# Inventory & Product Behaviour

### How bundle stock works behind the scenes (and what your customers see)

## Why Inventory Matters

When you're selling bundles, you want to make sure:

* You **never sell something that’s out of stock**
* Customers **see the right availability**
* Inventory is **updated automatically** when someone buys

BundleSuite takes care of most of this for you. But depending on the **bundle type**, inventory behavior works a little differently.

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***

## How Inventory Works in Different Bundles

| 🧺 **Bundle Type**            | 🔄 Tracks Original Products? | ✅ Syncs Automatically? | 📝 Notes                                                                   |
| ----------------------------- | ---------------------------- | ---------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Build Your Own Box (BYOB)** | ✅ Yes                        | ✅ Yes                  | Stock updates live as customers add items.                                 |
| **Standard Combo**            | ✅ Yes                        | ✅ Yes                  | If even one product is out of stock, the whole bundle becomes unavailable. |
| **Advanced Combo**            | ✅ Yes                        | ⚠️ Partially           | Out-of-stock items are hidden or greyed out. Others stay available.        |
| **Volume Discount**           | ✅ Yes                        | ✅ Yes                  | Works directly on the product page; stock behaves normally.                |

***

## What Happens When a Product is Out of Stock?

Here’s what customers experience if an item runs out:

### 🔹 **BYOB Bundles**

* Can’t add out-of-stock items to the bundle
* If an item becomes unavailable *after* adding to cart, they’ll see a message asking them to update their bundle

🧴 *Example:*

Customer adds 3 body lotions to a “Build Your Skincare Kit” → one sells out → the cart notifies them before checkout.

***

### 🔹 **Standard Combo Bundles**

* If any part of the bundle is out of stock, the entire bundle becomes unavailable
* The bundle will either show **“Sold Out”** or “**Out of Stock**” from your storefront

🎁 *Example:*

You're selling a "Morning Routine Combo" with 3 items. If the cleanser is out of stock, the whole bundle becomes unavailable.

***

### 🔹 **Advanced Combo Bundles**

* Out-of-stock options are **greyed out** or hidden
* The rest of the bundle stays purchasable
* When a combination that contains out-of-stock product is selected, the bundle becomes unavailable.

📦 *Example:*

Customer is customizing a gift box. If the chocolate option is out of stock, it disappears, but other choices remain available.

***

### 🔹 **Volume Discounts**

* Works on the original product
* Shopify handles the inventory tracking — nothing special to worry about

☕ *Example:*

If you’re running a “Buy 10 Coffee Sachets, Get 30% Off” deal — and only 5 are in stock, the customer can’t go above 5.

***

## **Can customers return or exchange individual items from a bundle?**

Yes, BundleSuite supports returns and exchanges for individual items within all bundle types.\*\*Here’s how it works:

* **Standard Combo & BYOB Bundles**: These support tiered or fixed discounts. When processing a return or refund, the price of each individual product is automatically calculated based on the total bundle discount applied.
* **Advanced Combo Bundles**: These use a fixed total price. The value of each item is calculated by dividing the total bundle price by the number of products in the combo.

So even though the customer purchases the bundle as a single product, **you’ll see all the included items in the order**, allowing you to process **individual returns or refunds** as needed.

> 💡 This helps merchants handle real-world scenarios where customers only need to exchange or return one item from a combo.

## What the Customer Sees in Cart

| Bundle Type     | How It Appears in Cart          | Shows Bundle Items? |
| --------------- | ------------------------------- | ------------------- |
| BYOB            | ✅ One single item (bundle name) | ✅ Yes               |
| Standard Combo  | ✅ One single item               | ✅ Yes               |
| Advanced Combo  | ✅ One single item               | ✅ Yes               |
| Volume Discount | ❌ Individual product(s)         | ❌ No                |

### *Translation:*

For most bundle types, your customer sees just **one item in the cart**, even though it includes multiple products.

This is done using **Shopify’s Cart Transform API** for clean checkout and better analytics.

***

## Shopify Limitations to Know

Shopify doesn’t allow apps to create real product **variants** (like size or color) programmatically. So:

* Bundles with options like “Pack of 2 / Pack of 4” will show as **separate products**, not dropdowns
* Inventory is **still synced**, but each variation is listed separately

***

## Pro Tips

* Use **Advanced Combo Bundles** when you want the bundle to work even if some products go out of stock
* Use **Standard Combo** for fixed kits where *all* items must be available
* Always test bundles when you update product stock — especially for fast-selling items or seasonal kits
* If you want to create a **pre-packed product with its own stock**, manually create it in Shopify with a custom SKU

***

### ❓FAQs

**Q1. How are orders processed when a customer buys a bundle?**

The bundle shows as one item, but in the backend, **all individual product SKUs** are listed for proper fulfilment.

**Q2. Does bundle inventory sync with individual product stock?**

Yes! Inventory is synced in **real time.** If a product goes out of stock, it will automatically show as **“Out of Stock”** in the bundle UI and won’t be available for selection.

**Q3. What happens if a product in a bundle goes out of stock?**

That product will **automatically be hidden** from the bundle so customers can’t choose it.

**Q4. Do upsell blocks respect inventory?**

Yes, they only show products that are in stock.

**Q5. Can I make my bundles go to the cart drawer instead of the cart page?**

* For **Advanced Combo** and **Standard Combo** bundles, the Add to Cart button behaves like it does for any regular product and **follows your theme’s cart drawer or popup behavior**.
* For **BYOB bundles**, which use their own custom cart logic, customers are always **redirected to the main cart page** to maintain compatibility and proper checkout flow. This is because cart behavior varies widely throughout the themes.

**Q6. Do the individual products used in a bundle need to be published on the Online Store?**

Yes, for the bundle to display properly on your store, **all individual products included in the bundle must be published to the Online Store sales channel.** This is a Shopify requirement that allows our app to pull and render the products on the bundle page.

**Q7. How can I prevent customers from separately buying the products included in a bundle ?**

Here are the ways to prevent customers to separately buy the products included in a bundle :

**Option 1: Hide Products from Navigation and Search**

You can keep the products published but make them hard to find by:

* Removing them from all collections
* Unlinking them from navigation menus
* Tagging them as “hidden” and setting up filters to exclude them from search or auto-collections

This will ensure they remain functional for the bundle but are not visible to regular shoppers.

**Option 2: Use a Custom Product Template or Metadata**

Assign a custom product template (like a blank or restricted layout) to those individual items. Hide your blocks like add-to-cart button, product price, etc. That way, even if someone lands on the product page, they won’t be able to buy the product.

**Q8. Can I process returns or refunds for individual items inside a bundle?**

Yes, absolutely! All of our bundle types — including Standard Combo, Advanced Combo, and BYOB — fully support returns and refunds at the individual product level.

Here’s how it works across bundle types:

* Standard Combo & BYOB Bundles:

  These bundles often include tiered or percentage-based discounts. When a return or refund is processed, the price of each item is automatically adjusted based on how the discount was distributed across the bundle.
* Advanced Combo Bundle:

  This bundle has a fixed total price, so the individual product prices are calculated by dividing the total bundle price by the number of items included.

This means you’ll receive one unified order at checkout, but each product within the bundle is treated individually — making it easy to handle returns or refunds without affecting the rest of the order.<br>

**Q9. Why can’t I see the product selections for a bundle order in the order details?**

If you're unable to view the specific product choices made by a customer in a bundle order, it’s likely that the checkout rules setting for the app wasn’t enabled at the time the order was placed. This setting is essential to ensure that all bundle selections are properly passed through to the order details.\
If this setting was off, the order will still go through, but the individual product selections won't be visible in your admin panel. Unfortunately, the details for that specific order cannot be retrieved retroactively. We recommend contacting the customer directly to confirm their selections.\
To avoid this in the future, make sure the checkout rules setting is enabled in your store checkout settings. If you’re unsure, feel free to reach out and we’ll help set it up for you!


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