Introduction
If you run a Shopify store with a lot of products, at some point you may want to bulk update inventory for your product variants.
But if you have a lot of products, updating all the inventory quantities by hand can be very time-consuming, since Shopify doesn't provide an easy way to do this. So we recommend using our app QuickEdit - Bulk Product Edit to easily bulk edit the inventory quantities and tracking.
Getting started
First, install the app from the Shopify app store.
Once the app is installed, click "Create bulk edit" to start the process of creating the bulk edit task.
Next, select "Product Variant" for the item type to edit.
Now choose which products/variants to edit by adding conditions. There are a few different options for conditions, but they should all be pretty self-explanatory, so they won't be covered in this tutorial.
After adding the conditions, go down to the actions section, click "Add action", then click and choose "Variant inventory quantity" for the field to edit.
Next, choose which location to update the inventory on and what type of action to perform (set to, increase, or decrease amount). Finally, enter the amount into the number field.
You can also enable or disable inventory tracking with a different action.
Note: When editing inventory quantities, you can't include other actions to edit other fields (including "track inventory") in the same task.
Running the bulk edit
Once the conditions and actions are set up correctly, click the "Continue" button to proceed to the next step.
In the popup, type a name for the task so you can identify it later. You can also choose whether to schedule the task or run it immediately. Keep in mind task scheduling is a paid feature, so you will need to upgrade your plan first to enable this.
Click "Confirm", and then click "Run bulk edit" on the next confirmation popup.
The task should now be started, so go to the task history page to see its progress. Editing inventory quantities is faster than editing other fields, so editing a few thousand products shouldn't take very long. Once a task starts the editing process, it can't be stopped. If you need to cancel it, wait for it to finish and then revert it.
Once the task finishes, you can revert if necessary, run again, or edit and create a new task.
Troubleshooting
If the task finishes without making any changes, then either no changes were needed, or the conditions didn't match anything. Double-check all your conditions and selected options, and try again.
Debugging tip: Pick a product you want to be edited, and examine each of the applicable fields while trying to think step-by-step about whether it's meeting all the conditions, whether any text/HTML-to-find will match with the chosen options (if applicable), and what each action is doing exactly.
If you exceed the current plan limits, the task will fail and you will be asked to upgrade your plan.
If the task fails with a server error, wait a bit and try again. Contact us if the issue persists. It might be a temporary issue with Shopify, or with our servers.
Conclusion
That's it! We know you have an amazing business, and we hope our app helped you make it better. Please consider leaving a review in the Shopify app store to show your appreciation! (seriously, it means a lot 😀)
