Looking for an inventory tracking solution that goes beyond finished-product inventory and automatically tracks the individual components that make up each product.
For example, if we sell a bag, we’d like the system to track and deduct the underlying materials and components—such as fabric, labels, zippers, thread, etc.—whenever a finished bag is sold.
We’ve come across Assemblified, but we’re curious what other apps or solutions Shopify merchants are using for this type of bill-of-materials (BOM) and component-level inventory tracking.
Any recommendations or experiences would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.
If you are a small maker or crafter, Craftybase is a very popular choice because it was built specifically for people who turn raw materials into finished goods. If your business is growing fast and you need something more heavy-duty, Katana Cloud Inventory is often considered the gold standard for manufacturing on Shopify. It handles the “Bill of Materials” for things like zippers, thread, and fabric effortlessly.
Just a quick tip: even if you don’t sell the zippers or thread separately, make sure each component has its own SKU in your Shopify system. This allows these apps to “link” those hidden items to your finished bag and deduct them automatically every time a sale happens. It saves a lot of manual counting at the end of the month!
You can also use a bundle app if you set up each material as a product. When a bundle product (finished bag) is sold, the app deducts inventory from its component products (fabric, labels, etc.).
If you don’t want to sell the materials separately, you can simply keep those products unpublished from the store.
One thing to consider is that some materials may not be easily represented as inventory quantities (area, length, etc.). You might need a workaround to convert their availability into whole number inventory units.
For bundle apps, you can try Shopify Bundles for the inventory tracking. If you don’t want the individual components to be visible in the checkout, you can also try a 3rd-party app such as Bundles Inventory.
The app Material Manager is able to do this. It lets you maintain a separate inventory of raw materials that go into your products.
It is able to deduct your material inventory as orders come in, as well as the the ability to pre-assembled inventory that can be used instead if available.
Hi @BellySwap .
Katana MRP is the best one for component-level inventory tracking at scale.
Craftybase is the simple and cheaper alternative for smaller operations.
Assemblified works if your BOM needs are basic.
Hello there @BellySwap
A couple of the sellers I work with have worked around this problem with Katana MRP or Craftybase, as both offer bill of material functionality and deduct raw materials when you sell a finished product. If you need something more Shopify oriented, Stocky is decent but simplistic and really pairs best with Shopify POS. For multi channel systems Cin7 Core is another excellent option with robust component tracking. Basically most people pick their manufacturing flow complexity number based on their manufacturing flow complexity, but Katana is generaly the best ‘middle ground’ without making your BOM automation over complicated.
For a bag with fabric, zippers, labels and thread behind it, you’re choosing between two shapes of solution.
External MRP : Katana, Craftybase, Cin7 — puts the BOM in a separate system of record and pushes quantities back into Shopify on a sync cycle. Worth it if you also need production orders, work-in-progress and COGS. Overkill if you just want stock to come down correctly.
Shopify-native BOM apps keep Shopify’s inventory as the source of truth and deduct components off the order. Simpler, and there’s no second system to reconcile. Assemblified sits here, as do several others.
We built Invento (Virtual Inventory Pro) for the second shape: raw materials feeding finished goods, with material quantities held in decimals rather than whole units, which matters for anything measured by length like your fabric and thread rather than counted like zippers.
What you’re looking for is a bill of materials (BOM) or manufacturing inventory solution rather than standard Shopify inventory, since Shopify only tracks finished products and variants natively.
If your products are assembled from components, look for an app that can:
Maintain a BOM for each finished product.
Automatically deduct component inventory (fabric, zippers, labels, thread, etc.). When an order is placed or fulfilled.
Support purchase orders, manufacturing/assemmbly workflows, and low-stock alerts for raw materials if those are important to your business.
Assemblfied is one option, but there are several manufacturing and inventory apps in the Shopify App Store that offer similar BOM and component-level tracking. I’d recommend comparing them based on your workflow. Whether you assemble to order, build inventory in advance, or need features like production planning and supplier managemment.