HI, I often have a secondary vendor for some of my items that I use if the first vendor is out of the items. Usually the second vendor costs more but I will be keeping the retail price the same. How to I handle this? We are using Shopify POS. Do I just change the vendor for this item? is there an app that I can use to manage this? Thank you.
Hi @dal28dal
Shopify only supports one vendor per product, so simply changing the vendor each time isn’t ideal if you regularly switch between suppliers.
A better approach is to use metafields or a supplier/inventory management app to store your secondary vendor information while keeping the primary vendor unchanged. This lets you track both suppliers without affecting your product setup.
If your secondary supplier has different costs, you can also track the cost separately while keeping the retail price the same. Depending on your workflow, there are apps that support multiple suppliers and purchase orders.
Could you share how you’re managing inventory currently (Shopify only, or using an inventory app)? That will help determine the best solution.
Best regards,
Devcoder 
Thank you for the help. I am using Inventory Planner by Sage for our inventory management. If I use metafields, how does that affect the pricing? And when the cashier rings an item are 2 different items displayed for them to choose from?
Hi @dal28dal
Metafields are only used to store additional information, so they won’t affect your product pricing or create duplicate products. In Shopify POS, the cashier will still see only one product, not two.
If you switch to your secondary supplier, you would typically update the Cost per item (or manage supplier-specific costs through your inventory management system), while keeping the retail price the same.
Since you’re using Inventory Planner by Sage, I’d recommend checking whether it supports multiple suppliers and supplier-specific costs. If it does, that’s likely the best solution because you can keep both suppliers linked to the same product without changing the Shopify vendor field each time.
Best regards,
Devcoder
I’m honestly not sure what Inventory Planner supports, but using metafields when you’re using an app to track your inventory is probably not the best idea. It’s only when you’re not using an app to help track this information that metafields is the way to go (in my opinion).
The reason why is that apps can support what you’re looking for with regard to supplier based pricing and they do it in a way that maintains solid usage. For example, my app, FyreTrail, allows you to store your individual supplier costs separately from each other, then will use that cost when you specify that supplier on the PO and on top of that compare suppliers and warn you if that product/variant is available with a different supplier at a lower cost. Metafields can’t do this logic without much work and instead mainly allow you a storage point for each variant.
Check that Inventory Planner can do this as well. Like I said, I honestly do not know. But… if they don’t and you want an app that specializes in Supplier / Product / Variant relationships for excellent purchase order management then give FyreTrail a look.
Hey @dal28dal ,
I don’t think changing the product’s vendor each time is the best approach since it overwrites the original supplier information. If switching between suppliers is something you do regularly a purchasing or inventory management app that supports multiple suppliers for the same product would likely be a better long term solution while keeping your retail price unchanged.
Thank You !
Sounds like you need an order routing method as well, there are services / apps out there that might be of use.
I have similar situation and other “apps” could not service w/general customization limitations, so I built our own custom check out path added to my store app i developed that optimizes shipping, vendor inventory confirmation, cost comparison and order routing upon checkout. Sounds simple but it’s quite detailed. I’m still working on my store go live so far my back end testing is operational and working as designed.
Hello @dal28dal,
Shopify currently does not support assigning multiple vendors or suppliers to the same product. If you change the vendor, the product cost will be updated based on the newly assigned vendor. Custom fields and metafields also cannot retain separate supplier-specific costs.
If you are still looking for a solution, Inventory management apps can help you track landed costs from multiple suppliers for the same product. With ChannelBay, you can add, update, and manage the costs of different suppliers for each SKU.
Hi @dal28dal , it depends on how your 2nd vendor wishes to receives the fulfillment requests. Do they want to receive via email, Shopify, ShipStation, or another method? Also, once you have products in multiple locations, do you plan on manually assigning orders to the correct location? Sometimes it might help with automated solution. In either case, feel free to check out the Built-for-Shopify app Order Fulfillment Guru. It handles these scenarios and can scale with your business.
Hi @dal28dal ,
Shopify only supports a single Vendor value per product, so simply changing the vendor each time isn’t ideal if you regularly switch between suppliers.
A better approach is to keep your primary vendor in the Vendor field and track the secondary supplier using a product metafield, SKU mapping, or an inventory/purchasing app that supports multiple suppliers. This lets you retain supplier information without constantly editing the product.
If you frequently purchase from multiple vendors, consider using an inventory management app like Stocky (if available on your plan) or another purchasing/inventory app that supports multiple suppliers and purchase orders. This will be much easier to manage than manually changing the Vendor field every time.
Hi @dal28dal 
What do your customers care about, does reports/auditing matter, and your contractual obligations say etc etc etc
There’s treating vendor more as the manufacturer, different manufacturers should have different skus and listing for a smattering or reasons & consequence especially the legal kind (returns,warranties,etc).
Meanwhile supplier is not the same as vendor.
etc
So really without knowing your business no one can give a solid recommendation.
Thought note just changing a vendor in shopify should not change the price data at all unless you’ve specifically setup such automation or your upstream software does something.
But shopify can be automated to swap the vendors names either in the product data, or visually on themes etc
Or for themes products swapped in for different products on product pages such as if you need the actually inventory to be cleanly separated but still want the same landing page.
Reach out of you need this thought through and streamlined.
Hello there @dal28dal
For this arrangement, you should hold off on changing the main vendor field each time, since that can impact your purchasing records and reports. Use purchase orders with the alternate vendor information, or add vendor details via metafields. For more advanced multi-vendor management, inventory apps with multi supplier support alow you to manage cost, availability and purchasing decisions for each vendor while keeping your POS flow consistent.
Hey @dal28dal,
hope you doing well!
If you frequently work with multiple suppliers for the same products, an inventory or purchase order app with multiple supplier’s support would likely be the best solution. Apps like
**1.Prediko:**AI-powered inventory planning and purchase order management.
2.Inventory Planner: Forecast demand and manage purchasing across suppliers.
3.Assisty: Inventory management with purchase orders and supplier management.
Just to make sure I understand correctly, are you mainly looking for a way to manage different product costs when you switch between your primary and backup supplier?
If so, could you share a bit more about your workflow? For example:
- Do you switch suppliers only occasionally when one is out of stock?
- Or do different locations/stores use different suppliers with different costs?
The reason I ask is that there are a few different ways to handle this depending on your use case.
If this only happens occasionally, I’d keep your primary vendor listed and update the Cost per item whenever you purchase from your backup supplier. That way, your inventory valuation and profitability are based on your actual purchase cost, even if your retail price stays the same.
Since your backup supplier costs more, I’d also keep an eye on how those purchases affect your margins. You can check out app Goprofit 
There are some features that can be of great help for you on this.
(post deleted by author)
Disclosure: I built an inventory app (Stockwik), so grain of salt.
This exact problem is why I keep purchasing data separate from the Shopify vendor field. In my app a product can have multiple buy options - each one is a supplier plus their SKU, cost, pack size, and minimum order, with one marked primary for reorder suggestions. Your backup vendor just sits there as a second option until you need them, with their higher cost on record, and nothing on the Shopify product changes.
Whichever way you go, the thing to check is that supplier cost and SKU live on the supplier relationship, not on the product. That is the difference between switching vendors in one click and overwriting your history every time.