Needing help on how to set up inventory for Gown store for special orders

[ReignProm]

I have a prom store and I have uploaded all my inventory on the orders I have placed to arrive in Jan.  But I also take special orders as the gown styles come in lots of different colors and of course sizing.  What is the easiest way to do this in the system as I will only have one gown actually in stock and then placing individual special orders in different colors and sizes based on the gown in inventory. 

Just to give you an idea, if I have one dress that comes in three colors, each color comes in sizing 00-18 (0,2,4,6,8....) thats a LOT of inventory to put in when I only need to enter the exact size and color if it is ordered. 

Let me know what you suggest if anyone has a similar situation.  Thanks!
 

[TwinkleToes]

Hi @ReignProm,

I own a dance retail store and definitely have similar situations. For example, leotards for the smallest sizes tend to have demand for standard ballet colors (black, pink, white) and is often times a requirement depending upon the studio. The older girls will tend to want any color other than the standard.

Each leotard will be set up as a single item. Then create variations for the item to support all combination of sizes and colors. I only create variations for what I will be ordering and not all possible combinations that are available from the vendor.

Variations can be named manually but to help prevent employees from creating duplicates I use Options. For my example, two Options would identify the Leotard Color and Leotard Size. When using Options, the variation name will be generated based on the Option names. For example, "4-6, Pink", "16, Lavender", etc. By forcing the variation to be a valid combination of color and size, it provides consistency to the variation names and also prevents manually creating duplicates ("4-6, Pink", "4/6, PNK", 4 to 6,  pnk"). When it comes time to order a new variation, edit the item and add the new variation. If using Options, a list of all available variations (not already used) will be displayed where you can select 1 or more and only create those new variations.

Something else that I find useful when creating new items is to find an existing item that uses the same set of Options and use the Duplicate functionality. From the Edit Item screen for the similar item, click on the Actions button and then select Duplicate. A Duplicate Item screen will be displayed for creating the new item, and will have all the information from the similar item already populated. Of course all of the information can be changed before creating the new item, but it gives you a good starting point.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Patti