Shopify, a powerhouse for online store owners, offers the flexibility to create up to 3 options and 100 variants per product. This expansive capability, while empowering, can lead to challenges in managing inventory, particularly when dealing with made-to-order products and variant options without predefined quantities. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the common inventory complexities that arise in such scenarios and unveil a straightforward solution. Discover how to create product options without affecting inventory, ensuring a seamless alignment with your unique business needs.
Common Cases: Navigating the Inventory Conundrum
Consider a scenario where a bakery offers bread with the choice of being sliced or unsliced. Logically, creating the slice option with 2 variants – sliced and not sliced – may seem straightforward. However, with only 10 loaves available, attempting to allocate 10 for sliced and 10 for unsliced is a distortion of reality. This problem extends its tendrils into various other product landscapes, creating a need for a more nuanced solution.
- Bread Variants (Sliced/Not Sliced): The dilemma arises when attempting to set specific quantities for sliced and not sliced options, potentially skewing the true quantity of available bread.
- Paintings with Frame Options: Inventory discrepancies rear their head when trying to set quantities for framed and unframed variants, potentially distorting the accurate count of available paintings.
- Abstract Art Painting Upgrade: Offering an upgrade option without affecting the original painting’s inventory requires a nuanced solution to maintain precision.
- Handmade Earrings in Various Colors: The limited materials for earrings, combined with color options, make it challenging to assign specific quantities to each variant without compromising inventory accuracy.
- Coffee Bean Grind Types: Grind types, though not premade, should seamlessly coexist without interfering with the inventory count of the coffee beans.
- Customizable T-Shirt Designs: Printing designs on blank T-shirts after purchase complicates inventory management if design options are treated as variants, demanding a thoughtful resolution.
- Necklaces with Gift Box Options: Gift box variants should harmoniously integrate without impacting necklace inventory, ensuring a seamless tracking process.
- E-Liquid Variations: The customizable nature of nicotine, ice/cooling, and sweetness strengths presents a challenge when attempting to set fixed quantities for each variant, requiring an innovative approach.
- Stone Rings with Size Options: Custom-made stone rings with size options necessitate a solution that respects the unique nature of the product, especially when only one ring can be crafted despite multiple size options.
- Bracelets with Engraving Options: Engraving options should gracefully coexist without altering the quantity of available bracelets, prompting the exploration of alternative strategies.
Guide to Maintain Variant Inventory Precision
To effortlessly overcome these challenges, store owners can rely on third-party Shopify product options apps, and among them, Easify Product Options emerges as a beacon of simplicity and functionality, offering a solution that allows you to create product options without affecting inventory.
The essence of this solution lies in liberating store owners from the traditional requirement of creating variants with no inventory within the Shopify framework. Easify Product Options pioneers a paradigm shift by enabling store owners to fashion these non-inventory variants as custom options directly within the app. This strategic approach eliminates the necessity of allocating specific quantities for each variant, ensuring a seamless integration into the core products while allowing you to manage and create product options without affecting inventory.
Logical Workflow with Easify Product Options
- Custom Options Creation: Rather than burdening the Shopify platform with variants that lack inventory, store owners utilize Easify Product Options to create custom options that align with their unique product landscape.
- Integration into Core Products: These custom options seamlessly integrate with the core products, allowing customers to select from a range of choices without encountering the complexities associated with inventory quantities.
- Liberalized Quantity Control: With Easify Product Options, store owners gain unprecedented control over inventory management. Instead of setting specific quantities for individual variants, they can freely set the quantity for core products, providing a more accurate reflection of available stock.
How To Set Up Custom Options With The App
Let’s dive into a step-by-step guide, using the example of offering framed and unframed options for paintings:
1. Create the Painting Product:
Begin by creating the core product, in this case, the painting. Set the quantity for the available painting (e.g., 1). There’s no need to create frame options at this stage.
2. Install the Easify Product Options App:
Head to the Shopify App Store and install the Easify Product Options app. The app is designed to seamlessly integrate with your Shopify store, enhancing its capabilities.
3. Create a New Option Set:
Launch the app and initiate the creation of a new option set.
4. Add Framed and Unframed Options:
Within the newly created option set, add an option for customers to choose between framed and unframed options. Easify Product Options offers a diverse range of 26 display types for these options, such as Radio buttons, Buttons, Dropdowns, Switch, etc.
5. Customize the Option:
Tailor the option to your preferences. This might involve adding an extra price for framed paintings, including helpful text, or providing informative tooltips. The customization possibilities are extensive, allowing you to align the options with your brand and product strategy.
6. Associate Options with Painting Products:
Select the relevant painting product(s) to seamlessly integrate the frame options. This step ensures that the options are applied specifically to the chosen products, allowing for a tailored and effective setup.
With the association established, your setup is now complete. Customers visiting your painting product pages will encounter the frame options, providing them with a personalized and interactive shopping experience.
As customers make purchases, the selected frame option will be visible in the order information on the backend. This ensures a smooth and transparent order preparation process, allowing you to fulfill customer preferences accurately.
Additional Demos for Insight:
Take a quick tour of other demos showcasing similar setups with Easify Product Options. Explore how the app facilitates diverse cases, providing valuable insights into the versatility and capabilities it brings to your Shopify store.
Final Thoughts
If the intricacies of inventory tracking have persistently plagued your Shopify store, why not embark on a transformative journey with Easify Product Options? In just a few minutes of setup, this app promises to revolutionize your approach to both product customization and inventory management.
Easify Product Options goes beyond merely streamlining the process of managing product options without impacting Shopify inventory; it introduces a wealth of additional features designed to elevate your store’s capabilities. From seamless file uploads to customizable font pickers, precise date and time selections, and the added benefit of tiered wholesale pricing, the app unfolds a rich tapestry of tools waiting to be explored.
Embark on this transformative journey today and unlock the myriad possibilities that Easify Product Options brings to the table, allowing you to create product options without affecting inventory and enhance your store’s overall functionality.