We are an online-only store and sell a small variety of products. We also offer warrantied products and a trial period that results in stock that can’t be sold as new. Some of our products are sold as bundles with other of our line. We want to make sure we have enough stock to keep the bundles available, even if the stock on the individual components runs out.
To that end, we’ve been considering using a different “location” for stock available to the bundles, while the stock available for individual purchase would be held in our main store.
Is this the best way to approach this? I’m sure we’re not the only company with this challenge. Looking for any experience having dealt with this.
Thanks in advance!
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Hi @kallenconsult
You have two types of products 1 main product A, product accessories B. Your issue is regarding managing the inventory of accessories products.
Considering, accessories products will have only 1 main product.
You can create a custom APP that will allow you to enter the product B inventory as well as a map with another product A with whom you want to bundle it.
Now APP will reduce your product B inventory and store it as bundle inventory which will be the same as bundle product inventory.
Now APP will track the order of the main bundle product and make adjustments to the inventory to accessories prouct.
Like if an order comes that has product A but not product B then the inventory of Product B will be increased since Product A inventory will be reduced.
Hope this will help…
Hello @kallenconsult ,
Consider having a hidden duplicated sku for bundles can be an option. But there is some misunderstanding in your explanation regarding unbox/not new products and how this affects the overall logic. Can you please provide more details?
Thanks,
Anastasia
Hi, @gr_trading . Thanks for the response!
We are using an app called “Bundler” for our product bundles. So far, it’s great and seems to handle the mixture of bundles we have. One thing they just added was the ability to list a bundle as a stand-alone product.
So, let’s say we have three products in our store that we sell AND offer them as a bundle. We do audio equipment, so let’s use real products:
- Center-channel speaker
- Subwoofer
- Receiver
- Bookshelf Speaker
- Ceiling Speaker
- Wall Mounts
Our only sales channel is our online store. On our store we sell each item individually (sometimes people want to add just a speaker, or use one of our subwoofers, etc.). We also sell bundles:
- 5.1 System (1 center channel, 4 bookshelf speakers, 1 subwoofer)
- 7.1 System (1 center channel, 6 bookshelf speakers, 1 subwoofer)
- 5.1.2 System (1 centern channel, 4 bookshelf speakers, 1 subwoofer, 2 ceiling speakers)
- Bookshelf Speakers w/Wall Mounts
Our bundles take priority over individual product sales, so we want to make sure that we have enough stock to populate the bundles, even when the stock in the main store is displayed as zero..
I want to have two (virtual) “locations”, one being just for stock for bundles which would remain independent of our main store that holds products sold individually. I thought of creating separate SKUs for products that are included in a bundle but that seems wrong–there may be times when we decide we want to shift some stock from the main location to the bundled location or vice-versa. Those would always need to have the same SKU.
My ideal situation would be to be able to assign a location to a bundle, which would override the location assignments for the individual products in that bundle. The idea would be put stock in both stores but stock (SKUs) for products in a bundle get pulled only from the “bundle” location.
I am new to dealing with inventory, so my apologies if I am not being clear…
Thanks for the reply, @Stacy_Zhuk (Anastasia).
See the reply to the previous response for a little more clarity (hopefully) on our store. The “Open Box” is another location that we use for those products that have been returned and cannot be sold as new. We test and rate each returned product for quality, offering different quality levels, Green, Yellow, Gray, from best to worst (worst meaning everything works, of course, just more cosmetic damage.) Physically, in our warehouse, when a returned product comes in, we put it the “Quarantine” area, until we’ve had time to evaluate it. Once the evaluation is done, we put the appropriate sticker on it, move it to our physical “open box” area in the warehouse and then increment the stock in the Open Box virtual location for the SKU that represents the appropriate Quality level.
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Hello @kallenconsult ,
Well, I see that using hidden products to include in Bundles instead of visible single products will work best here. Then you can use some sync app to shift stock between individual product and its part in bundle. But anyway, you will probably need a developer to set up everything properly.
Best regards,
Anastasia