Dynamic Packaging Units | Boxes and pallets from one shared stock

About the Extension

Some customers want a single bottle of sparkling water. Others want the case of twelve. The café down the road orders by the pallet. In your warehouse it's all the same stock, yet in Shopware it usually ends up as three products with three stock levels that never talk to each other.

The problem

If you sell the same goods in different quantities, you probably create a separate product or variant for every size. Sell ten boxes and the single-item stock doesn't move. You either rebook stock by hand every day or you take orders you can't fulfil.

The solution

With Dynamic Packaging Units you define your pack sizes once, say "6-pack" with 6 items or "Carton" with 12, and assign them to your products. On the product page your customer picks the packaging and the number of packs. Every size draws on one single stock level: buy a carton of 12 and 12 items come off the stock.

These core features come at no extra cost. Selling to trade buyers? Add the optional Pro package for your own pack prices, discounts and minimum quantities.

What's in it for you

One stock level instead of many. You maintain exactly one figure per product. Whether a customer buys one item, a box or a pallet, the stock is reduced in the same place.

No orders you can't ship. With "clearance sale" switched on for the product, the plugin only offers pack sizes your current stock can cover in full. With 20 items left, the 24-item bulk pack simply isn't in the selection. Restock and it's back on its own. Without clearance sale, Shopware's standard applies and backorders are possible.

Prices and a cart that make sense. The product page shows the price per pack, the price per item and the total for all selected packs, and a "Total pieces" line adds up the single items. No more "Is that per bottle or per case?" emails. The cart reads "3× Carton (36 pieces)" and plus and minus change the number of packs. Half boxes don't reach your warehouse.

Shipping costs that match the parcel. Enter weight and dimensions for a packaging unit and weight- or volume-based shipping methods charge for the pack, not for each single item.

Variants that share one supply. Selling a single can, a 6-can tray and a 12-can box as variants? They can share one pool. Each purchase takes as many units from the pool as the variant contains.

Trade terms with the Pro package. The pallet gets its own pack price, 5 packs earn 5 % off and 10 packs earn 10 %. A minimum number of packs and a minimum order value per packaging unit keep small orders away from your pallet goods.

How the plugin works

Under Catalogues > Packaging Units you create your pack sizes: a name (translatable per language), the quantity in pieces, a position and an active switch. Weight and dimensions are optional. On the product, you switch the feature on in the "Packaging Units" tab and assign the right pack sizes. Variants inherit the assignments of the parent product.

For variants with a shared supply, the product has a "Shared Stock" tab. Create a pool with its total stock and tell each variant how many units one purchase uses. Every order deducts those units from the pool, and a cancellation books them back. On the product page your customer sees what's left in the pool and how many they can order at most.

You can switch the plugin on or off per sales channel. Orders from a channel where it's off still deduct from the shared stock, so the pool stays right everywhere.

The Pro package. Everything above is included at no extra cost. Pro is an optional in-app purchase from the Administration: locked fields show a "Pro feature" notice with an "Unlock Pro package" button. It adds twelve features:

• Image per packaging unit in the selection and the cart
• Own pack price per product assignment
• Percentage discount per packaging unit
• Discount tiers by number of packs
• Minimum number of packs per order line
• Minimum order value per packaging unit
• Availability rules from the Rule Builder, say for trade customers only
• Notification by email when a sold-out packaging unit is back
• Quick order in the customer account
• CSV import for assignments
• Own unit label per pool, such as "metres"
• Pools generated from a variant property

If Pro ends, your saved Pro values are kept but have no effect until Pro is active again.

Typical use cases

• Drinks retail: sparkling water as a single bottle, a 6-pack and a case of twelve. The case goes into your Royal Mail or DPD shipping costs with its real weight, not as twelve separate bottles.
• Food and delicatessen: coconut milk as a single tin, a 6-tin tray and a 12-tin box, set up as variants sharing one pool.
• Consumables and B2B: gloves, cleaning supplies or labels sold singly to consumers and by the box to trade customers. The plugin stays off in your B2C channel and on in your B2B channel.
• Wholesale: pallet goods with clearance sale, only offered while your stock covers the full pallet, priced in GBP or any other currency your shop runs. With Pro the pallet gets its own pack price and is visible to trade customers only.

Technical facts for your IT team

• Shopware 6.7, PHP 8.2 or higher.
• Own tables for packaging units, translations, product assignments, pools, variant assignments and notification sign-ups. The product switches are stored as custom fields. Shopware's original tables stay untouched.
• The plugin sends no data to external servers.
• Personal data is only stored by the Pro availability notification: the customer's email address, with consent, deleted after sending or after 90 days at the latest. Sent through your shop's own mail delivery, switchable per sales channel.
• Pro is unlocked through Shopware's in-app purchase, no separate licence server.
• When packaging units, assignments or pools change, the plugin clears the cache of the affected products only.
• Dedicated permissions in role management for packaging units and shared variant stock.
• Interface in German, English and Dutch.
• Clean uninstall: choose to keep your data and all units, assignments and pools stay in place. Without that option, the plugin removes its tables and custom fields.

To be honest

Without Pro the plugin works with your unit price, own pack prices and discounts per pack size need the Pro package. The CSV import assigns existing packaging units, new units are created in the Administration. The product switches are saved per language, so in a multilingual shop you turn them on in each language. And your ERP doesn't know the pool: keep the parent and pool variants out of its stock sync and maintain the supply in the pool. Try it with one product first, setting it up only takes a few minutes.

Legal notice

We accept no liability for legal requirements. Please check the use of this plugin with a qualified legal advisor.