Linda
(@lindamork)
Automattic Happiness Engineer
Hi there,
One way of handling this would be to add them as variable products. Product A as one variation and Product B as the another. You can learn more about using Variable Products here:
https://docs.woocommerce.com/document/variable-product/
Here’s a thread on doing something similar using the Composite Products Extension from WooCommerce:
https://wordpress.org/support/topic/shared-inventory-among-several-products
Hope this helps you!
Hi,
Thank you for your feedback. I tried using the Variable Product feature but it doesn’t work the way I wanted.
With Variable Product, the 2 product names are under the ‘Parent’ name. In the end, customers will have to go to (for example) “Category A” then select “Product A”. Then the customer will have the option to buy it as either “Product A” or “Product B” (variable product feature).
What I want is both products will only share the inventory count.
What about creating a redirect from the old product to the new one?
Hi jdaldana I am having the same issue for an online personalisation site. I’d like to have multiple designs in different categories but linked to the same inventory.
Did you have any luck in figuring out how to do it?
I don’t quite understand why you can’t just add one product to two different categories. Why do you need to create two products?
That said, setting up a redirect, or perhaps using external products to link to the “main” product are the only options you have by default: https://woocommerce.com/videos/woocommerce-external-affiliate-product-overview/
Anything further will take some customization.
Hi Caleb! Thanks for the suggestion but unfortunately that won’t work 🙁
Ok let me try to explain a bit more. We are creating an online personalisation store but we’d like to have different categories/themes with multiple designs for each item but we won’t actually be stocking all the different designs.
So for example let’s say we have 10 blank white mugs and we put them in the “mugs” section of the site for people to click on and personalise. But then we have a “Funny” category where we will feature the same mug with a bunch of different sayings and designs on it. We are not actually printing the designed mugs until someone actually places an order. What I need for it to do is somehow be linked to the 10 blank white mugs inventory so that if someone does place an order with one of our designs then it would automatically decrease the respective inventory for that item.
Hi sjaelan!
I didn’t had any luck making it work as I intended it to work. As what Caleb said, any further will take some customization.
In my case, I did what Thomas suggested. I have the old product redirect to the more recent product. In the old product page, I just have something saying that our part number has changed to the new one. Then I just provided the link to redirect them.
In your case I think you could do the same. You could maybe also use the variable product feature to list the “featured designs” to choose from as well as a “customized” option.
Hope that helps! 😀
Hi jdaldana,
Thanks a mil for the suggestions. I think those might be the only options for now. It’s a pity you can’t just assign the same SKU number to several products and have the stock count down from all simultaneously. Sigh!
Thanks again 🙂
You can also force redirect people with a plugin like this: https://wordpress.org/plugins/simple-301-redirects/
So when they click on the duplicate product, they will automatically be taken to the correct one.
Hi! I’ve found the solution to this. I use the official Woocommerce Product Bundles plugin. I know that in CodeCanyon there are similar plugins in terms of functionalities, so they might work too but I can’t assure that.
1. Create the “Main product”. In my case I was selling this small cup as a planter
See it here
2. I wanted to offer it as a pencil cup too, sharing the stock as it was essentially the same product. So I created a Bundled Product. In this bundled product you set the name, the image, description, category and the price you want for the “new” product.
See it here
3. In the bundled products tab you select the main product. In “Advanced settings” you untick all visibility options so the main product doesn’t show anywhere as being a “component” of the bundle. Done!
I have found two limitations so far.
1. The quantity selector is limited by the maximum and minimum you enter in the bundled products settings, not the main product stock. If you set a maximum of 10 then it’s always going to allow the customer to choose up to 10 in the selector. However, don’t panic, if the stock of the main product is less than that a notice will appear and won’t get added to the cart. So it’s more an annoyance for the customer that doesn’t know how many are available until they try adding to the cart and would have to manually try until it hits the mark.
2. In some cases you may want to hide the main product (for example, a blank mug if you sell only printed mugs). Doing this by setting the product to private won’t allow you to add it to the bundle. However I’m sure there are other ways to hide a product from the shop beyond the “private” setting.
Hope this helps!
