Anyone else frustrated with new "update" re: Inventory vs. On Hand Quantity?

[annafaie]

I just discovered that when I view all products > by vendor > bulk edit, the Column options have changed and now the only way to update Inventory is by using the "On Hand Quantity" column? I raised this issue with Support and after a 2 hours chat, here is what I was told:

Shopify: "Regarding our Support team, yes there is an update regarding the Inventory.

There's a new update when it comes to inventory states. We can't edit the "available" section anymore, instead we can edit the "on hand". So on hand state represents = committed + available. This means this is an expected behavior that when you adjust the on hand, the available would too."

Me: Why did they make that update? It will be a huge timesuck for someone like me who runs inventory differently. Can you pass that feedback along to them? I never have anything on hand - I keep no inventory - my inventory tells me what has been purchased so if all I can see when I edit is "On Hand", I won't be able to bulk edit my Inventory I'll have to go into each products (hundreds) to update manually

Shopify: "I do understand that Anna, and yes I will be passing this feedback of yours with our developers"

Me: So, there is nothing they can do? I'm stuck with this "update"?

Shopify: "As of the moment, the only thing you can do is update your available inventory using "on hand".

On hand represents all inventory a merchant physically has at a location. On hand = Committed (to an order) + Available (for sale) + Unavailable (e.g. draft order reservation). With this release, merchants can no longer edit the Available quantity in Admin: the only manually editable quantity will be On hand."

Me: It's a stupid update b/c not everyone manages inventory this way. I have nothing physically in stock. I don't ship anything or fullfil orders through Shopify

Shopify: "My apologies about the update"

Me: On Hand is nothing that correlates to my business and now I'm forced to use it.

Is anyone else having this issue? It's going to create hours more work for me for my store if I have to update every single product manually.

[Shay · Accepted solution]

Hi everyone!

Thank you all for the feedback and sharing how this update affects your business. We are assessing everyone's use cases and working to re-enable some of these workflows as soon as possible. We already shipped improvements to the Inventory CSV workflow, as follows:

• Re-enabled legacy CSV import which allows you to directly modify your Available values. You can also continue to export the legacy CSV template.
• Significant performance improvements for exporting the new inventory CSV template which includes On hand, Committed and Unavailable states.

We have more coming and will return to this thread with updates as soon as they are shipped. In the meantime, continue to share your experience here and rest assured that all your feedback on this is being heard. 

I am marking this response as the solution to this thread for now so that other merchants can easily follow along with the updates we are shipping on this. 

[Blair · Accepted solution]

Thank you for your patience while we worked on reviewing your feedback and making changes to the experience. We have launched updates to address some of the pain points you’ve shared. Here are the changes we shipped today:

• You can now edit the Available state, as well as On hand. You are able to enter negative inventory quantities into both of these fields.
• Available is now directly editable anywhere you see On hand: the inventory list, product pages, variant pages and bulk editors.
• These changes apply to web Admin only for the time being, but the Mobile app will soon be updated as well.

As a reminder, here’s what we shipped earlier this week:

• Re-enabled legacy CSV import which allows you to directly modify your Available values. You can also continue to export the legacy CSV template.
• Significant performance improvements for exporting the new inventory CSV template which includes On hand, Committed and Unavailable states.

We’d like to learn more about your business to continue building the best solutions for you. Please let us know if these resolve your issues or if you have any questions in this  thread or reach out to our Shopify Support team.

[RedCatRecords]

Why in the world not??? Nobody wants this. This doesn't improve anyone's Shopify experience or help anyone's business. What are we missing? At our store, and apparently many others like it, this does nothing but create extra work and the potential for costly mistakes. If you can't get rid of it, then at the VERY least, make it optional. 

[ottilieyumjar]

I run on a weekly schedule and make my products to order. I used to update my inventory once a week with the same numbers, as we sell our products with different delivery days and each day has a specific amount of products possible. This "update" and "improvements" have completely f***ed up my whole shop, this week I have way too many orders on the wrong days and too few on the usually busy days. My customers are emailing confused as to why their order can't be on the normal day. Things are 'sold out' when they shouldn't be.

Please can you just add an option for those of us who don't want this update to revert back to how it was?? This is causing me (and so many other) small business owners a HUGE headache and costing us money in the process.
It's so bad that I am considering shifting to a different platform asap.

[CourtneyL]

Hi Blair,

Is there a way to get rid of the 'On Hand' altogether. I do not need it and it makes my day a lot harder then it need to be because I have to continue to scroll past it each time I need to look at something else. Whilst this doesnt sound like a huge issue, it puts an extra hour on my day and also runs a risk of me missing something as I am continuing to scroll. 

Like in the columns when in the edit section, there is a box that we can select to show what we wish to see ie SKU, Cost Per Item, Weight etc...Could we maybe be able to turn off the On Hold as well in the product section?

[annafaie]

Agree totally CourtneyL!!! I hate that the column for On Hand is forced on us. Let us choose to not see it.  I also really dislike that when I choose to view the edit column "Online Store", it also shows "Online Store Schedule" that one thing adds 2 extra columns to my view when all I want to see is the the tick-box of whether or not an item is online i the store or not....so frustrating/ And DO NOT get me started on the "helpful" change that was made - that I discovered yesterday - that if there is a special character in your vendor name (like a comma), you can no longer filter by that vendor.  All of my vendors (since 2020) have been listed as their name plus their city and state like Dallas, TX....so I was lucky enough to get to go into EVERY SINGLE PRODUCT and manually change EVERY instance of the vendor name to NOT include any special characters. That was a really fun several hours of my life wasted. And....that was after 2 hours on chat/email with support that was NO HELP. Level 1 support on chat does not seem to understand ANY ISSUE I present and so it takes hours to get to the point where the problem is not even resolved. I need to stop - I'm getting heated again. I am so sick of these blind changes!!!!

[titandiscgolf]

@Blair, We have a brick-and-mortar store that has access to our online inventory, so we don't want to show a variant as being "On-Hand" in Shopify Admin if it's already been sold online. In our business, we can't order exact copies of each variant (i.e. we can't select colorways when we order from manufacturers), so we can't replace variants sitting at or below zero quantity to meet online orders. For this reason, we want to remove "On-Hand" quantity from our Shopify Admin, leaving only the "Available" column. Can this be done? If not now, can this be done in the future?

Every merchant's inventory management needs are different and it would help to manage inventory levels how the merchant wants. Thank you for your help. 

[Janusa]

Hey guys, could any one let me know if they stock are messed up I still happening where I check and there is more on the website  stock than should have or 7 more on the website than I actually have in stock . I have business for 2 years I always  been so good at keep the stock accurate.  Please let me know of you experiencing the same thing? 

[aline808]

Yes. We are constantly having stock level issues. It seems that when we adjust POS and Online stock after doing a physical inventory the numbers will randomly change after saving or hours after saving. 

There is no rhyme or reason to the RANDOM inventory changes. The system will just CHANGE. It's as if someone is going in and changing our numbers or Shopify has some sort of malware running amuck and causing random inventory issues. I've seen other posts from users that are having the same issue. It has nothing to do with staff changing quantities. Sometimes you'll actually see a number change after saving!! 

This is a MAJOR problem as we discovered this weekend after a big sale and 16 of 60 online orders could not be fulfilled since our inventory numbers were incorrect showing we had more quantities than physically possible. This has never happened in the past. Only recently have our inventory numbers been so messed up.

How can you trust the database? Another app add on should not be the solution since the core product of Shopify should be an accurate inventory system. 

[rhdw1]

"How can you trust the database? Another app add on should not be the solution since the core product of Shopify should be an accurate inventory system. "   Yes!! What is going on?? Where is Shopify here?? 

[Alyson01]

I could not agree more, this is a big MESS 

[aline808]

I'm curious if you're still having inventory issues. If so, are you using a 3rd party app for shipping?

[RobJones]

I agree with everyone here this update isn't useful to me AT ALL and only complicates what was a easy process for me to adjust and check inventory.

Please for the love of God give us the option to have inventory like it used to be before the update!!

[Bubbakinsblanks]

For the amount of time that we as businesses, and your customer,  are having to spend on fixing inventory and trying to ascertain what we really have in stock, what is out of stock, do we really have it in stock and how many times has Shopify randomly changed the stock.  You need to compensate all of us for this nightmare.  I will never understand if is not broken, stop trying to fix it.  

[G514]

I AM HONESTLY SO MAD! TODAY I FOUND OUT THAT I HAVE BEEN MISSING 1 WEEK OF SALES DUE TO SOME STOCK BEING NOT AVAILABLE WHEN IT WAS AVAILABLE. PLEASE ROLL BACK THE OLD VERSION, THIS IS SOME PURE BS!!! This new system sucks!

[neda]

I have had need to contact Shopify support many times for various issues over the years and I have always had a good experience, and managed to solve the issue easily. But for the first time, this update has really pissed me off. I have customers who are buying non-existent products and sometimes customers are unable to purchase an item which is actually here. This one has pissed me off so much due to the financial cost and the surprise nature of it (I was not aware of the change until my staff told me there was crazy stuff going on with inventory numbers for weeks) that I am currently deciding which platform to move my two sites to. This update, its surprise nature, its effect, and the time I just spent with support getting nowhere is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE.

[BlackLab]

I couldn’t agree more. I am irate over this. I even have one of my long-term employees considering leaving because of the stress and chaos that it’s caused. As dramatic as that sounds, it’s the truth. Shes had to deal with negative reviews, angry customers calling the store, other staff members crying over mistakes they have made that have cost the company large sums of money. I really don’t blame her. 
I freakin love Shopify, and I’ve also had nothing but great luck with them and their chat help, but I’ve received the same dead end over this inventory update. I belong to a group with 15 other Shopify store owners in it and every single one of them is just as mad as we are so this is a wide spread problem. I really hope they get it fixed fast. 

[Janusa]

That is terrible. I was thinking that, doesn't  shopify care we are likely to recieve bad review because of that and loose clientes trust. 

Can't imagine how hard it might be. Cause not only yoi have to deal  keep checking shopify  new inventory  for mistake but also have to constaly trying to chekc on 10 employer  

[neda]

Why on earth is this thrust upon us with no consultation, not forward warning, nothing! And now we've over and undersold on both sites, and now dealing with angry customers! What the hell Shopify???????? Your normally useful help team are nothing but a dead end on this one! What's going on there? Are you guys deliberately trying to destroy our businesses? This update has really peed me off. I've had nothing but pleasurable problems up to now with Shopify, but this one may completely wreck one of my businesses, and has damaged the other! I'm at a loss. Does Shopify want everyone to move to Wix????

[neda]

When a customer made a product change, we simply did it and updated the inventory. But now we can't. We need to refund and re-sell it so the connected inventory app can keep up. This is the most ridiculous thing to spring on us. I'm so angry! It worked great, now Shopify has lost me!

[neda]

So now with this absurd update, if a customer changes the product but there is no price difference, I used to to adjust the inventory levels. Now what do I do?

[Holly812]

Now there's a new issue in addition to losing the Save next to the Available column and jumping to the top of the page after clicking Save next to the On Hand column.

When I now click Save beside the On Hand column, get jumped to the top of the page, and then have to scroll down to get back to the inventory item I just updated, the Save button is gone.

But when I hit the > to go to the next page, I get a box telling me I have unsaved changes. When I scroll up the page, ALL of the quantities that I updated and hit Save are ALL showing Save boxes which I then have to click each one before the changes are accepted - even though I had already clicked the Save button before.

I've tried 2 computers, 3 different browsers and nothing is working as it did before the major update. I've cleared cache, etc. Please get this fixed. I'd like to get rid of the On Hand column's editing ability as well and only edit how I used to, using the Available column with the Save button there.

[Username2023]

The same thing is happening for me. This seems to be a new glitch in their programming. I've tried different browsers as well. 😩 I don't understand why they can't just revert back to their old system which worked fine with no issues.

Now, every day there's something new that doesn't work properly. SO FRUSTRATING & TIME CONSUMING. 

@Shay @Blair 

[Furious_Sauces]

Why can we not update our inventory for each location on the same window? The latest update has made managing inventory a pain when it was perfect before.

I should not have to switch to each individual location to update inventory there. I should be able to open a product, see all my locations and update the quantities that are available in those locations.

[VioletSkye]

absolutely hate the new update !!! I just want to see availability the way it was before, it’s beyond confusing now !!

I never understand when they change things that are working to something that is so horrible

[Noah_D]

I think that there's a silver lining to this otherwise terrible inventory update.

With the addition of the new Unavailable inventory state it is now possible to reserve inventory on a Draft Order and see that reflected in the product's inventory. I'm not sure why Unavailable couldn't have been part of Committed, but I'm happy to have the added functionality.

Now if Shopify would just get rid of On hand  (because we don't need it) everything would be much better.

[momo9191]

I am hating thay new update as well.. I really hope they quickly change this.

[Dawn08]

It now looks like the update has been mostly reverted back to showing 'available' or 'in stock' instead of 'on hand'.

This is both on mobile and desktop. The only thing we need now is the columns to be switched on desktop, we need to see the available column first, as on hand quantities are no use.

@Shay ...these are the updates that myself and others have been asking for all along, were you not aware of these?

I hope everyone else is also experiencing these fixes...and I am SO thankful to everyone here for continuing to add to this discussion. 

[Alyson01]

When I click on the products page it shows “in stock” which it always what
it showed even with the “update”. But when I click on a product and it
goes to that page it is still showing “on hand”. I am seeing this on
mobile and desk top --
Alyson Jacobson
40 Oak Boutique
908-295-2271
www.shop40oak.com

[Noah_D]

@Alyson01 

We had to update the app to see the mobile update. 

For variant products on the desktop, I'm also still seeing the On Hand column first.

I'm happy to see that the mobile was updated. Now we just need that column moved on desktop.

[Alyson01]

Thank you I will try that now! --
Alyson Jacobson
40 Oak Boutique
908-295-2271
www.shop40oak.com

[Bubbakinsblanks]

The incoming inventory should be listed where inventory is.  It does absolutely no good in the products under each variant.  THIS UPDATE IS MAKING ME CRAZY!!!!!!!!  I'm trying to order more stock and it is taking me FOREVER!  To say I am frustrated is an understatement!  You should be able to look at your inventory and see what is on hand and what is incoming.  

[Bubbakinsblanks]

@Shay 

Let me ask this question. 

When you are determining what inventory you have on hand and what needs to be ordered, you would go to your inventory tab and look and what you SHOULD see is what is incoming, and that option is no longer available.  

What Shopify has determined is that it is more efficient and less time consuming (YES, I am being VERY sarcastic, because what you have done is complete BS)  You should go to each individual variant in the product listing, drill down to each variant, of which I have the maximum on most of my products, and check what is incoming.   Please explain to me how that even makes sense, other than whoever made this decision has never dealt with inventory management before.  

So I am trying my best to live with this absurd update and I try to do a transfer so I can see what is incoming and that won't work either because the incoming inventory is now in each individual product variant.   I have hundreds of variants and it takes me days to figure all this out. 

I am going to look for another company that knows from experience what they are doing before they completely turn a business upside down and make a VERY STUPID decision and push an update like this one without thinking about the consequences it has had on a multitude of businesses. 

[Noah_D]

@Bubbakinsblanks ,

I think that what you are looking for is available on the desktop. 

Click the Incoming 'tab' and you'll see the incoming and available inventory numbers.

(I briefly looked at inventory on mobile and I didn't see anything like the above.)

I hope this helps.

[arjun_rajkumar]

@Noah_D curious where you see this view? i went to admin, inventories and see this.

wondering how you got the incoming to show? mybe I need to upgrade plans?

[Noah_D]

@arjun_rajkumar, I don't know why you can't see incoming or why I can. We're on the advanced plan with POS. Maybe it is because of our plan.

We don't use the inventory feature. It doesn't work for us. We're using Stocky for ordering and receiving.

[arjun_rajkumar]

Thanks. Do you mean the Stocky app by Shopify? 

[Noah_D]

Yes, we use the Stocky App by Shopify. There are a few other options out there but Stocky has a few features that we need.

Most apps don't let you set the case quantity that products are ordered in (minimum order number) and almost all of our products have different case quantities. Because of that we wanted to be able to set those numbers in the app.

[Foxinofficial]

yes

[Stock_BH]

I feel like the changes really aren't solving anything.

We described it like this:
https://community.shopify.com/c/shopify-discussions/available-and-on-hand-inventory-in-a-multi-websi...

[prairiefiberart]

I am jumping in to this discussion late, but why are people not using fulfilled and unfulfilled to handle "inventory issues"?  I have a brick and mortar store that shares inventory with my online store.  If something drops inventory below zero, the negative items are switched to unfulfilled, causing the inventory balance to go back to zero.  Then, an item appears in the unfulfilled tab for Orders, tracking exactly how many items are needed to complete an order.  Once the items arrive, or are produced (if inhouse), the order gets fulfilled, reducing inventory and completing the order.  It is very easy to do.

[Jacqui · Accepted solution]

Hey everyone, 

Based on feedback from merchants like yourself, our product team has been hard at work making changes to Shopify’s inventory system. We wanted to highlight a feature that might be of use to many of you!

You now have full control over which quantities you see on your Inventory page, and in what order. This means that if On hand does not make sense for your business, you can now hide it from your inventory page. You can also rearrange your inventory page so that Available is always shown first.

This feature also helps you to create work-flow specific views. For example, if you wanted to create a saved view to inform your reordering decisions, you could show only the Available and Incoming quantities, with a filter for Available < 10 and call it “Low Stock”.

Learn how to do this in our help docs.

Thank you again for all of your feedback!

[Username2023]

Thanks for the reply! 

Is there a way to filter inventory by "status"? It would be very helpful to only see "active" products and not "archived" products when looking at the inventory list. Thank you

[Noah_D]

@Username2023 That is a great question/suggestion. I've seen it asked in other threads and unfortunately I've never seen a satisfactory answer.

Shopify, why would you want to see archived products without specifically asking to see them? Archived products should be hidden by default! Yes, there should be a filter to allow users to show (un-hide) them. But they should be hidden by default until un-hidden by the user.

As pointed out in the above comment, we currently can't even hide them if we want to.

[Holly812]

The issue is now back with jumping to the top of the page after clicking Save on the Products > Inventory page. It just started this morning, it was fine yesterday. Was there an update that caused this?

[Holly812]

@Shay The jumping to the top of the page issue is back. In the Available column, changing a number on the item and then clicking Save at the top causes the page to jump to the very top of the page. I then have to scroll back down the page to find the next item that I want to check the inventory quantity on.

[Shay]

Hi @Holly812 

Thank you for tagging me on this! Please report this to our authenticated support team (you can share this thread as a reference) and they can escalate to our technical team for further investigation. We haven't received widespread reports of this being a problem at this time, so we will need to have affected merchant accounts to review in order to resolve. 

Your authenticated support advisor will most likely ask you to try these troubleshooting steps before they can escalate the issue, this is standard process: 

• Clear your browser cache.
• Try on another web browser, and an incognito window
• Ensure the web browser is up to date
• Try another device, like another computer or mobile phone.
• Try on the on the Shopify Mobile App -this is usually the best step to try as it also rules out device issues.

[TJ_Biddle]

Yeah, this update makes zero sense. All my inventory is handled by my 3PL

Currently, I have 39 units in my 3PL - and it reports that to Shopify. This is what I truly have *on hand*.

I have 13 orders for this item; so 13 committed. I'll ship these later once some other items on the order are available.

But then... Shopify says I have 52 on-hand? Why are you adding committed + available? On hand IS available. I don't have 52 on hand. I have 39... which is what we already told to Shopify!

If anything, it should be "39 on hand" that my 3PL reports... "13 committed" and then Shopify should calculate the available as "26"

Everything about this is backwards. Like - wtf? This is simple!

[RobZone]

Hi @TJ_Biddle, are you still encountering this with your 3PL?  If so, can you please DM me a link to an affected product?

You are right, if your 3PL has 39 units and you sold 13, you should see 39 on-hand and 26 available. 

[TJ_Biddle]

Hi @RobZone 

Glad to hear I'm not crazy, at least. Yes, it's still happening - I'll DM you now.

[Fish-Tank]

This is also an issue for us. We do inventory almost daily and it is very in depth. This is because we are selling live fish. Under each product (species) are multiple variants of size, gender,  and different quantities (packs of multiple fish). We have over 1000 species we sell. This  has lead to a nightmare of navigation to the correct variant. We can not make it work with a CSV because we are updating inventory in real time while standing in front of the aquarium, and changing variant sizes, prices, and quantities. Is there a way to get the old way back?

[HAR1]

So frustrating…and why did they change Color and Size etc variants? UGH…it was so easy before.