what, but you can't have one person running and doing everything. People are human and errors occur, and tracking those would be so helpful, then we can undo the errors! We can offer training to our staff!

[mariaacle]

Hey @mscmith11 thank you for your detailed feedback and apologies for the delay. I was sharing this information with appropriate teams on our end. We understand that having access to a longer history of inventory adjustments is crucial for comprehensive inventory management and tracking.

This feature is on our radar, and we are considering ways to extend the inventory adjustment history period in future updates. In the meantime, you might consider using third-party inventory management apps or exporting your inventory data regularly to maintain a longer history. However, to be clear, these third-party apps won’t have historical data immediately; they will start saving the data from the point of integration and keep it longer than Shopify does. I understand it's not an ideal solution, but rest assured our Product team is aware of this limitation and will address it in the future.

[FrancisHenri]

Hi there! Is there a way to move "archived" products truly out of the main system? It's such a pain to have to scroll through the thousands of products we have in our system when our product list is toggled to "all". We'd love "all" to just be active & draft! Also, if the archived products could be truly moved - it would be a HUGE help when pulling barcodes.

We don't delete because there's always a chance a brand may bring a product back. We just don't need to see it, hardly ever. 

Thank you!!

Katherine

[mariaacle]

Thank you for your question and feedback @FrancisHenri ! When you are in the "All" view of your Products page, click on "Search and filter" icon on the right corner of the index, and under the "Status" dropdown make sure to only toggle "Active" and "Draft" products. This way you are excluding the archived ones.

Please let me know if you have any follow up question!

[sgjess]

We are struggling with finding a way to manage our inventory feed and ensure shopify is updated throughout the day. We have an online store as well as two physical locations. We want something simple (to be able email our updated feed a couple times a day).  We are using an app to do this right now, but continually have Problems with it and difficulty reaching the app developers for support. We’re also pretty small so we can’t afford something that’s cost prohibitive…

[mariaacle]

Hello and thanks for your question @sgjess ! Are you tracking your inventory across locations in Shopify, and are you using Shopify POS for checking out customers in your physical locations?

If quantities are not updating throughout the day based on your sales, it's probably because you aren't tracking inventory with Shopify, and you haven't inputted inventory quantities for your products. Here's a helpful resource that goes into managing inventory with Shopify.