I need variants that won't effect overall quantity

[JoeKing]

In my store, I have an electronic product I'm selling and I have options defined as variants that effect the price.  These are optional Power Adapters and Stands.

In this case, the variant quantity is not important for inventory tracking; those items I always have on hand and are just physically bundled into the main product during shipping.  These items can even be shared among other products.  I looked at the Bundling App, but that's for when you have 2 or more products you want to combine.  In this case, the Power Adapters and Stands are not really products that I want to list on their own and I don't want the mechanics of a "bundle".  Variants suit me better.

For now I'm having to split the inventory numbers up for the main product between the variants and keep tabs on whether or not there is an imbalance so I can adjust it.  But when it gets down to 1 physical unit remaining in stock (like it did this weekend), I don't know which options the last purchaser will want, so I have to keep each variant in stock with 1 unit.  That runs the risk of 2 or more people buying when I only have 1 unit left.

What's the best approach?

Can I put in a feature request that the variant stock inherits the count from a top level product value?

[FusionInventory]

Hi @JoeKing ,

We recently released an inventory management app that work for this use case: Fusion Inventory

It works by allowing you to configure an inventory of raw materials and then link those raw materials to your products using a bill of materials. So for example in your case you would have the following materials:

Material name	Quantity
ABC	10
XYZ	12
Power Adapter	3
Stand	1

and each product variant to be managed by the app will have a bill of materials. Product Variant "XYZ - Stand" may have the following bill of materials:

Material	Quantity
XYZ	1
Stand	1

All you have to do is add the materials and bill of materials to the app and then activate inventory sync. After that, the app will take care of keeping your product inventory in sync with your material inventory.

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.

[EasifyApps]

Hi @JoeKing,

The Easify Product Options app could be the solution you're searching for 🤗.

Here's how it works:

1. Rather than creating Power Adapters and Stands as variants of your main products, you'll create them as separate products.

2. With the Easify app, you can then designate Power Adapters and Stands as add-on products (custom options) for your main product.

3. You can hide the Power Adapters and Stands products from your storefront by excluding them from all collections. Additionally, you can use the seo.hidden metafield to prevent them from appearing in search results.

As a result, your customers will only be able to select Power Adapters and Stands alongside your main products. These add-ons won't affect your main product quantity, and customers won't be able to purchase Power Adapters and Stands separately or view them on the storefront. It's exactly what you're looking for.

Let me know your specific requirements, and I can assist you with the setup. Alternatively, feel free to reach out to the Easify team via the in-app live chat for further assistance 🙌.

[JoeKing]

This looks interesting and I want to try it, but can you tell me why the app needs to collect all of my customer data? I'm very cautious about installing apps that expose customer data to a third party. Why would add-on purchase options require sharing that data?