Artist/Maker selling online (with Shopify) confused about "locations" in regards to craft shows

Shopify Discussion
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Hey! I did search but couldn’t find anyone else having my problem - so I guess I’m reaching out hoping someone can maybe explain this to me in, I don’t know, very small words, or something.

I was under the impression that “locations” had to be enabled on our online shops. I primarily sell online, but I do sell in person at a couple of craft shows a year, I already had those on my phone/POS app as locations, so that I could easily ring people up at craft shows. I loved the way that stock synced easily throughout the day at a craft show - sales in person were immediately reflected in stock online, so that online shoppers couldn’t over-buy a small batch item that I had brought with me to the craft show.

But now, having enabled locations, it looks like… each location has different stock? Or, rather, all of the stock is shown to be at my primary online store, and all stock is zero at my “locations” (craft shows - I don’t have a brick and mortar shop). Am I understanding that correctly? Because now it looks like, if I want to pack some things to take to a craft show, I have to go into Shopify, mark all the things I pack down in inventory at my online location, and then mark them into inventory at my craft show location?

That seems like… a lot of extra work. Work that I didn’t have to do before. Is that… right? Or am I misunderstanding inventory counts at locations? If I keep everything at a craft show location as zero, but sell it in person anyway (because selling in person trumps online stock numbers, and it will let you sell, in person, more than what it thinks you have online but will not let you sell more online than it thinks you have - I’m sorry this is so confusing), ANYWAY, if my craft show location says zero, but my online location says 2, and someone buys 2, will it automagically reduce the inventory level in my online store, like it did before enabling locations?

Thanks for reading this, and I hope someone has something constructive to say. I’ve been with Shopify about ten years, and this absolutely confounding “location” business is the first thing that’s making me think about looking elsewhere for a platform. I don’t know why I can’t understand it, but I have that same panicked, not-getting-it feeling I had back in my college statistics class!

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Hi @A_Lorena_Halde ,

You should take a look at ConnectPOS 'cause we’ve served many clients who sell on craft shows or pop-up stores, so we know how to handle this problem.

As a leading POS app for Shopify, ConnectPOS supports you manage multiple locations at ease. In your situation, ConnectPOS allows you to assign each Shopify location to a POS outlet. When you use that outlet to sell on the craft show, it will only interact with the items within that outlet. More than that, we ensure 100% real-time synchronization between POS and Shopify so you don’t have to deal with any overlap data.

You can book a free demo with us or visit our app here. Hope this information can help!

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ok, what if you don’t want to pay a monthly fee? what is the answer to syncing all your inventory to the location of a craft fair?

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I have this same issue – did you ever figure it out?

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my method remains the following: make your new POS location active, then under inventory, select all in stock items, then go to bulk edit, edit columns to show home location and new POS location, then edit quantities for each, so home location is now 0, and all items show in the POS location. Then coming home is easier, you just deactivate the POS location and it will ask, what location do you want to move the inventory to, and you select your home base location, or the next POS location.

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I’m new to Shopify and am having the exact same problem. I used Square previously and it was so much more intuitive and easy. I hope someone can clarify.

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So, what I decided to do was to put all of my stock under one location, but for the items that I want to sell at the craft show, I mark those as only available for Point of Sale. That way they don’t show up online.

Go to the product page. On the right hand column, under “Publishing,” there’s a list of places you can make this item visible (sales channels and markets). I make that particular item only visible on the Point of Sale sales channel.

I hope that makes sense!

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Thank you so much for responding! I just had a show today and was really missing my Square.

I tried to follow your directions, but didn’t get past the first one! I’m going to attach a screen shot because I don’t see anywhere that says “Publishing” I’ve scrolled all the way to the side and don’t see anything. Am I in the wrong area?

Apparently I can’t attach a screen shot, only a csv or flow file