How to sell fractional quantities at checkout
In-person checkout systems often force whole numbers, making it difficult to sell items like 1.5 yards of fabric or remaining partial stock. Changing the base inventory unit to the smallest fraction causes confusion and errors, while apps that fix this single function are extremely expensive. Without native fractional quantities, stores lose sales on high-priced yardage when customers refuse to round up to a whole unit.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Making the base unit the smallest fraction to force whole numbersDid this help you?
- 2Paying for expensive third-party appsDid this help you?
- 3Creating individual product variants for fractional quantitiesDid this help you?
- 4Paying for expensive premium POS tiers combined with third-party inventory appsDid this help you?
- 5Using niche, industry-specific software that may have poor user reviewsDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I am opening a fabric store and I'm looking for a POS system that is able to track inventory down to a fraction (.25yards). In addition, I'd love to be able to start a transaction, hold it, and then open it back up to check out.”source ↗
“So it's pretty common to buy a half yard (or 1.5, etc) of something. Online I'm fine with sticking with whole numbers, it's just in person where people expect to get a half yard, or if there's only a half yard left of something.”source ↗
“If a product is $200/yd, forcing a whole number qty can be a deal breaker.”source ↗
“Whenever this gets brought up, people suggest making the base unit the smallest fraction. But this introduces several points of confusion and possible error.”source ↗
“Paying 10-30% of the entire Shopify subscription (the second tier, not even the cheap one) seems insane for one function.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 4How do you sell a minority share in an unprofitable small business?
- 2Why does adding multiple items to an online store take so long?
- 3Why do bulk packages cost more than buying smaller ones?
- 3Can I get an AE job without quota-carrying sales experience?
- 2How to ship low-cost items without losing money
- 3Where to find low MOQ custom packaging for small runs