<h1>Sell Products in Bulk and Easily Keep Track of Your Total Inventory</h1>
<p>Variation Shared Inventory for WooCommerce allows store owners to collectively manage their product’s stock when selling the same product in various quantities. Sell your items in groups of any amount, and track those groups in the total inventory.</p>
<p>This innovation allows store owners to track their total inventory, even when items are sold in multiple bulk quantity variations, and easily integrate the bulk sale of products.</p>
<h3>Most important features</h3>
<p>Variation shared inventory has easy-to-use methods to allow you to manage inventory for sharing stock among variations. Using it will save you tons of time on managing individual stock values and provide a better shopping experience for your customers which can lead to higher sales. Here’s a list of features:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Variation quantity multiplier</strong> – Each variation has its own “<label for="wsvi_multiplier0">Inventory reduction per item sold</label>“</li>
<li><strong>Managed variation stock</strong> – Once the variation is sharing with other variations, its quantity is disabled for better control and to prevent human error</li>
<li><strong>Managed stock values</strong> – Automatically updates stock values for products & variations based on the total available stock</li>
<li><strong>Dedicated stock manager</strong> – Dedicated tab on product edit page for stock management</li>
<li><strong>Overselling prevention – </strong> Cart validation that prevents products from being sold if they exceed the total inventory</li>
<li><strong>Dedicated dashboard – </strong> Dedicated dashboard showing all variation groups and quickly manage stocks</li>
</ol>
<h3>Why Did We Develop This Plugin?</h3>
<p>As a store owner ourselves, we found it very difficult to track inventory when selling different quantities of products. We searched for existing solutions on the market but couldn’t find one that solved the issue in a simple and straightforward way, hence we have developed this plugin ourselves to solve this bulk quantity issue and we hope it can solve yours as well.</p>
<h3>How Do I Set It Up?</h3>
<p>Once this plugin is enabled, in the product data section of the product edit page, there will be a new tab called “Shared Variation Inventory” where you can enable the “Shared Variation Inventory” option for this product. Once you’ve enabled it, in the “Quantity Manager” section, you can group the variations that you want to share inventory for, enter the total stock of this group, and give the group a label. You can create as many groups as you need (e.g. Variations A & B are different quantities of Peach Candy and Variations C & D are different quantities Apple Candy).</p>
<p>The steps:</p>
<ol>
<li>Enable the plugin</li>
<li>For all variations you’d like to share inventory for, fill in the “Inventory reduction per item sold” field and turn on the “Manage stock?” option</li>
<li>On the quantity manager section, select the variations you want to group, enter the total quantity and if you’d like a group name as well</li>
<li>You’re all set.</li>
</ol>
<p><img class="alignnone wp-image-18734001401592 size-medium" src="https://woocommerce.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Screen-Shot-2023-01-09-at-12.43.11-PM.png?w=620" alt="" width="620" height="317" /></p>
<h3>What Does This Plugin Do?</h3>
<p>This plugin allows you to share the total stock (e.g. 100 units) of a product internally among its variations (e.g. variation A sells by single units, variation B sells in groups of 10 units), and control the total product stock in a centralized section.</p>
<h3>For Example</h3>
<p>Say you have 100 bags of candy for sale, and you want to sell the candy as singles as well as in bulk amounts of 10, you can set it up so that variation A sells by 1 bag and variation B sells by 10 bags (1 box).</p>
<p><strong>Without our plugin:</strong></p>
<p>You would need to split your 100 units and manually allocate and manage stock for the two variations. The problem with this setup is that the variations might sell at different speeds resulting in one of the variations showing up as out of stock while there is still stock left.</p>
<p><strong>With our plugin:</strong></p>
<p>You can simply put down 100 as the total stock. On your storefront, the product page would show that there are 100 units available for variation A and 10 units available for variation B. Then, if 50 units of variation A are sold, your total product stock becomes 50, which updates the stock of variation A to 50 and the stock of variation B to 5.</p>
<p>Our Variation Shared Inventory for WooCommerce plugin also prevents your products from being oversold. In the above example where the total product stock is 100, your customer can’t checkout with 51 units of variation A and 5 units of variation B as it would total to more than 100 total units.</p>
<h3 class="p-rich_text_section">What You Can Do With It</h3>
<p>The Variation Shared Inventory for WooCommerce plugin automatically synchronizes the inventory for variations that share the same total stock, effectively managing your stock for you. When you manually change the total stock of a product, it will automatically update stock quantity of each variation in that group as well.</p>
<p>Here is a few example of what can you do with it:</p>
<ol>
<li>Selling products in bulk at a discount, e.g. 1 chocolate bar for $2, 10 chocolate bars for $15.</li>
<li>Selling white label products, e.g. 100 customizable t-shirts, set up as variations for solid white, solid black, or graphic t-shirt.</li>
<li>Selling weight based products, e.g. 10kg of premium coffee beans, set up with variations for 100g, 250g, 500g, etc.</li>
</ol>
<h3><img class="aligncenter" src="https://woocommerce.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/1-1.png" alt="" width="800" height="auto" /></h3>
<h3>Solutions for Selling Products In Bulk</h3>
<p>If you want to sell products in different quantities (e.g. in single or in bulk), there are a few ways of doing it:</p>
<ol>
<li>Setup one variation per quantity you want to sell<br />
<strong>Pros</strong>: It is easier for customer to browse as well as for you to manage.<br />
<strong>Cons</strong>: N/A<br />
<strong>Conclusion</strong>: We recommend this solution.</li>
<li>Setup one product per quantity<br />
<strong>Pros</strong>: On the product list page (e.g. shop page or category landing page), the customer can see all available options right away.<br />
<strong>Cons</strong>: Most customers are interested in your product first and pricing/quantity options after.<br />
<strong>Conclusion</strong>: We do not recommend this option (unless you have unique business requirements).</li>
</ol>
<h3>Different Approaches to Bulk Selling and Why We Chose the Method We Did</h3>
<p>There are a few different approaches for sharing stock among products or variations:</p>
<ol>
<li>A centralized stock page for all sharing products & variations<br />
There are plugins that provide a dedicated page for all the products & variations that are sharing stock, but the problem is that, it is overly complicated. When a store manager would like to make changes to a product, they would normally go to product edit page to make their changes. By adding another dashboard that they have to use to make changes, the process becomes very inefficient and inconvenient.</li>
<li>Using a common product attribute to share stock between products<br />
This solution sounds good at first, but when you have a large catalog (e.g. 100+ products), attributes often need to be reused, which this method does not support.</li>
<li>Using a variable product to manage shared stock<br />
This is our solution, and we believe that compared to the other shared stock solutions out there, it is the easiest solution to setup & manage by far.</li>
</ol>
<h3>It Works Well With</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://woocommerce.com/products/product-batch-expiration-tracking-for-woocommerce/">Product Batch & Expiration Tracking for WooCommerce</a>Variation Shared Inventory for WooCommerce is an inventory management system that allows a group of variations to share a single quantity.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Requirements</h3>
<p>Minimum PHP version: 7.0</p>
<h3 class="p-rich_text_section">Get started</h3>
<ul class="p-rich_text_list p-rich_text_list__bullet" data-stringify-type="unordered-list" data-indent="0">
<li>Purchase this extension</li>
<li>Download, install, and activate the extension, in your WooCommerce store</li>
<li>Review our <a href="https://woocommerce.com/document/variation-shared-inventory-for-woocommerce/">documentation</a> for any additional information</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>

Variation Shared Inventory

<p>Variation Shared Inventory for WooCommerce is an inventory management system that allows a group of variations to share a single quantity.</p>

<p><a href="https://woocommerce.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Header-Admin-Custom-Order-Fields-updated.png"><img class="size-medium wp-image-7221160 aligncenter" src="https://woocommerce.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Header-Admin-Custom-Order-Fields-updated.png?w=620" alt="Store custom information for order in your WooCommerce admin" width="620" height="215" /></a></p>
<h2>Use Admin Custom Order Fields to Streamline Order Processing and Details</h2>
<p>Do you find yourself putting a lot of information in your “Order Notes” or using outside software, such as Excel, to keep track of order details? Say goodbye to all of the hassle of keeping track of order information in a million different places! The <strong>Admin Custom Order Fields extension</strong> will allow your team to use WooCommerce as a complete Customer Relationship Management system so order information is centralized where the orders actually happen — right within your WooCommerce dashboard.</p>
<p>All order details, notes, fields, and information addition can be streamlined right within the order itself, allowing you to <strong>standardize order details</strong>, keep all order information <strong>in WooCommerce</strong> and not scattered across multiple systems, and <strong>sort or filter orders</strong> based on your custom order information. Keep all of your order details where they belong: tied to the original order!</p>
<figure id="attachment_155915" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-155915" style="width: 550px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://woocommerce.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/woocommerce-admin-custom-order-fields-create-field.png"><img class="size-medium wp-image-155915" src="https://woocommerce.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/woocommerce-admin-custom-order-fields-create-field.png?w=550" alt="WooCommerce Admin Custom Order Fields add a field" width="550" height="152" /></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-155915" class="wp-caption-text">Creating an Admin Order Field</figcaption></figure>
<p>Let’s say that you’re using WooCommerce to book helicopter tours, and you need a way to assign times, pilots, or other details to an order. <strong>Admin Custom Order Fields</strong> allows you to add these details from the Orders Dashboard, and even optionally display them to the customer on the “My Orders” page.</p>
<p>Using WooCommerce to sell other services? You can add dates for coaching sessions, assign multiple case managers to a consulting account, or manage any other order details you wish. Stop jotting down everything in the order notes and start to organize and compartmentalize with Admin Custom Order Fields!</p>
<h3>What Can Admin Custom Order Fields Do?</h3>
<ul>
<li>Create order details to add/edit from the admin Orders Dashboard</li>
<li>Centralize order details that can easily be edited by all team members</li>
<li>Sort or filter orders displayed based on your custom order fields</li>
<li>Optionally display order fields/details to customers</li>
<li>Eliminate the need for spreadsheets or other external systems to manage order notes/details</li>
<li>Streamline your CRM system by centralizing everything in WooCommerce</li>
</ul>
<h3>Make Your Order Management Efficient</h3>
<p>If you’ve been using order notes to add order details, or even worse, been using an outside system to track order details, you know that it’s a pain to keep all of this information updated, <em>especially</em> if it needs to be shared between team members (don’t worry, we know how it’s tough to use Google Docs for all of this!).</p>
<p>Adding all of these details as order fields will simplify record-keeping so that all details are managed right within WooCommerce and visible to all team members. By default, all admin order fields are <strong>hidden from customers</strong>. Even better, you can <strong>sort or filter orders based on these fields</strong>.</p>
<figure id="attachment_157569" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-157569" style="width: 550px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://woocommerce.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/woocommerce-admin-custom-order-fields-example-types1.png"><img class="size-medium wp-image-157569" src="https://woocommerce.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/woocommerce-admin-custom-order-fields-example-types1.png?w=550" alt="WooCommerce Admin Custom Order fields Examples of Types, Values, and Attributes" width="550" height="175" /></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-157569" class="wp-caption-text">Admin Custom Order Fields Examples</figcaption></figure>
<h3>Optionally Display Order Fields to Customers</h3>
<p>Need to assign customers to a trip or tour group after their order has been placed? Want to let them know who their tour guide or pilot will be? Doing so is easy with Admin Custom Order Fields. Set the order field attribute to “Show in My Orders/Email”, and customers will be able to view that field with the rest of their order details.</p>
<figure id="attachment_151993" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-151993" style="width: 550px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://woocommerce.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/woocommerce-admin-custom-order-fields-view-order.png"><img class="size-medium wp-image-151993" src="https://woocommerce.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/woocommerce-admin-custom-order-fields-view-order.png?w=550" alt="WooCommerce Admin Custom Order Fields Customer Experience" width="550" height="484" /></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-151993" class="wp-caption-text">Customer Experience: Viewing Order Fields set by the Admin</figcaption></figure>
<h3>How to Get Started</h3>
<ol>
<li>Buy this extension 🙂</li>
<li>Download and install into your WooCommerce store</li>
<li>Create some order fields under <strong>WooCommerce > Custom Order Fields</strong></li>
<li>Add or edit fields by viewing an order’s details</li>
<li>That’s it! Sit back and enjoy efficient built-in order management!</li>
</ol>
<p><em>Need any more reason to buy? When you purchase a SkyVerge-developed extension, you’re getting the highest quality extensions for your WooCommerce store. Gain peace of mind by knowing that when you purchase our products, your store’s performance is as important to us as it is to you.</em></p>

Admin Custom Order Fields

<p>Add administrative detail fields to your order admin pages to streamline order processing.</p>

Variation Shared Inventory vs Admin Custom Order Fields