Articles on: Daily Operations

Inventory Management

CloudBridal provides powerful tools to manage your store's inventory, making it easy to track items, manage variants, process sales, and handle special orders. This guide covers the essential features of the inventory management system.


Prerequisites


Before you enter any inventory items, you should first ensure that you've properly configured your inventory settings. Please refer to the Inventory Settings documentation for more information.


What Inventory Means in CloudBridal


Many believe that inventory management is only important for physical products, but this is not the full picture. Inventory in CloudBridal can be used to manage any item that you sell, whether it's a physical product, a service, an add-on, etc. When your inventory is properly set up, the sales process will go smoothly and efficiently.


Items in CloudBridal are structured based on their Item Type. This is a way to categorize your items so that you can manage them accordingly. Common item types include:


  • Dresses
  • Accessories
  • Veils
  • Services
  • Other


You should customize the item types that are available to you in the Inventory Item Settings and make sure that you've covered all of the different types of items that you sell through your store.


Tip: If an item is not a physical product, make sure to disable the Quantity field for that item type. This will prevent the system from tracking it as physical inventory.


How Inventory is Added


Inventory items are added in three main ways:


  1. By adding a new inventory item through the Inventory page. This is the easiest and most straightforward way to create an inventory item.
  2. When receiving a stock purchase order. This is handy if you want to track the full lifecycle of acquiring inventory.
  3. Through the data import tool. This is mainly intended to help you import your initial inventory when you first set up your store.


The Inventory Item Form


When you add or edit an inventory item, the inventory item form will appear. This form shows you all the relevant information for the item and allows you to manage the item accordingly.


Core Item Details


The left side of the form includes the core item details:


  • Item Type: The item's main category (e.g. Dress, Accessory, Veil, etc.)
  • Vendor: The supplier or designer of the item
  • Internal Item Name: This is usually the vendor's item name.
  • Display Name: This defaults to the internal item name, but you can customize it as needed. For example, if you private label a dress, you may want to use your own name as the display name. This name displays all customer-facing places like receipts, labels, etc.
  • Discontinued: If checked, this means the item is no longer available for special order from the vendor.
  • Disposed: If checked, this means the item is no longer available for sale and is only being maintained for historical records. Typically, you would also 0 out the quantity of the item when it is disposed.
  • Images: You can upload images of the item or use the search tool (Ultimate Plan) to find matching images online.


Stocked Items & Varieties


This section defines your available inventory and its pricing.


Available Colors for Special Order


This field allows you to specify the different color options that this item can be ordered in. Only visible when the item type has color tracking enabled. These colors will be selectable in the order form when a customer wants to order this item.


Did you know that you can define colors and color groups for each vendor? This can make it easier to enter inventory items for these vendors. See the Vendors documentation for more information.



Available Addons for Special Order


It is very common to modify a special order with additional services or customizations. For example, a customer may wish to pay a rush shipping fee on their order to have it fulfilled quicker. The Available Addons for Special Order field allows you to capture such addons. You should use addons for fixed-fee additions to an order that add to the base price of that order. Refer to the Vendors documentation to learn more about how to record the possible addons for a vendor. Then once you've done so, you can decide which addons apply to this inventory item by entering them into this field.


Stocked Items


This table allows you to capturethe different varieties of the item that you have in stock. Based on how you've configured the item type, these fields may be available:


  • Size or Name: For items with size tracking enabled (e.g. Dress), this is the size of the item. For other items, this is the name of the item's variety.
  • Color: Available if color tracking is enabled for the item type.
  • Variety: This displays only when you have added more than 1 variety for this item - see Varieties Available for Special Order below.
  • Quantity: Current stock level for this variety.
  • Pricing:
  • Wholesale Price (if enabled): The cost to order this variety from the vendor.
  • Retail Price (required): The item's suggested retail price (MSRP).
  • Sale Price (required): The actual price that you sell this variety for. This is automatically set to the retail price, but you can change it to something different if needed.


The system includes a retail markup calculator (the purple tag button) to help determine appropriate pricing based on wholesale costs.


Varieties Available for Special Order


These represent variations available for special ordering from vendors:


  • Create different options for special orders (e.g., lined vs. unlined, standard vs. custom length)
  • Each variety can have its own pricing structure


If you've added more than 1 variety for an item, you will then need to set which variety you have in stock (if any). Additionally, the variety becomes a required field in the order form and is also then surfaced for purchase orders.


So, what's the difference between Varieties and Addons? A variety defines what the base item is, and addons are additional fixed fees applied to that base item. Both concepts are useful in different ways.


Item Notes


You can add any free-form notes about the item here. This is useful for adding information that you don't want to display to customers, but still want to keep track of.


Item Attributes


Depending on the item type, different attributes may be available:


Dress-Specific Attributes


  • Fabrics: Materials used in the dress
  • Silhouettes: Dress silhouette styles
  • Necklines: Types of necklines
  • Embellishments: Decorative elements
  • Season: The season the item belongs to
  • Year: The year the item was released


All of these attribute options can be configured in the Inventory Item Settings.


Item Tags


You can also add tags to the item. Tags are custom labels to apply to the item, and have several uses:


  • Filtering: You can filter items by tag in the inventory list.
  • Inventory Showcase: You can surface tags in the inventory showcase, which allows your clients to view items by tag.


Inventory Showcase


Plan Requirement: Ultimate


Control how items appear in your inventory showcase:


  • Showcase Description: Public-facing description of the item
  • Hide from Showcase: Option to exclude items from public view


Label Printing


Plan Requirement: Core or Ultimate


CloudBridal integrates with DYMO Label printers to allow you to print labels for your inventory items. To learn more on how to set this up, please refer to the Label Printing & Scanning documentation.


Inventory Item Settings Reference


The Inventory Item Settings page allows you to fully customize how your inventory is organized, displayed, and managed in CloudBridal.


Customizable Inventory Item Types


CloudBridal offers fully customizable inventory item types. Each inventory item type can have its own unique configuration of fields, providing greater flexibility for different product categories. Broadly speaking, each item type allows you to configure the following:


  • Name: The name of the item type (E.g. Dress, Accessory, Service, etc.)
  • Default Applicable Taxes: Which tax rate applies to orders for this item type. See Sales Tax Setup
  • Inactive: Allows you to hide the item type if you no longer want to use it
  • Enabled Inventory Fields: Allows you to show/hide fields that appear on the inventory item form.
  • Enabled Customer Order Fields: Allows you to show/hide fields that appear on the customer order form.
  • Other Functionality: More unique behavior to opt into for the item type.
    • Order Status Tracking: Order status tracking is always enabled for the main item in a special order. However, if you want to independently track the status of this item type when added as an additional item, you can activate this option. This is beneficial when managing orders involving multiple items from different vendors, each needing a separate special order.
    • Order Price Can Be Changed Any Time: Enabling this option allows you to make adjustments to the price any time, even if the order is past the 'New' status. This is useful if the price of the order is not fully known at time of sale.


Label Printing Settings

Plan Requirement: Core or Ultimate


See Label Printing & Scanning for more detailed information on how to configure label printing.


Selectable Options


Customize the dropdown options available for inventory items:


  • Dress Fabric Types: Lace, Satin, Tulle, Chiffon, Crepe, Organza, Mikado, Silk, Taffeta, Etc.
  • Dress Silhouettes: A-Line, Ball Gown, Mermaid, Sheath/Column, Fit & Flare, Trumpet, Tea Length, Empire, Princess, High-Low, Etc.
  • Dress Necklines: Sweetheart, Square, High Neck, V-Neck, Plunging, Portrait, Halter, Straight, Bateau, Jewel, Scoop, Queen Anne, Illusion, One-Shoulder, Off-the-Shoulder, Strapless, Etc.
  • Dress Embellishments: Beading, Sequins, Embroidery, Crystals/Rhinestones, Pearls, Appliqués, Buttons, Fringe, Bows, Ruffles, None/Minimal, Etc.


You can add, edit, or remove options to match your inventory needs.


Custom Fields


In addition to default fields, you can create custom fields for inventory items. See Custom Fields for more information.


Updated on: 10/07/2025

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