One inventory for multiple locations

[Lowri_Roberts]

I have a retail business which consists of one permanent store (using Shopify POS) and also sell the same inventory via our online shop (again Shopify).  When 'Locations' were enable I added two other locations as we have stock for sale in another location and we have a regular 'pop up shop' at a variety of locations.

I've cancelled the second location, as having 3 inventory lists was causing more problems, as we haven't got the time to manually update.

I've still got the third location, for our 'pop up events' but haven't ot the time to manually transfer stock from the first inventory to this third inventory.  So stock is shown as -1 if I sell one item, and this isn't reflected in my original inventory.

Is it possible to have one 'master' inventory list for more than one location?  The current situation is causing problems when customers order something which is shows as 'in stock' but has actually been sold at a 'pop up event' but the original inventory hasn't been automatically updated, and we haven't got the time to do this manually.

[OCMike]

We have the same issues. Still trying to figure out a work around. 

[danielpretorius]

Hi @Lowri_Roberts 

We've now had a few clients that have solved the exact same issue with our app, and by syncing their inventory information to Airtable. If you sync your data you can map the inventory at each location to go into a separate column within your Airtable worksheet, and can then modify the quantities quickly and send them back to Shopify. Another useful tool here is Airtable's phone app that allows you to change pop-up inventory levels on the go. Check out our help article on how to track and update Shopify inventory quantities with Airtable.

[birdsofafeather]

The issue I'm thinking is that Airtable and Shopify don't sync in 'real-time', correct? If I have 1 item that gets sold quickly, I won't have enough time to mark the other locations inventory to 0.  There will be 10,000 individual products that have no variations and can be picked up from 1 of the 3 locations, depending on the location the user chooses.

How can I remove the product, offered in 3 locations, from the store without having it in stock at the other 2?

Is there a formula I could use for the 3 location columns to say, IF location 1 = 0 then location 2 & 3 inventory = 0 as well?

Even then, can it sync fast enough to not be bought again?

[PaulNewton]

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@birdsofafeather wrote:

How can I remove the product, offered in 3 locations, from the store without having it in stock at the other 2?

Even then, can it sync fast enough to not be bought again?

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'real-time' is highly subjective most apps get triggered by webhooks, or are polling stores for a change, but both those methods can be in terms of minutes  not seconds which is enough time for existing inventory mismanagement to become a real-time problem.

Even with apps that market themselves as "real-time", there will always be a timing issue where out of stock purchases can be made.

Which means ultimately the other parts of the fulfillment process need to be resilient enough to handle that situation gracefully,  such as customer remediation.

If your using automatic fulfillment then that exacerbates existing logistics problem that aren't being solved with custom solutions.

Trying to have 1 stock of an item everywhere in shopify locations is trying to use a virtual workaround to solve physical problems.

The only 98%* way to guarantee prevention of selling sold out products is to not have it listed in multiple inventory locations.

*Even with systems like tracking, checkout reservations,etc race conditions apply if the traffic and sales volume is high enough.

If it's a big enough problem then you'd want to either:

• place add-to-cart, and other calls to action, behind a check inventory gate (where all locations must have positive inventory)
• build an app to automatically, or on customer action|request,  pre-emptively transfer items  between locations as the item is viewed, or added to cart|checkout
• item reservation ( https://apps.shopify.com/reserve-in-store-by-fera) 

[Frank_Fitzpatri]

We are experiencing the same issue. Have you found a solution or third party app to sync inventory for multiple locations on one Shopify store?

[Helen_CAVU]

Same problem here. I have one (large) inventory I sell from through my online store and at in person events. I take my inventory with me, and sell it through the POS app. 

I miss the way it used to be, and I hate that Shopify made the new locations feature mandatory.

I don’t have separate inventories when I’m selling at POS events, so when I sell something, I want it to become immediately unavailable online so it won’t be sold twice. My products are handmade and aren’t quickly reproduced. I want the inventory availability to be accurate at in person events—not only does it help me quickly find the item for sale in the correct size/color, it also means when I’m ringing up the sale, the customer doesn’t see an error that what they’re purchasing is out of stock.

I need the location from which I’m physically selling to be accurate for sales tax reasons, and it’s also just nice to have for analytics and records—being able to break down sales by location is hugely helpful. 

So far my only workaround is to manually change my store address each time I sell from a new pop-up location, but that’s not ideal, either. Online sales I have during that time show as being ordered from the new temporary location as well, even though they’ll really ship from my actual shop location, not the op-up location.

Please fix this, Shopify!

[jgressett]

Does anyone have an update to this? I have the same issue....I take my inventory with me to pop-up shows. I can creat additional locations to get the sales tax right, but I would have to move inventory from my primary location to the pop-up. Otherwise a sale at the pop up doesn’t update my overall inventory. Any fresh ideas? 

[PaulNewton]

@jgressett Are transfers not a solution? https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/products/inventory/transfer-locations

[Roshan_Richards]

A very time consuming one. It would be much more beneficial to be able to toggle a button and tell it to take it out of the same inventory as X. That way we aren't worrying about what of each we have to take each day to the shows because we sold so much of x. We will be able to tell what we sold by the location pull up. The separate inventory in not needed.

[PaulNewton]

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@Roshan_Richards wrote:
A very time consuming one. It would be much more beneficial to be able to toggle a button and tell it to take it out of the same inventory as X. 

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That's automation solved by the many many inventory sync apps available, using a tool like autoit, facilitated by third party services like integromat,zapier,etc, or using the api to make a custom solution for that exact process.

[MaBelleProvence]

Hi Helen, I have the same exact issue!

I own an online store and I will be selling at local markets/pop ups starting next week. 

My main address is in one county but the markets I will be attending are in a different county so the tax collected at those temporary locations won’t be accurate unless I change my website address every time I set up at those locations. 

I tried setting up two locations in my website but like you I don’t want two separate inventories. It would take me forever to manually transfer each product I’m taking with me and also items that I have with me may show out of stock on my website when in reality I have them in my pop up location!

This is so ridiculous. It would be so much easier if we could have one master inventory tied to multiple locations. 

So it looks like I will have to do the same thing you do and delete my main address and change it to my market location every time I do a pop up so the tax gets calculated accurately...

Please let me know if you have found some other work around! 

Thank you so much for your feedback 🙂

[Helen_CAVU]

Sadly, I have not found a better solution. I still just change my shop location for the duration of the show so the taxes are calculated correctly. What's most frustrating about this is that when I first opened my Shopify store, this functionality existed--you could set your POS to be a different location for tax purposes, but continue to pull from the same inventory as your online store. I hate that they removed this option, and don't seem to have any concern for bringing it back, despite repeated requests.

[MaBelleProvence]

Hi Helen,

Thank you so much for your response. It’s terrible that this functionality used to exist and that they simply got rid of it.
What a mistake…I guess they do that to get us to invest in the POS pro version or some other apps.
I will have to change the address as well then each time I set up a pop up at a local market.

Thank you again.

Lise
Ma Belle Provence

[katie_leary_seb]

This is definitely a feature that trips me up every time I do a pop-up that isn't in my state/county. It's even more frustrating to hear that Shopify used to have this feature & got rid of it! 

Thanks for the tip to temporarily change the location ... seems sad that this is what we need to do but I'm going to try it! 

If anyone from Shopify is listening please please please put this feature back into the basic software. It shouldn't be a big ask to be able to change a POS location but pull from one inventory source. 

thanks. 

[Rivertowninkery]

Having the same issue.  Totally absurd this isnt a function.  It's like they do research on how to make everything harder for customers. 

[Roshan_Richards]

I, too, have a brick and mortar store where I use Shopify POS, and I have online orders. But, several times a year I do markets/shows to increase my exposure and advertise that I am here. I have a nightmare of a time because the geolocation function that is supposed to assign the sales tax does not work for me for some reason. After spending many hours talking with support we did a workaround and created several locations with their own sales tax. But now because Shopify POS is going PRO I have a huge problem. I am not going to pay $89/month for every location just to use it once per year!

I think that Shopify is leaving a ton of money on the table by not catering to this facet of shops.  Shopify's purpose is to cater to small business people, but this is a huge gap in service that tens of thousands of us need because they do not make it easy for those who do shows/markets/pop-ups to reconcile our inventory, assign the proper sales tax for the area, and choose where the inventory draws from.

POSSIBLE SOLUTION - HERE IS WHAT I SUGGEST FOR THE SHOPIFY DEVELOPERS: (Shopify - Please, Please take this under advisement!)

• Create a Temporary Location functionality that we can enable/disable as needed. 
• Do a one-time fee around $25 for one week or $5/day to run the POS Pro on the temporary location. That way we don't have to pay crazy amounts of money for one time per year use and the permanent location users won't be inclined to use it because it would be more than $89/month for them. 
• Give us the ability to manually enter in what we would collect for sales tax for that Temporary Location. A lot of places in the US require that we pay the sales tax separately through a special events license within 10 days after the event concludes and not with our regular quarterly sales tax. We HAVE to be able to differentiate between it and what is selling through our store at the same time.  Not to mention the sales taxes at all of my events are different! 
• We should be given the option to either add an inventory manually for the Temporary Location or to select an already established inventory to fulfill from (ie. - the same inventory my B&M/online store uses). If I could toggle to use the inventory that my B&M store uses, then I will have real-time inventory syncing ability and if something sells out at a show then it won't be showing as available online, preventing overselling.  I pull all of my inventory from my store, but I don't want to spend 6 hours creating an inventory for my "temporary location" or the same amount of time doing a huge stock take at the end of the show. I definitely don't want to upset customers by not being able to fulfill their online order.    

This seems to be an easy feature in my mind. It doesn't seem to be difficult  I just think everyone would win with this functionality. Shopify would capture a huge portion of the market and those of us who need this will save hundreds of hours and dollars a year.

Please, Shopify! I love you guys, but please help us.

Roshan Richards

Soaplicity