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Sizes and colours: what is left, no spreadsheet
"Do you have it in M, black?" is the question that stops the sale. The answer is in a spreadsheet you don't have to hand, or in your head. There's a better way.
Anyone selling clothes, shoes or accessories in chat has a problem that someone selling a single product never meets: the same item exists in ten versions. The t-shirt is one, but the t-shirt in M black and the one in L white are two different things, with two different stock levels.
The moment the sale is lost
The customer writes: "do you have it in M, black?". And you:
- go and check in the back, while they wait;
- open the Excel file on your phone, scroll, while they wait;
- answer "yes" from memory, and then find out you sold the last M black yesterday.
The first two cost time. The third costs a customer, because now you have to write back that no, you do not have it, after telling them you did.
Why the spreadsheet is not enough
A spreadsheet with variants can be done — one row per size, one column per colour — and at first it works. Then:
- you sell an M black in chat and forget to update the row;
- the spreadsheet is on the computer and you are at the market with your phone;
- two items have different variants (one sizes, one measurements in centimetres) and the table becomes a puzzle.
The spreadsheet gets updated after the sale, by hand. And after is where things get lost.
What you actually need
For the variant to be part of the item, not a separate table. For the M black stock to go down on its own when you sell an M black, because that is what you put in the order. And for it to know when a variant is running out before the customer asks.
How Yataio does it
In Yataio an item can have up to three variants — size, colour, material, whatever you need — and each combination has its own stock. The t-shirt is a single item, with its versions inside.
When you put it in a document you pick the variant, and the stock of that variant goes down. Nothing to update afterwards.
And the low-stock alerts look at variants: when the M black is running out, the home screen tells you, even if you still have fifty t-shirts in other sizes. So the answer to "do you have it in M, black?" is a glance at the phone, not a trip to the back.
Variants are explained in the guide, stock levels here. On what is running out without counting the stock there is an article here.