Inventory planning is an integral part of business processes. Understanding exactly how many items you have in stock is crucial for planning. That’s where the Shopify inventory value report becomes invaluable.
For more insights, consider reading the article on Shopify inventory management, where you’ll discover the essential reports you need.
Why is it essential to know your product counts?
Here are the key reasons, underscoring the importance of being up-to-date on your inventory levels and its impact:
- Better Inventory Control. Watching your stock closely helps you keep your most popular items always available.
- Faster Order Fulfillment. Knowing exactly what you have in stock lets you process orders quickly and keep customers happy.
- Accurate Stock Levels. Being aware of what’s in your inventory stops you from selling items you don’t have, preventing problems and unhappy customers.
- Demand Forecasting. Knowing what’s in your warehouse lets you spot which items are hot sellers and which aren’t moving. This knowledge is key for deciding when to reorder, launch new items, or tweak your advertising tactics.
- Customer Confidence. Shoppers feel more secure buying when they can see up-to-date stock levels. This transparency lowers the risk of them facing the disappointment of items being out of stock, enhancing their shopping experience.
- Financial Health. Having accurate inventory data is crucial for managing your finances. It helps you avoid financial pitfalls by preventing overstocking, which can lead to loss through unsold inventory, and understocking, which can miss out on sales. Good inventory control reduces the expenses of holding unsold or outdated products.
- Better Insights. Precise stock data is crucial for reports and analytics, helping you understand sales trends, favorite items, and inventory health.
- Development of marketing strategies. Proper inventory planning allows you to effectively implement various marketing strategies, such as sales and promo codes while ensuring adequate inventory.
Knowing your product amounts in Shopify is essential for smooth operations, customer satisfaction, and wise business decisions. It’s vital for effective inventory management and significantly impacts your online store’s success.
How to Check Product Quantities in Shopify
Shopify keeps your product numbers up-to-date as you handle your inventory at every location.
To check your product quantity, just do the following:
Navigate to your Shopify admin and select Products. Then, click on the product name you’re interested in tracking. If the product has multiple variants, select the specific variant you want to monitor. Look for the Inventory section and make sure to tick the ‘Track Quantity’ checkbox. If you want to allow buyers to purchase an item when it is out of stock, check the box “Continue selling when out of stock”. In the Quantity section, enter the quantity information for each location. Click the “Save” button.
You can use the Shopify Liquid templating language or the Shopify API to get product quantity information in Shopify, especially for inventory management or displaying inventory levels in your store. Here are two main methods of achieving this.
Using Liquid in Shopify Themes
The Shopify Liquid code allows you to display product quantities on your product pages or elsewhere in your Shopify theme. Liquid is a templating language created by Shopify to load dynamic content into storefronts.
You can use Liquid objects and properties related to products and variants to display the quantity of a specific product variant.
Example:
{% for variant in product.
{{ variant.title }}: {{ variant.inventory_quantity }}
{% endfor %}This code loops through each product variant and displays the variant name and quantity in the assortment.
It is important to note that displaying the amount of stock directly on the window may only suit some. You may want to keep this information private.
Here is another option:
To enable the stock tracking option, go to the HTML/CSS editor and select the product-template.liquid template. Go to line 111 and paste the following code:
{% comment %} Inventory tracking on the product page {% endcomment %}
<div id="variant-inventory"
{% if current_variant.
We have {{ current_variant.inventory_
{% else %}
This product is in stock.
{% endif %}
</div>If you haven’t turned on stock tracking for a product, it will just display as “This item is in stock.”
Using the Shopify API for Advanced Tasks
For tasks like creating custom apps, keeping track of inventory, or linking up with other systems, you can use the Shopify API. It lets you access and change all sorts of data, including how many products you have.
To find out how many of each product you have using the Shopify API,
there’s a GET endpoint you can use:
This gives you details on the product variants and how many are available.
/admin/api/2021-01/products/#{Here’s how you’d use cURL for this:
curl -X GET \ 'https://{shop}.myshopify.
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-H 'X-Shopify-Access-Token: {access_token}'Replace {shop}, {product_id}, and {access_token} with your Shopify store’s subdomain, the product’s ID, and your API access token, respectively.
Note:
When adjusting inventory amounts through the API, it’s necessary to engage with the Inventory API as well, allowing you to set inventory counts for distinct items and their respective locations.
Important notes
API Access. Using the Shopify API requires an API key and password, which you can obtain by creating a private app in your Shopify admin.
Speed limits. Be aware of Shopify’s API speed limits to avoid disruptions to your app or service.
Privacy and Security. Ensure that any customizations or integrations follow Shopify’s privacy and security best practices, especially when handling customer data or sensitive business information.
Whether you display product quantities using Liquid in your Shopify theme or access them through the Shopify API for backend operations, both methods offer flexible solutions for managing and displaying inventory levels.
For more details on each theme’s settings, see the Shopify Help Center (the article “Show the remaining inventory of a variant on product pages”).
As you can see, determining the number of products requires manual intervention or using CSV files. This can be time-consuming and error-prone, especially for businesses with large product catalogs.
Apps that automate these processes may be a better fit for you. The Shopify App Store has apps that display inventory levels on your product pages without requiring manual code editing.
Conclusions
Knowing your Shopify inventory levels is critical to efficiency and customer satisfaction, helping you make informed decisions for your eCommerce success.
Shopify’s inventory cost report and management guides are valuable resources for understanding inventory levels.
Accurate inventory tracking enables better inventory management, faster order processing, and sound financial planning.
Follow the steps in Section 2 of this article to get detailed product count information.
