Made-to-order items

Technical Q&A
1

Hi,

I’m selling made-to-order clothes and try to setup a listing. In the variant section I remove “Track quantity” checkbox but I cannot add the item to the cart. What else should I do?

Alex

2

Hi @Aleksas7

You can try these steps:

  1. Make sure Track quantity is disabled for the variant.
  2. Check that the product is set to Active and available on the Online Store sales channel.
  3. Make sure the variant has a price.
  4. Check that the variant is available in the relevant market/location.
  5. If you’re using a custom theme or app, test the product with Shopify’s default Dawn theme to see if the Add to Cart issue is theme-related.

If it still doesn’t work, check the browser console for any JavaScript errors when clicking Add to Cart.

Best regards,
Devcoder :laptop:

3

Hey @Aleksas7, unchecking Track quantity is the right made-to-order path, but it has to be off on every variant, not only the parent product. Shopify’s help is here: https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/products/inventory/setup/set-up-inventory-tracking

If you want to keep tracking (so you can still see how many you owe), leave Track quantity on and turn on Continue selling when out of stock instead: https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/products/inventory/getting-started-with-inventory/selling-when-out-of-stock

If Add to cart still fails after that, the usual leftover is a location with 0 stock that is the one fulfilling the online store, or the variant has no price.

4

Once the variant settings are fixed, I’d test the customer-facing promise as well. Made-to-order should show a variant-specific production window on the PDP, cart and order confirmation, so removing inventory tracking does not turn into an unclear delivery expectation.

For the failure itself, test one direct variant URL and one different market/location, then capture the selected variant, Add to Cart request/response and the storefront availability state. “Track quantity is off” is a fact; “the theme is broken” is still a hypothesis until the same variant fails in a controlled path.

5

Many thanks. I tried various options, but I suspect that we made a workaround with programmers regarding former limitations of 100 variants (this limitation is no longer a case). It was also reprogrammed the layout of size buttons for a nicer view. The shop development was put on hold because of a car accident I had serious medical problems for a couple of years. I think a lot of functionality changed in this time. And I need programmers to check everything again…

2026-08-23, sk, 04:15 gotinker <notifications@community.shopify.com> rašė:

6

Hey @Aleksas7, you are right that the old 100-variant cap is gone. Shopify now allows 2,048 variants per product: https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/products/variants/add-variants

Those old workarounds (custom size-button JS, splitting one product into many) are a common reason Add to cart dies after a few years. Shopify also notes some third-party themes still only handle 100 variants.

Quick check before you hire anyone: duplicate the product, put the sizes back as normal Shopify variants, and preview it on Dawn with Track quantity off. If that one adds to cart, the custom size-button code is the leftover, not the inventory setting.

7

I’m sorry you had to pause the shop for health reasons. Your new detail makes the old size-button code the strongest lead, but I would not pay someone to ‘check everything’ before isolating one product.

A bounded developer handoff could be:

  1. duplicate one affected product;
  2. rebuild its sizes as native Shopify variants;
  3. test that duplicate in Dawn and in the live theme;
  4. record add-to-cart results for five sizes plus any browser-console error;
  5. list each legacy app or snippet that touches variant selection.

That separates product data, theme JavaScript and an old app before anyone quotes a rebuild.

If you are comfortable sharing one public product URL, the live theme name/version and one size that fails, I can outline the five-case test sheet. No admin access or private store data.

8

Thanks for a tip. I downloaded the Dawn theme. The Add To Cart works. So, I’m almost sure the problem lies in the code of the current theme.

9

Alex,

The Dawn test tells you more than it looks. If Add to cart works on
Dawn with the same product, then the product, the inventory settings
and Shopify itself are all fine. What is left is the product form in
your own theme.

In Shopify a product goes into the cart through a form that carries a
hidden field called id, holding the variant number. Dawn keeps that
field in sync every time you pick a size. A size selector that was hand
built back in the 100 variant days often changes how the button looks
and never writes to that field. The form then sends an old variant, or
none at all, and Shopify refuses it.

Two minutes to check this. Open the product page on your live theme,
press F12 and go to the Console. Reload the page and see if a red error
shows up.

Then paste this:

document.querySelector(‘form[action*=“/cart/add”] [name=“id”]’).value

Note the number, click a different size, and run it again.

If the number does not change, the buttons are not connected to the
form. That is your bug, and it lives in the theme JavaScript.

If it does change, compare that number with the variant ID in your
admin. If they are different, the buttons are pointing at variants that
no longer exist, and that would be what is left of the old workaround.

One more, if you want to see the real error your theme is hiding. Most
themes swallow Shopify’s answer and just show a button that does
nothing. In the same Console:

fetch(‘/cart/add.js’,{method:‘POST’,headers:{‘Content-Type’:‘application/json’},body:JSON.stringify({id:YOUR_VARIANT_ID,quantity:1})}).then(r=>r.json()).then(console.log)

Shopify will tell you the reason in plain words.