Hi Shopify Community,
We’re facing a challenging issue with our inventory system that I’m hoping someone here can help us solve.
Our store operates on a hybrid inventory model:
Supplier-Based Inventory: We sync our inventory weekly using stock sheets provided by our suppliers. When we receive an order for these products, the supplier delivers them to us within 2 days. We then pack and ship them in our branded boxes. (The supplier will not pack and ship for us).
Stock-Holding for Selected SKUs: Due to the popularity of certain products, we’ve started holding stock for around 100 SKUs from a supplier that offers 500+ SKUs. The remaining SKUs continue to follow the supplier-based process described above.
Here’s the problem:
To manage this hybrid model, we set up two locations in Shopify:
- "In-Store" Location (our held stock, which should be sold first)
- "Supplier" Location (items we don’t stock but are available from the supplier).
The idea was to prioritize fulfilling orders from the "In-Store" location first and then rely on the "Supplier" location as needed. However, Shopify treats these as separate locations, causing a number of issues especially:
- When a customer orders products from both locations, Shopify separates them into two orders, which prevents us from fulfilling them as one combined order.
This creates confusion and inefficiency in our operations since we want to fulfill orders as a single shipment from 1 location regardless of whether the items are from our stock or the supplier’s stock.
What We Need Help With:
- Is there a way to configure Shopify so that we can manage this hybrid inventory system effectively without splitting orders across locations?
- Alternatively, is there an app or workflow that can help us streamline this process while maintaining accurate inventory for both held and supplier-based stock?
- Any other great ideas on how to better manage this?
Any insights or solutions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for your help!
