What is a kit?
A kit lets you sell a bundle of products that you also stock on their own. A kit (also called a bundle or pack) is a product variation made up of other variations, such as a "Starter kit" that holds one shirt, one mug and one sticker.
A kit's stock is tied to the items inside it. When a kit sells, the stock of the items inside it goes down too. When an item's stock changes, the number of kits you can sell changes with it.
To use kits, you need the Growth plan or higher. Kits are also available during the free trial.
Create a kit
In Shuttle, open Inventory and click Manage kits.
Click Create Kit. If you have no kits yet, click Create your first kit.
Search for the variation that will be the kit. Type at least 3 characters. Searching by SKU or ID gives the quickest results. Only the first 50 matches are shown, so be specific.
Next to the right variation, click Create Kit.
A new kit has no items yet, so it stays inactive until you add some.
Add items to a kit
On the kit, click Add Item.
Search for a variation to include.
Enter how many of that variation go into one kit, then click Add Item.
Repeat for each item.
A kit turns active as soon as you add its first item, whether you add it by hand or through a kit import. Kits can't contain other kits, so a variation that is already a kit can't be added as an item.
A kit's items can be changed at any time. To change an item's quantity, edit the number next to it. To take an item out, click Remove. If you remove the last item, the kit turns inactive.
Turn a kit on or off
Each kit shows an Active or Inactive status, and clicking the status switches it. Shuttle only keeps active kits in sync. A kit with no items can't be turned on.
Update a kit's stock
Shuttle works out a kit's stock from its items, as the number of complete kits you could build before any item runs out. For example, if a kit needs 2 mugs and you have 7 mugs, you can build 3 kits.
When Etsy and Shopify give different numbers for a kit's stock, Shuttle uses the lower one and sets it on both.
To update one kit, click Update Kit on it, then click Update kit.
To update every active kit, click Update All Kits at the top of the page, then click Update now. The update runs in the background, so you can close the page. If the update stops before the end, click Continue on the page to pick up where it left off.
Import kits from a CSV file
Click Import Kits.
Click Download sample CSV file to see the format. Each row holds a kit's SKU, an item's SKU, and how many of that item go into the kit.
Click Choose CSV file, pick your file, then click Import kits.
Kits can only be imported by SKU. If more than one variation uses the same SKU, Shuttle can't tell which one you mean, so that row won't be imported.
The kit import runs in the background. When it's done, open Import Kits again and click Download last import results to see any rows that failed.
New kits created by an import turn active as soon as their first item is added, just like kits you build by hand. So there is nothing to turn on once the import is done.
Kits that already had items before the import keep the status you set. An import never turns a kit you switched off back on.
Are kits kept in sync automatically?
Yes, Shuttle keeps kits in sync automatically while the Stock Syncer is on.
When a kit sells on Etsy or Shopify, Shuttle lowers the stock of each item in it on both platforms.
When an item's stock changes, for example when the item sells on its own, Shuttle works out the stock again for every active kit that contains it.
Changing a kit's stock by hand doesn't change the stock of its items. A sale is the only thing that tells Shuttle exactly how many kits went out, so items only go down after a kit is sold.
Before you change a kit's Etsy listing
Each kit, and each item in a kit, is tied to the Etsy variation it was built on. Some changes on Etsy make a listing's variations count as new ones, for example switching the listing between one shared quantity and a separate quantity for each variation. After a change like that, Shuttle can no longer find the kit through Etsy, so the kit stops syncing on the Etsy side.
Shuttle deletes a kit like that, and all of its items, for good the next time you open Manage kits or search your kits. Shuttle does not move the kit over to the listing's new variations.
Kits can't be exported or backed up from Shuttle. If you plan a change like this, keep a kit CSV file first, with each kit's SKU, each item's SKU and the quantity, in the same format that Import Kits uses. Once the change is done on Etsy, import the file again to rebuild your kits.