<h1>Sell Products in Bulk and Easily Keep Track of Your Total Inventory</h1>
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.
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.
<h3>Most important features</h3>
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:
<ol>
<li>Variation quantity multiplier – Each variation has its own “<label for="wsvi_multiplier0">Inventory reduction per item sold</label>“</li>
<li>Managed variation stock – Once the variation is sharing with other variations, its quantity is disabled for better control and to prevent human error</li>
<li>Managed stock values – Automatically updates stock values for products & variations based on the total available stock</li>
<li>Dedicated stock manager – Dedicated tab on product edit page for stock management</li>
<li>Overselling prevention –  Cart validation that prevents products from being sold if they exceed the total inventory</li>
<li>Dedicated dashboard –  Dedicated dashboard showing all variation groups and quickly manage stocks</li>
</ol>
<h3>Why Did We Develop This Plugin?</h3>
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.
<h3>How Do I Set It Up?</h3>
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).
The steps:
<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>
<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" />
<h3>What Does This Plugin Do?</h3>
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.
<h3>For Example</h3>
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).
Without our plugin:
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.
With our plugin:
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.
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.
<h3 class="p-rich_text_section">What You Can Do With It</h3>
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.
Here is a few example of what can you do with it:
<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>
If you want to sell products in different quantities (e.g. in single or in bulk), there are a few ways of doing it:
<ol>
<li>Setup one variation per quantity you want to sell 
Pros: It is easier for customer to browse as well as for you to manage. 
Cons: N/A 
Conclusion: We recommend this solution.</li>
<li>Setup one product per quantity 
Pros: On the product list page (e.g. shop page or category landing page), the customer can see all available options right away. 
Cons: Most customers are interested in your product first and pricing/quantity options after. 
Conclusion: 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>
There are a few different approaches for sharing stock among products or variations:
<ol>
<li>A centralized stock page for all sharing products & variations 
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 
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 
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>
Minimum PHP version: 7.0
<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>

Variation Shared Inventory

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

<ul class="wccom-tick-list-primary">
<li>Manage stock at the attribute level</li>
<li>Share stock across products and variations</li>
<li>Track inventory of products and attributes for simple products, variable products, simple subscriptions, and variable subscriptions</li>
<li>Customize for your Woo store</li>
<li>Works for members and guests</li>
</ul>
<hr class="wccom-product-heading__hr" />
<h2>Who needs Attribute Stock Manager for WooCommerce?</h2>
If you sell product variations with shared elements, parts, or ingredients (attributes) you will benefit from simultaneously tracking the inventory of products and their attributes.
For example, a t-shirt seller who prints various designs on plain t-shirts needs to know how many plain t-shirts they have in inventory. Their stock of plain t-shirts decreases as they print and fulfill customers’ orders for printed designs.
The seller needs to track sales of the variations (assorted printed designs) and the plain t-shirts that designs are printed on (attributes).
Attribute Stock Manager for WooCommerce gives sellers the ability to track the stock of products and their related attributes.
<h2>Benefits</h2>
Better inventory management
You can easily manage the inventory of products and variations that require inventory sharing.
Increase purchases and prevent backorders and out-of-stock issues
Generally, when a product or variant is out of stock in a particular size, the user will wait until that exact item is available again to purchase. When inventory syncs between products, the users can see what else is available and purchase from all available products associated with the global inventory.
<h2>How does it work?</h2>
<h3>Stock sharing across variations</h3>
Once admins configure stocks and attribute stocks, the extension will be ready for use. All the variations associated with the attribute will share the same global inventory.
For example
You sell ground coffee and fill your coffee-powder orders from the same central supply of coffee powder (the attribute). With each order of any size, you diminish the total supply of coffee powder.
<figure id="attachment_18734000011515" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-18734000011515" style="width: 896px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img class="wp-image-18734000011515 size-medium" src="https://woocommerce.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/attribute-stock-configuration.png?w=896" alt="" width="896" height="504" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-18734000011515" class="wp-caption-text">Product Configuration</figcaption></figure>
When a variant is purchased (for example, 250 grams of coffee), the purchased inventory updates the attribute inventory. Customers see the change across all the variations that share the inventory.
<figure id="attachment_18734000011517" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-18734000011517" style="width: 896px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img class="wp-image-18734000011517 size-medium" src="https://woocommerce.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/attribute-stock-variable-pdt.png?w=896" alt="" width="896" height="504" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-18734000011517" class="wp-caption-text">Shared Inventory on Variable Product</figcaption></figure>
<h3>Stock sharing across products</h3>
Once admins configure the stocks and attribute stocks, the extension is ready to use. All the products associated with the attribute will share the same global inventory.
With each product purchase, the stock will update the attribute inventory. The change will also reflect across all products sharing the inventory.
<figure id="attachment_18734000011523" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-18734000011523" style="width: 896px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img class="wp-image-18734000011523 size-medium" src="https://woocommerce.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/attribute-stock-simple-pdt1.png?w=896" alt="" width="896" height="504" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-18734000011523" class="wp-caption-text">Shared Inventory on Simple Product 1 </figcaption></figure>
If a user tries to purchase products beyond the available inventory, Attribute Stock Manager will prevent them from over-purchasing and show them the quantity available.
<figure id="attachment_18734000011516" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-18734000011516" style="width: 896px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img class="wp-image-18734000011516 size-medium" src="https://woocommerce.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/attribute-stock-simple-pdt2.png?w=896" alt="" width="896" height="504" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-18734000011516" class="wp-caption-text">Shared Inventory on Simple Product 2</figcaption></figure>
Attribute Stock Manager for WooCommerce prevents overselling and encourages customers to purchase available inventory instead of waiting for an out-of-stock product.
By tracking attribute inventory, Attribute Stock Manager relieves stress on store owners and increases customer satisfaction.
<h2>Extensive Features List</h2>
<ol>
<li>Manage stock quantities using product attributes instead of individual products or variations.</li>
<li>Share stock quantities across multiple products that use the same attributes.</li>
<li>Create unlimited attribute stock entries to manage complex inventory scenarios.</li>
<li>Combine multiple attributes into a single stock rule for accurate inventory control.</li>
<li>Control stock availability with configurable attribute-matching rules.</li>
<li>Restrict attribute stock rules to selected products or variations.</li>
<li>Apply stock rules to products within specific categories.</li>
<li>Use product tags to determine when attribute stock rules apply.</li>
<li>Automatically use the first matching stock rule when multiple rules qualify.</li>
<li>Monitor and update stock quantities directly from a centralized stock management interface.</li>
<li>Allow or restrict backorders for attribute-based inventory.</li>
<li>Reduce attribute stock levels automatically when orders are placed.</li>
<li>Restore attribute stock when orders are cancelled or refunded.</li>
<li>Manage all attribute stock records from a centralized interface.</li>
<li>Quickly view, search, and edit attribute inventory entries.</li>
<li>Efficiently maintain multiple-attribute stock records.</li>
<li>Export attribute stock data for reporting and external analysis.</li>
<li>Prevent purchases when attribute-based inventory limits are reached.</li>
<li>Validate stock availability throughout the add-to-cart and checkout process.</li>
<li>Provide stock-related alerts and notifications where applicable [Low Stock info, Out-of-Stock & Backorder related].</li>
<li>Compatible with Cart and Checkout Blocks.</li>
</ol>
<h3>Requirements</h3>
Minimum PHP version: 5.6

Attribute Stock Manager

Simultaneously track the inventory of products, variations, and their attributes.

Variation Shared Inventory vs Attribute Stock Manager