A Shopify store owner needs help preventing customers from exceeding total inventory across product variants.
The Problem:
Store has only 2 units of yellow brass total in inventory
Product has 2 variants: pendants and necklaces
Customers can currently add 2 pendants + 5 necklaces to cart (7 total items)
Owner wants the “Add” button to show “Sold Out” once the 2 yellow brass units are in cart, regardless of which variant combination
Attempted Solution:
One user suggested enabling inventory tracking and unchecking “Continue selling when out of stock” in Shopify admin
Store owner confirmed these settings are already configured
Issue persists: customers can still add more items than available (e.g., size 14 and 16 necklaces totaling 4 yellow brass units when only 2 exist)
Status: The problem remains unresolved. The standard Shopify inventory settings don’t address shared inventory pools across variants, suggesting a custom code solution may be needed.
Summarized with AI on November 8.
AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
Is there a code for shopify to prevent customer to from buying more than what is available in inventory. I have 2 variants, 2 pendants and 5 necklaces . Once all the pendants are added to cart , I need the add button to display sold out even when there are necklaces left.
I only have 2 yellow brass in my inventory, If customer add 2 yellow brass with necklace 14in into cart , I need the add button to gray or or something so they cannot continue to add 2 yellow brass with necklace 16in.
Hi @tigrisjewelryco
To prevent customers from purchasing more than the available stock on Shopify, you can follow these steps:
Go to your Shopify admin panel, navigate to Products > AllProducts, select the product with variants (pendants and necklaces), ensure “Track quantity” is checked in the Inventory section, and uncheck “Continue selling when out of stock” and click Save button
I have done that . If you go onto my link , you will still be able to add 2 yellow brass size 14 and 16 into cart (4 total yellow). I only have a total of 2 yellow brass in my inventory
