Syncing bulk food inventory

[andrewtolson]

Hello,

We are currently building our online store: https://the-red-onion-market.square.site/

Much of our product line is bulk food but we have encountered an inventory and pricing problem that we would like some help in solving.

We plan on selling our bulk products, such as almonds, in custom amounts in the store but in pre-set amounts online. For instance, an in-store shopper could fill a bag with a random amount of almonds, say 435 grams, if that’s what suited them. An online shopper would only be able to chose from three pre-set amounts (quarter kilo, half kilo, and full kilo).

How do we make both of these purchases possible and sync with the overall inventory? Right now, we have tried adding variations for the online pre-set amounts but there seemed to be no way to have all purchases, whether online or in our bricks & mortar shop, be reflected in a single inventory amount.

We would very much appreciate having your thoughts on this problem and how we can solve it.

Thanks!

[AshleyK]

@andrewtolson thank you for posting and leaving such a detailed example. It really helped! 

I'm happy to keep brainstorming with you, but right now there isn't a way to have variable stock amounts on the Online Store where, say, the customer enters in the amount of almonds they want to buy into a form. One thing you can do is have your item variations as different amounts, but encourage your customers to add as many variations as they need to get to the actual stock amount they want to buy.

For example, for both the online store and in store inventory, you can have 3 variations for almonds being 10g, 50g, and 100g, and if the customer wants 350g of almonds, they can add 3 variations of the 100g and 1 of the 50g option. 

It's not the best solution for speed as your customers may have to perform the action a few times (adding the item with different varations), but it can allow for stock flexibility.

I hope this makes sense, but please let me know if you have any other questions!