Merchants often have multiple online listings for the same product, either across different platforms or within the same platform.
Same product listed on multiple stores: Sellers often list the same product on various platforms like Shopify, Amazon, and Etsy to reach a broader audience and increase sales. For instance, "Blue Jeans - Medium" might be listed on both Shopify and Amazon.
Multiple listings of the same product on the same store: A product may have several listings within the same store for strategic reasons, such as SEO optimisation, price experiments, affiliate marketing, and different packaging or selling techniques. For example, "Blue Jeans - Medium" might appear multiple times on Shopify under different names to test different strategies.
This can present challenges in keeping inventory levels consistent across all the listings.
How to keep inventory in sync across listings
Using the same SKU
Assigning the same SKU to all listings of the same product ensures that inventory changes are simultaneously updated across all platforms and listings.
Only the SKU has to be the same across all listings. The name, variant name, etc do not affect the inventory sync.
In the following example, if the inventory of "BLUEJEANSM" is updated in Sumtracker, all listings with the same SKU on Shopify, Amazon, and Etsy will reflect the updated quantity.
SKU | Store | Product Name | Quantity |
BLUEJEANSM | Shopify | Blue Jeans - Medium | 20 |
BLUEJEANSM | Amazon | Jeans (M) - Blue | 20 |
BLUEJEANSM | Etsy | Blue Jeans (Medium) | 20 |
The following is a screenshot of all the listings the same Sumtracker product is linked with:
Using Bundles
With bundles, you can seamlessly manage the inventory for the same product with different SKUs across different stores. For instance, if you have "Blue Jeans - Large" listed on Shopify, Amazon, and Etsy under different SKUs, you can use bundles to manage their inventory efficiently.
Example:
Amazon SKU: BLUE-JEANS-AMAZON
Etsy SKU: BLUE-JEANS-ETSY
Shopify SKU: BLUE-JEANS-SHOPIFY
To manage inventory using the Shopify SKU (BLUE-JEANS-SHOPIFY), follow these steps:
Create Bundle Products:
Create a bundle with the SKU BLUE-JEANS-AMAZON and add the component product as BLUE-JEANS-SHOPIFY.
Create another bundle with the SKU BLUE-JEANS-ETSY and add the component product as BLUE-JEANS-SHOPIFY.
By setting up these bundles, the inventory of the Shopify SKU (BLUE-JEANS-SHOPIFY) will be used to calculate the inventory for both the Amazon SKU (BLUE-JEANS-AMAZON) and the Etsy SKU (BLUE-JEANS-ETSY).
Now, updating the inventory of SKU BLUE-JEANS-SHOPIFY in Sumtracker will also update ‘BLUE-JEANS-ETSY' on Etsy and 'BLUE-JEANS-AMAZON’ in Amazon. This ensures that inventory levels remain consistent across all your stores.