Combined Inventory - Making Farm Sales Seamless

What is “Combined Inventory” from Barn2Door?

We are thrilled to announce our biggest release of 2024: Combined Inventory! This multi-year effort is rolling out to all Farmers over the coming weeks. With Combined Inventory, your Farm store can offer a single item --- regardless of price(s), unit size(s) and / or price sheet (retail, private or wholesale) --- and ensure it pulls from the same inventory. Your inventory counts per item can now update automatically, accurately across multiple sizes, regardless of amount paid or type of Buyer. Combined Inventory works across both in-person and online purchases.

Specifically, your Farm can now sell each product in multiples (or fractions), combining unit sizes (e.g. a single dozen or case of eggs), at different price points across all of your customers (e.g. retail and wholesale pricing). For each purchase, Barn2Door will accurately draw down the inventory for the item according to the unit size(s), combining your sales for a given item across all pricing sheets.

For example, an item such as beef, sold in Quarters, Halves or Wholes, can be sold ‘interchangeably’ instead of separate inventory counts for each product listing. With Combined Inventory, you could have 40 cows and sell them in any combination of Quarters, Halves and Wholes until it hits the ‘40’ available and is then Sold Out. 

Expensive, heavy weight enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions from Oracle and SAP refer to this feature as “binning”. Now, your Farm can use this enterprise-grade feature at no additional cost with every Barn2Door Account. Combined Inventory works well for all types of Farm products, whether sold across retail, wholesale and private price lists.

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Combined Inventory for Protein Farmers

Selling on the Hoof

If your Farm sells Quarters, Halves or Wholes, all unit sizes can be pulled from one inventory. This means you can know how much of each animal has sold, how much remains and how many cows to take to the butcher.

For instance, if you have 4 cows, and people cumulatively buy 3.5 cows, the remaining inventory available for sale will be either 2 Quarters or 1 Half. If someone purchases the Half, your inventory would show ‘sold out’. Instead, if someone buys a Quarter, the only remaining inventory option would be a single Quarter! There is no additional work or reconciliation needed by the Farmer - the software will automatically adjust the remaining units.

Selling by Pounds (LBs)

This feature is also helpful if you sell meat by the pound, or in boxes by weight. You can ‘build’ your inventory item to offer different amounts of 1 LB packages. If a customer buys 3 (1) LB packages and another customer buys a bundle of 10 LBs of ground beef (in (1) LB packages), your inventory would automatically subtract 13 (1) LB packages. This allows you to see the total amount of meat sold at a given time.

Additionally, Combined Inventory enables your Farm to offer lower prices based on the amount of meat purchased, to incentivize larger orders due to lower prices associated with bulk quantities. (E.g. $6.99 for 1 LB of beef, $6.49 for 5 LB of beef, $5.99 for 10 LB of beef).

Selling Eggs

Many Farmers sell eggs by the dozen to consumers; some might also offer a case of 15 dozen (180 eggs) to their wholesale accounts. Farmers often offer consumer pricing per dozen at a premium and a different, lower price (per dozen) when wholesalers purchase a case. With Barn2Door’s Combined Inventory, Farmers can offer different prices and unit sizes and their dozen egg inventory (base unit determined by Farmer, with unit variations based on that unit) will accurately reflect the mix of purchases across all Buyers.

Combined Inventory for Dairy Farmers

Combined Inventory works best for dairy when leveraging products of the same container. Buyers usually buy specific containers of their liking --- pint, quart, gallon --- but often appreciate a bulk option (buy 5 quarts for a discount). If you offer a case of single serve milk cartons (e.g. 6 oz for the school), Combined Inventory means you can offer 6 oz cartons for sale, either individually or in a case, and have an accurate number of ‘cartons sold’ across all purchases. 

Each sealed container you offer ---- pint, quart, gallon --- should be sold as separate items, as they each have their own inventory to draw from. But each of those items offered in a case can be included as optional unit size(s) or price(s) for that item.

Combined Inventory for Produce Farmers

Jarred Items

If you sell tomato sauce in different size jars, and package those jars to order (versus pre-packaged), you can utilize Combined Inventory to track Jars of tomato sauce as a single inventory. If you are happy to pack up either 8 oz or 16 oz jars as the orders come in --- as a ‘combined inventory’ item rather than separate inventories --- those ‘jar units’ are interchangeable and will be tracked as a ‘total sold’ across all Jars of tomato sauce.

For example, you may start with 200 16 oz jars (and set-up a purchase of a 8 oz jar as a half or 0.5 order of the 16 oz jar). If customers buy 110 of the 16 oz jars you will have 90 16 oz jars remaining. If a few customers then buy 20 jars that are just 8 oz each, that would subtract 10 more of the 16 oz jars from your inventory, leaving a new count of 80 (16 oz) jars remaining. These remaining 80 jars could still be purchased in 8 oz or 16 oz sizes.

Selling Microgreens or Berries

If selling an item(s) in clamshells or ½ pints and whole pints, all of these are great items for Combined Inventory! As long as it is the same item and will be coming from the same, single inventory, you can sell as many or few of each ‘size’ and still accurately subtract inventory amounts as they are sold. A single clamshell or case full of (N) clamshells of radish microgreens can readily, accurately track all clamshells purchases. I may have pints of strawberries as my Base Unit Size, and set a ½ pint as 0.5 units and a case of 8 pints as 8 units (per case purchase). Every time a Buyer buys strawberries, it will subtract the correct number of pints!

Selling Apples, Carrots or Potatoes

If you’re creative and want to offer a bunch and a box of something --- for rough estimates of your inventory --- (e.g. asparagus) go for it! You would need to ascribe how many ‘bunches’ are in a box)! If your bunches of carrots and case of carrots are not interchangeable, you should list them as separate items in your store, with separate inventories. To make carrots a combined inventory item, you can say a case has 10 bunches (with the bunch being your Base Unit size) and offer carrots either by the bunch or case! You can also be more specific and create a 5 LB bag, 10 LB bag or 40 LB box of, say, apples or potatoes, and have the 5 LB increment set as your Base Unit Size.

Sealed Products with Non-Interchangeable Units

If you have Sealed Items of the ‘same’ product that are not interchangeable units (honey bears v. quart jars, pints v. gallons of milk), they typically have their own, separate inventory and should be sold as separate items in your online store.

Define your Base Units

To ‘combine items’ so they share the same inventory and can be listed on your store as a single item with more than one unit size and / or different prices for the same item, you will need to ‘build your item’ in the inventory section of your Barn2Door account. Each item in your store is by default a ‘Base Item’ that is then used to calculate and deprecate from your total inventory of an item, regardless of unit size (or price).

Streamlined Pricing Capabilities

Combined Inventory supports multiple pricing sheets across Wholesale, Retail and Private Buyers. Pricing and Packaging will automatically populate for whichever Buyer type is on your store. For example, Retail Buyers may pay $6.49 per pound of tomatoes (when buying in 1 lb unit sizes), whereas Wholesale Buyers would pay $5.49 per pound (when buying in 10 lb unit sizes). Regardless of Buyer type and packaging selection, your Farm inventory will update automatically. You will not need separate products for each Buyer type, or manually track inventory separately.

Conclusion

Barn2Door’s Combined Inventory is an enterprise-grade feature that will streamline your store, give customers more flexibility, and accurately deprecate inventory per item regardless of unit(s) or price(s) for that item --- whether buying ‘partial’ items (quarter cow or half a jar) or multiples of items (12 clamshells in a case or 30 dozen eggs in a case). Built for Farmers, no matter what products you grow, your Farm can utilize this feature across all in-person and online sales to wholesale or retail customers. 

Barn2Door offers software for Independent Farmers to create and promote their brand, sell online and in-person, and save time managing their business. If you’re curious to learn more, watch this 5-minute video.