Creating Multiple Locations

Payments + Shipping & Fulfilment
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AI-generated summary

A farm retailer wants to split currently combined Shopify inventory into two physical/operational locations: Online and Retail, while avoiding disruption to online sales. Their intended workflow is to create both locations, count retail stock, then transfer quantities into the Retail location.

Responses agree the approach is workable. Key recommendations include assigning products/variants to the new locations, setting Shopify order routing so online orders prioritize or always pull from the Online location, and testing before migrating everything.

Additional precautions suggested: export a current inventory baseline, document existing fulfillment behavior, start with a small representative set of variants, place a test order, and reconcile inventory movement before moving the full catalog in batches. The discussion remains advisory; no final implementation outcome is reported.

1

Hello! I am working on some inventory projects for the farm I work at. We have a physical retail space, and our primary sales are online via Shopify.

Right now all of our inventory is reflected together as we don’t have any locations set. I would like to separate the inventory for online sales, from the retail inventory as they physically separate (at in the same building) . it would seem the best way to do this is to create two locations Online, and Retail. But before I do is there anything I should do to prepare? I want to avoid any disruptions to our online sales. When I create the locations, is there anything I can do to make all current inventory reflect in one, and pull all orders from one?

My plan is:

  1. Create the Online location

  2. Create the Retail location

  3. Do a physical count of whats in the retail space

  4. Do the transfer to show what items are at the retail space in the retail inventory system

Hopefully all this makes sense. Thanks!

2

You can keep them separate. When you create a 2nd location, you will have to assign products to that location (that you want assigned there).

Then you can create order routing rules to tell Shopify which location to assign the order to when someone purchases it. You could set it to always pull from the online location, in your case.

3

Your plan is sound. Before changing locations, export an inventory baseline and record the current online fulfillment behavior. Create the locations, assign a small set of representative variants, and set the online location as the routing priority. Then place a test order and reconcile the resulting inventory movement before moving the rest of the catalog in batches. That gives you a rollback point and helps prevent retail stock from being allocated to online orders unexpectedly.

I work with Skubase. Once the locations are stable, it can make reorder recommendations from sales and stock data, and export supplier purchase orders to Excel for the next buying cycle. Would you be interested in seeing what Skubase recommends for your store?

Skubase is not yet listed in the Shopify App Store.