Can I use the barcode field as a storage location?

[Ntothep]

Deal Shopify community,

We're using Shopify for 1 1/2 years and since the beginning, we have the issue that the is no default option to add shelf numbers or any storage information to a product. I did a lot of research, but it seems like only a few people are in need of such an input field, which is really interesting for me. Do most Shopify users only have a few items or why seems everybody happy with not having any field to store the exact location of where the items is?

We used a workaround where we added the shelf number at the end of the SKU, but this is now causing huge problems when working with other apps (InkFrog, Billbee, eBay) as it is not possible to change the shelf number at a later stage without having synchronization issues on the other platforms. Anyways, you should never change an SKU especially as this is our identifier to sync between the different tools. Currently, we have more than 15.000 items in our store and there is no way we can do this without shelf locations and the only advice from the Shopify team here in the forum is to use some kind of a third-party app for this. I think this is not a good solution as I want everything to be in Shopify and the information also needs to be synchronized to Billbee as this is our fulfillment app. For me, an item location field is also a fundamental feature that every online shop software should offer.

My first idea was to use an app or the API to create a custom field "storage location" and then save the information here. The downside of this option is that you cannot edit it in the Shopify app/website without using an extra app, which is very unhandy when quickly checking some products in the warehouse on the phone. Also, syncing of custom fields to other apps is also nearly impossible.

My second idea was to go with the fields that are provided by Shopify and use one of them for the location. As we're only selling used parts, we do not have any barcodes and the barcode field can be accessed from the Shopify app or website and it can be synced to other apps such as Billbee. I've seen that Shopify does explicitly not recommend using the Barcode input field for something else in the docs, probably as this is usually the unique identifier for various platforms such as Amazon, Google Shopping etc. Is somebody aware of any issue I could run into when using the Barcode filed for our own shelf storage numbers?

Is there any better way to solve this problem that I did not think of?

Looking forward for any help here,

Niklas

[Bo_Thomas]

Over a year old and not one reply. Wow!  Ever find a better solution on your own since posting?

[Anto_S]

We have a solution for this on Sheet Master https://apps.shopify.com/sheet-master

Video demo & screenshot below. For custom reports/pick lists with product locations please email us at support@comstack.co

thanks

Anto

[Bo_Thomas]

Awesome, I'll check out the app. Thanks