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The Complete Guide to WooCommerce Inventory Management

Last updated: March 01, 2024
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Sam

Author

Daniel

Researcher

Inventory management may be a difficult task, so you’ll want all the assistance you can obtain when you can. Inventory management is not necessarily easier than it has ever been in the contemporary day, but you do have a lot more help in the shape of inventory management software and technology to help you get things done.

Of course, there are so many tech alternatives available that you may be unsure which one to select. Most software and technology solutions offer benefits. WooCommerce, for example, is fast becoming one of the most popular eCommerce solutions for online shops looking for inventory management miracles.

In this article, we will show you The Complete Guide to WooCommerce Inventory Management to manage your online store completely.

How WooCommerce Inventory Management works

There is a built-in system for WooCommerce inventory management. However, you must enable stock management in the Products Inventory Settings to track inventory.

Inventory management in WooCommerce helps you to manage your supply and track inventory, but it must be enabled for it to work correctly. You will only be able to see the stock status in the Product Data Inventory box if you do not enable this feature. If you don’t utilize WooCommerce inventory management to track changes automatically, you’ll have to manually update your stock status.

As you can see, WooCommerce inventory management isn’t the most comprehensive system available, and it can only track your completed items. For firms who also require a system to manage raw material inventories, this will be a problem.

Pros and Cons of WooCommerce Inventory Management

Pros and Cons of WooCommerce Inventory Management

The disadvantages of WooCommerce are numerous. Finale Inventory, fortunately, provides an inventory management software solution that lets clients avoid all of these issues and more, while also providing incredible features and benefits.

How to manage Inventory in WooCommerce

Step 1: Set up basic management

In brief, the WooCommerce base plugin includes some basic inventory management capabilities. As a result, let’s take a look at the features included in a basic installation. You may, for example, set stock levels for items on their individual sites. Navigate to Products > All Products in the sidebar of your WordPress dashboard:

Set up basic management

Then, go to the product you’d want to modify stock for, scroll down to the Product Data section, and choose Inventory from the drop-down option. This will display the product’s available options:

Set up basic management

To truly manage an item’s inventory, choose the Manage stock option. This will show, among other things, additional fields for stock amount and a low stock threshold:

Set up basic management

Step 2: Update the page

Update the page by entering the quantity you have on hand in the Stock quantity area. As soon as an item is sold, this number will change. If you have a varied product (for example, shirts in several colors), you may set stock numbers for each variation by checking the Manage stock? box under Variations:

Update the page

Finally, go to Analytics > Stock in the WordPress dashboard to see the current inventory status for all of your items:

Update the page

To gain a bird’s eye perspective of your inventory, you may also filter and organize the list by state. Above all, utilizing the basic capabilities of WooCommerce, inventory management may be straightforward – albeit it does need a careful, hands-on approach. It might take a long time, especially if you have a lot of items. Additional plugins, on the other hand, make the platform extremely expandable.

5 Best WooCommerce Inventory Management Plugins

1. Smart Manager for WooCommerce

Smart Manager for WooCommerce

With a simple click of a button, this inventory management plugin allows you to manage and mass modify WooCommerce items, variants, orders, and coupons. Smart Manager helps you to manage your store’s stock levels using an Excel-like spreadsheet, which not only saves you time but also simplifies the process.

Along with a free version, the plugin also offers a pro edition that includes features like batch updates, inline editing of many entries in a single click, duplicate records, and more.

Features:

  • Scrolling indefinitely
  • Advanced lookup
  • For simpler data administration, use a sticky header
  • A sneak peek at the image
  • CSV export is available for all post kinds

Price:

$149/year for one site $479/year for 5 sites

2. WooCommerce POS Inventory Count

WooCommerce POS Inventory Count

Another fantastic inventory management plugin is WooCommerce POS, which allows you to perform a physical inventory count for all of your items using a QR code scanner and update stock amounts from the scanner.

WooPOS, a prominent POS and inventory management solution that allows business owners to monitor stock levels, process sales, maintain personnel data, and much more, developed the plugin.

Features:

  • Stock management for WooCommerce
  • Orders must be managed.
  • Coupons and discounts can be managed.
  • Loyalty points that are managed

Price: 199

3. WooCommerce Schedule Stock Manager

WooCommerce Schedule Stock Manager

WooCommerce Schedule Stock Manager is another fantastic option for managing your store’s inventory from StoreApps, a prominent WooCommerce plugin developer. The plugin is one of the best WooCommerce inventory management plugins available, with over 20,000 active installs on the repository.

It allows you to manage your product stock counts and variables from a single screen. It not only simplifies stock management, but it also makes it faster and more efficient.

Features:

  • Check out the product’s stock history.
  • Data from the shop may be imported and exported.
  • Sort items by SKU.
  • By SKU, you may find items.
  • Products can be filtered by category or stock status.

Price: 112

4. WooCommerce Out of Stock Manager

WooCommerce Out of Stock Manager

You may use this plugin to set stock-level threshold criteria for your items, as well as custom warnings that will notify you when a stock falls below that level. If you have a team operating your store, you can also specify several receivers for the warning.

Features:

  • Low stock levels are alerted through email.
  • Compatible with WPML
  • Customize the page wording for out-of-stock items.
  • Better management with a dashboard widget

Prices: 16

5. Stock Synchronization for WooCommerce

Stock Synchronization for WooCommerce

Stock Synchronization is a WooCommerce inventory management plugin that allows you to sync your stock inventory with an external inventory file. You may then use the external file to automatically update your stock levels.

Along with syncing inventory levels, you may also synchronize and adjust product pricing through an external file, making the entire process extremely simple and rapid.

Features:

  • Support for Google Drive and spreadsheets
  • Stock levels are updated hourly and daily
  • Dropbox support for importing product information

Price: 15

Conclusion

Inventory management is a critical component of running an e-commerce firm. Unfortunately, WooCommerce’s default tools are rather rudimentary. It is, however, well within your control, thanks to WordPress plugins.

You can make managing stock an easy task by following a few basic best practices. Furthermore, using a well-known WooCommerce inventory management plugin can assist. As a consequence, you should expect to see increased revenue, happier customers, and more time spent on other aspects of your company.

I hope you will find this article about The Complete Guide to WooCommerce Inventory Management necessary!


Sam Nguyen is the CEO and founder of Avada Commerce, an e-commerce solution provider headquartered in Singapore. He is an expert on the Shopify e-commerce platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems. Sam loves talking about e-commerce and he aims to help over a million online businesses grow and thrive.

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