Is this possible?

Sure, attribute stock can help with this.

Essentially you would create a single attribute stock item for the product you’re selling. This will be the central stock that all of your products will use.

You can then create a few attributes terms like “2x Product 1”, “10x Product 1”, etc. and assign these to the stock item. I.e. “2x Product 1” removes 2 stock, “10x Product 1” removes 10 stock, etc.

Now you can create your products, and instead of setting stock on the products themselves, you would just assign the appropriate attribute to each product and they will inherit the correct stock levels.

If you need any further clarification, please let us know.

Thanks for your quick and detailed response! Sounds great even though I have to work this out and make me familiar with the setting. Amazing features!

No problem. If you need any more help, don’t hesitate to reach out ??

Hey, I need to open this up unfortunately. The process is not like I intuitively would think it is. This starts with the wording for the hole thing with attributes. In the attributes stock tab, what one needs to create there is an attribute or rule?

I quote what you said:

You can then create a few attributes terms like “2x Product 1”, “10x Product 1”, etc. <strong>and assign these to the stock item. I.</strong>e. “2x Product 1” removes 2 stock, “10x Product 1” removes 10 stock, etc.

What does this highlighted text mean essentially? What and where is this stock item?

I created a rule/attribute “ThisStuff” with 1000 units stock filtered by its category. Test buy and nothing changed on the stock level which I thought it should because of the category filter.

Ok then I added “2x ThisStuff” attribute (attribute by WP). Next confusion. The attribute itself asked for stock management. Clicking this and set it to “2” adds another entry in attributes stock tab which I don’t get at all since I want to keep an eye on the total amount of all products that have this attribute plugin going. So I deleted that.

Went in the rule/attribute “ThisStuff” -> attributes and selected “2x ThisStuff” in the group and set the Quantity multiplier to 2. Test buy and again nothing happened.

//EDIT:
1. And generally when in line the stock item amount gets calculated? After the order made, after the order being completed?
2. And what happens on cancellations and refunds?
3. How to go about with already running products with completed order? I guess all orders made before activating attribute stock plugin will be added into the calculationn?

• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by mike8040.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by mike8040.

Sorry couldn’t edit it anymore. After finding the demo on code canyon, it helped massive to understand how this is setup to work.

Some remaining questions:
1. Generally when in line the stock item amount gets calculated? After the order made, after the order being completed (in case BACS payments don’t get paid and it limits further buying)?
2. How to go about with already running products with completed order? Need to be calculated manually it seems.

Hi Mike. No problem. Perhaps it will be a bit easier to show you an example to use as a reference.

• Stock items
• Attribute terms
• Products (backend)
• Products (frontend)

I’ve gone ahead and used a generic attribute “Units” combined with category filters on the stock items, since you used a category filter in your testing.

Some rules of thumb:

• Attribute stock items (under Products > Attribute Stock) must match at least one attribute term that has been assigned to a product, regardless of any Filters that have been set, with Match rules.
• Attribute stock is technically separate from attributes themselves. Stock for an attribute term will show in the backend (under Products > Attributes) if it has any matching stock items.
• If there are no matching stock items, and you enable stock on the attribute term directly, an attribute stock item will be created to represent the attribute term’s stock.

Regarding at which points stock is reduced/restored, attribute stock follows the exact same rules as normal WooCommerce products. I highly recommend becoming familiar with this as it can be a bit unintuitive at times. For example, changing an order’s status to Cancelled will restore stock, but changing its status to Refunded will not. However performing a refund on the order using the Refund button will reduce stock (if the option to do so is selected). In general though, stock is reduced as soon as an order has been placed by a customer, or as soon as an order created from the backend changes to a “paid” status.

If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to let me know.

1. Generally when in line the stock item amount gets calculated? After the order made, after the order being completed (in case BACS payments don’t get paid and it limits further buying)?

BACS orders reduce stock as soon as they are placed by the customer. This ensures stock is reserved for the customer.

2. How to go about with already running products with completed order? Need to be calculated manually it seems.

Technically you could, for example, change an order’s status from Processing to Pending and then back to Processing, and any matching stock will be reduced. However, this can trigger duplicate emails to be sent to the customer, and possibly other events depending on the plugins you’re using. With this in mind, it’s usually simpler just to calculate your initial stock values minus the stock needed for currently processing orders.

Really big thank you for explaining this. This helped a lot. I think I get it now. Especially after seeing the demo and how it was setup. Seems to work on the staging site including cancel/abort orders -> corrected stock. Impressive and really helpful. I’m considering the premium version to have overbuy protection set. Thanks again. Super support!

Happy to help Mike. Glad to hear you’ve got it working on your end so far.

If you need any further help, just let us know ??