How can I link SKUs to update inventory for color variations of the same product?

Shopify Discussion

Topic summary

A merchant wants to display the same product (Hero Pants) as two separate listings to showcase different colors (Black and Grey) on collection pages. Each color-size combination shares the same SKU across both listings, but when a customer purchases from one listing, Shopify doesn’t automatically update inventory on the duplicate listing with matching SKUs.

Core Issue:
Shopify tracks inventory per variant, not per SKU—duplicate products don’t share stock natively.

Proposed Solutions:

  • Restructure products: Create separate parent products for each color (e.g., “Hero Pants Black” and “Hero Pants Grey”) with sizes as variants, ensuring each variant has a unique SKU.

  • Use inventory sync apps: Several apps can link inventory across products sharing the same SKU:

    • Profit Bundles – syncs connected products with shared SKUs, supports multi-location inventory
    • Stocklink – triggers inventory updates based on orders
    • SKU Stock Sync – auto-detects duplicate SKUs, syncs per-location inventory, includes scheduling and manual sync options

  • Custom script: Build a solution using Shopify’s Inventory Levels API to sync quantities programmatically.

The discussion remains open with no native Shopify feature available for this use case.

Summarized with AI on October 26. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

Im trying to list the same product twice just to showcase different colours. However, if a customer clicks on one listing it wont update the inventory even though the same SKU was sold.

I’ll try put it into an example and word it as good as I can.

Product Name: Hero Pants
Hero Pants come in Black & Grey.
Hero Pants also come in Size S, M & L.

All Hero Pants that are Black and Size S have the same SKU
All Hero Pants that are Black and Size M have the same SKU
All Hero Pants that are Black and Size L have the same SKU
All Hero Pants that are Grey and Size S have the same SKU
All Hero Pants that are Grey and Size M have the same SKU
All Hero Pants that are Grey and Size L have the same SKU

I have duplicated the Hero Pants to reflect the same SKUs, Images, Quantity and so on.

So technically, I have 2 Products just so I can show the different colours on the Collections page. Both have exactly the same SKUs but if a customer was to click on 1 of them and buy it, it doesn’t update the inventory for the products that have the same SKUs on the other listing. If you have worked this out PLEASE LET ME KNOW! it’s driving me insane!

I don’t get how this is not a shopify feature!

1 Like
2

Maybe I’m misunderstanding you but I think your issue is your definition of a SKU.

If you have:

Hero Pants>Grey>Small

Hero Pants>Grey>Medium

Hero Pants>Grey>Large

Hero Pants>Black>Small

Hero Pants>Black>Medium

Hero Pants>Black>Large

Each one of the above is a physical product, therefore each of them should have its own unique SKU. So, given your example you don’t ‘technically have 2 products’ you have 6. If you want to show them as ‘2’ products on your Collections page. Then instead of making the Hero Pants the parent product and all the color & size options as variants, you would make Hero Pants Black a parent product with the sizes as the variants and Hero Pants Grey as a parent product with the sizes as the variants. Hope that makes sense.

3

Hi @CMNDcrew ,

I understand your situation here. You need a connected product i.e 2 or more products on shopify but same SKU underneath, right? To sync inventory for these products , there is no native functionality in shopify. We as a merchant also faced the same issue. For which our inhouse team has developed a modern clean way to handle this through an app : Profit Bundles. What you need to do is go to the app select your product then just add the other products to it, it’s that simple. Whenever someone buys your product inventory is deducted as per composition rules. Also Multi-location inventory is supported if that is your concern.

Cheers!

4

You might find Stocklink useful - it’s a fairly simple app that allows you to trigger inventory updates based on orders.

Check it out, you might be able to solve your problem: https://apps.shopify.com/stocklink