How to track inventory for custom made-to-order products without variants
Standard ecommerce listings force you to create a separate variant for every possible combination of options, creating unmanageable lists. Because these products are assembled after purchase from raw components like blanks and prints, traditional variant tracking makes it impossible to manage actual stock levels without building a manual separate system.
What the numbers show
Counted from the threads quoted below. How we count
- This comes up 106.0× more often in r/shopify than across the site as a whole.
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.
- 1Manually keeping track of component inventory separately from the platformDid this help you?
- 2Using third-party product option appsDid this help you?
- 3Creating hundreds of individual product variantsDid this help you?
- 4Manually keeping track of blank apparel inventory and subtracting it separately from ShopifyDid this help you?
- 5Using Shopify Flow automation to trigger inventory adjustments on hidden blank variantsDid this help you?
- 6Using a bundle app with component inventory tracking for a monthly feeDid this help you?
- 7Using quantity variants to create separate sub-SKUs for each quantity level.Did 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.
“The problem I’m running into is inventory tracking.”source ↗
“This is where I’m getting stuck. I don’t really like the idea of having to maintain a separate inventory system manually, but I also don’t know if there’s a better way to structure this in Shopify.”source ↗
“Currently, we have used a quantity variant, which makes a nightmare of SKUs, as each product has LOTS of sub-SKUs because of the quantities.”source ↗
“I would be offering an almost-finished product, that would be completely unique. The customer would then chose two details from lists of options, and I would assemble/finish the product, and ship it. Any tries at this have resulted in a listing with more than one quantity.”source ↗
“The problem I’m running into is inventory tracking.”source ↗
“This is where I’m getting stuck. I don’t really like the idea of having to maintain a separate inventory system manually, but I also don’t know if there’s a better way to structure this in Shopify.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 2How to set up inventory receiving procedures from scratch
- 3Where to find low MOQ custom packaging for small runs
- 3How to structure work orders for batch cutting runs
- 5How to handle inventory and fulfillment when sales pick up
- 5POS apps for multi-vendor markets and payouts
- 4How to sell physical products without buying inventory upfront