Netsuite 2 Systems – Inventory vs Ecommerce

Assembly items are for inventory and Matrix items are for ecommerce. Well, we actually use matrix items to create the assembly member parts too.

My point is that Matrix items display online great with easy dropdowns but cannot track inventory of different parts used to build a Matrix child.

Assembly items can track inventory of its member parts (now that work orders are available) but cannot be displayed on the web in an effective way.

Because of this, we create one of each for thousands of items. We create matrix items for parts in color and size. We then create an assembly item for each color and size. Assembly items are what we actually buy, sell, track inventory, sales history, etc. Because assembly items do not have a parent and there is no matrix, they do not work for ecommerce so we create a separate matrix item strictly for the web. When orders come in, we change the order from the matrix child ordered online to it’s duplicate assembly item.