How to Track Inventory for Multiple Product Sizes, Cuts, and Packages

If you sell the same product in more than one size, cut, or package, "20 apples in stock" doesn't actually tell you much. Are those 10 large and 10 small? All one size? A combined count works fine when every unit is identical, and it breaks down the moment a large and a small aren't interchangeable to the customer buying them, or to you filling the order.

This is a common problem for a few kinds of sellers in particular: livestock and meat producers, where a rib steak might come in a 0.6 lb portion and a 1 lb portion that need to be counted separately rather than lumped into one shared weight total; farms selling pre-packaged goods like flour or honey in multiple jar or bag sizes; and farms selling apparel or merchandise in small, medium, and large, where a shared inventory number simply doesn't make sense. The fix is tracking inventory at the package level instead of the product level, while keeping everything under one clean product listing on your storefront.

LocalLine's inventory management is already flexible: you can sell a product by weight or by unit, track inventory by weight or by unit, and have multiple packages within a single product. A few examples of what that looks like in practice:

How inventory management on Local Line works

Local Line’s inventory management is already flexible. Today, you can sell a product by weight or unit AND track inventory by weight or unit. You can also have different packages within a product. Think of products and packages like this:

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Historically, inventory on LocalLine was tracked only at the product level. Take carrots as an example: if you have 150 lbs of carrots and sell them in 1 lb and 5 lb bags, the individual package counts were calculated from that one total, meaning the system would show 150 1 lb bags or 30 5 lb bags depending on how a customer ordered, rather than two genuinely separate counts.

For a product like carrots that you harvest and bag to order, this works fine, since you're not constrained by pre-made packages; you're constrained by how many pounds you actually picked. But with Product Variants, you can also track package inventory separately when that's what the product actually needs. If your carrots are pre-bagged ahead of time into, say, 80 one-pound bags and 14 five-pound bags, those are two separate, finite counts rather than one shared pool of 150 lbs.

The same logic applies more sharply to meat, where a combined count genuinely doesn't make sense. As a meat seller, your retail cuts are packaged all at once, not harvested to order. For a product like Rib Steak, sold as a Small (avg. 0.6 lb) and a Large (avg. 1 lb), a shared inventory number is close to meaningless. Instead, each size gets its own package with its own inventory count.

Why this matters

Farmers, food hubs, and producers often sell products in more than one format, and pooling inventory simply doesn't work once packaging happens before the sale rather than at the time of it. Choosing how to track package inventory on a per-product basis gives you the flexibility to sell in whatever way actually matches your operation, rather than forcing every product through the same one-size-fits-all inventory model. The benefits show up in three concrete ways:

• Improved inventory accuracy. Tracking each package separately prevents the quiet failure mode of pooled inventory: a fast-selling size oversells while a slower one sits untouched in the combined count, invisible until a customer complains.
• A cleaner storefront. No more duplicate listings like "Apples - Large" and "Apples - Small" just to work around a shared inventory count. One product, multiple sizes, each with its own accurate stock number.
• A better ordering experience. Shoppers can see every available option at a glance and choose the package that actually fits what they need, rather than guessing what "20 in stock" really means.

How to set this up

1. Go to your Products table and select New Product in the top right corner. This setting is fixed at creation and cannot be changed later for an existing product, so decide upfront whether the product needs separate package tracking.
2. Add the standard product details: name, keyword tags, description, and images.
3. Toggle on Track Inventory and select Packages have separate inventory. This lets you set an individual inventory level for each package rather than one shared count.
4. Choose whether to track and charge by weight or by unit, independently for each package. Which one makes sense depends entirely on the product. Pre-packaged steaks, for example, are often tracked by unit (how many small vs. large pieces you have) but sold by weight (the exact weight of the piece a customer receives).
5. Build out each package: set the inventory count, and either the price per unit or the average pack weight and price per weight, depending on the product. In the example below, the rib steaks are tracked by unit and sold by weight, while the farm merch t-shirts are both tracked and sold by unit.

6. Add your product to the relevant price list and update the product status. 

You can update package-level inventory counts at any time from the Products table by selecting Edit Inventory.

Ready to simplify your inventory?

There's no additional cost to use Product Variants; it's included in every LocalLine subscription. Whether you're selling produce in bulk, different cuts of meat, farm merch, or pre-packaged goods, Product Variants gives you the flexibility to track inventory the way your products actually work, while keeping both your storefront and your back office clean and organized.

Not yet using LocalLine? Create your account here or connect with someone from our team to see how LocalLine can help you today.