WooCommerce Inventory & Stock Management Guide @ TwentySixForty

Tutorial Overview.

This WooCommerce inventory and stock tutorial will explain how to set up WooCommerce inventory globally and per-product, how to use inventory settings with quick edit, how to set up inventory management for variable products and how to view the WooCommerce inventory reports.

Quickies.

Why Use Inventory and Stock Management with WooCommerce?
Set up Inventory Management Globally.
Set up Inventory Management Per-Product.
Edit Inventory Settings with Quick Edit.
Set up Inventory Management for Variable Products.
View the Stock Inventory Report.

WooCommerce Inventory and Stock Tutorial.

This tutorial assumes that you have WooCommerce installed and have some products made. If not, check out this tutorial: How to Install WooCommerce on a WordPress Website and this: The Ultimate Guide to Creating Products in WooCommerce.

Why Use Inventory and Stock Management with WooCommerce?

Keeping track of product inventory is a very important part of every business. A few benefits of good inventory control are lower costs, a better understanding of customer demand, more control over backorders, and being able to provide better customer service. If you want to use WooCommerce on your WordPress website you should know that it comes with a pretty good inventory and stock management system out of the box. There are many plugins available that will enhance the inventory system but it works great as it is. I am going to show you how to use the inventory management system that comes built-in with WooCommerce.

How to Set up Inventory Management Globally in WooCommerce.

Login to the Admin area of the WordPress website.
Go to WooCommerce > Settings.

woocommerce settings

Click on the Products tab.
Click on Inventory below the products tab.

woocommerce products inventory

Configure the following settings on this page:

Manage Stock: This will enable or disable the ability to keep track of inventory on the website.
Hold Stock: Enter the amount of time, in minutes, a customer can keep an item in a pending order. This will subtract the item from your inventory count until the time has elapsed.
Notifications: Enable or disable low stock notifications and out of stock notifications. If enabled, it will send you an email to inform you of either situation.
Notification Recipient(s): Enter the email address that the notifications should be sent to. If there is more than one address, separate them by a comma.
Low Stock Threshold: When the product inventory drops to this number, you will receive a notification via email.
Out of Stock Threshold: When the product inventory drops to this number, the status of the item will be changed to Out of Stock, you will receive a notification, and customers will not be able to purchase the item on your website.
Out of Stock Visibility: Select this if you want to hide a product from showing on the front-end of the website when it runs out of stock.
Stock Display Format: Select how you want to display stock information to your customers.

Save the changes.

How to Set up Inventory Management Per-Product in WooCommerce.

Note: These instructions are for Simple Products. If needed, see Variable Product Instructions below.

Login to the Admin area of the WordPress website.
Click on Products in the admin sidebar.
Select a product to configure or create a new product. If you need to make products check out this tutorial: The Ultimate Guide to Creating Products in WooCommerce.
In the Product Data section, click on the Inventory tab.

woocommerce manage stock

Configure the following settings:

SKU: If you have a SKU, enter it here.
Manage Stock? Select this if you want to enable stock management at the product level.
Stock Status: If you don’t want to manage stock at the product level, use this to manually set the status of the product to In Stock, Out of Stock, or On Backorder.

If Manage Stock? is selected:
Stock Quantity: Enter the number of products you have to sell.
Allow Backorders? Select the best option to handle backorders: Allow, Do not Allow, Allow with Customer Notification.
Low Stock Threshold: When the product inventory drops to this number you will be notified by email.
Sold Individually: Select this to allow only one item to be purchased in a single order.

woocommerce inventory management

Update the product to save the changes.

How to Edit Inventory Settings with Quick Edit in WooCommerce.

Note: The Quick Edit method will give you limited inventory management options.

Login to the Admin area of your WordPress website.
Click on Products in the admin sidebar.
Locate the product you want to edit or create a new product. If you need to make products, check out this tutorial: The Ultimate Guide to Creating Products in WooCommerce.
Hover over the product and click on Quick Edit.

woocommerce product quick edit

Make edits.

product quick edit

Update the product to save the changes.

How to Set up Inventory Management for Variable Products in WooCommerce.

Login to the Admin area of the WordPress website.
Click on Products in the admin sidebar.
Select a product or create a new product. If you need to make products, check out this tutorial: The Ultimate Guide to Creating Products in WooCommerce.
In the Product Data section, click on the Variations tab.

variable product inventory

Locate the variation you want to configure. Hover over the variation and click on the down arrow to configure the settings for the variable product:

SKU: If each variation has a unique SKU, enter it here. If all of the variations share the same SKU, enter it on the inventory tab, save the page, and it will apply to each product.
Manage Stock? Select this if you want to enable stock management at the product level.
Stock Status: If you don’t want to manage stock at the product level, use this to manually set the status of the product to In Stock, Out of Stock, or On Backorder.

variable product stock management

If Manage Stock? is selected:
Stock Quantity: Enter the amount of products you have to sell.
Allow Backorders? Select the best option to handle backorders: Allow, Do not Allow, Allow with Customer Notification.

The next two settings are global settings and can be set on the Inventory tab.
Low Stock Threshold: When the product inventory drops to this number you will be notified by email. Set this on the Inventory tab.
Sold Individually: Select this to allow only one item to be purchased in a single order. Set this on the Inventory tab.

Save the changes.

How to View the Stock Inventory Report in WooCommerce.

Login to the Admin area of the WordPress website.
Go to WooCommerce > Reports in the admin sidebar.
Click on the Stock tab.

woocommerce reports

There are 3 sections on this page:

Low in Stock: Display all products that are out of stock.
Out of Stock: Display all products that are low in stock.
Most Stocked: Display the quantity remaining of all products.