Kitting

How kitting works

A kit has a bill of materials: the list of components and quantities that make one kit. When you build kits, the components are consumed and the kit SKU is created. When you break kits, the reverse happens.

For example, a skincare gift set KIT-GLOW contains one serum, one cleanser and one gift box. Building 50 sets consumes 50 of each component and creates 50 units of KIT-GLOW, which can then be stored, counted and picked like any other SKU. If the promotion ends with 12 sets left, breaking them returns 12 of each component to stock.

Assembled kits vs virtual bundles

There are two ways to sell a combination of products, and they behave very differently in the warehouse.

• Assembled kit: built in advance. The kit has its own stock, location and label. Picking is fast, but components are locked inside kits until you break them.
• Virtual bundle: sold as one SKU but picked as its components when the order arrives. It has no stock of its own. Availability is set by the scarcest component, and no labor is spent until an order exists.

When to kit in advance and common mistakes

Pre-assembly makes sense when a combination sells steadily, needs special packaging, or when you want to use quiet hours to prepare for a busy period. Virtual bundles suit promotions, many possible combinations, or products that also sell on their own.

Common mistakes: building kits by hand without recording it, so components look available when they are already inside a gift box; building far more kits than you can sell; and forgetting that kit components with lots or expiry dates still need to be traced. A kit shelf life is only as long as its earliest-expiring component.

How NextStock handles kitting

NextStock supports both. Virtual bundles are sold as one SKU and picked as components, and a bundle never holds stock. Assembled kits use build and break work orders that consume and create stock as ledger movements, so every change is recorded in the inventory ledger. See kitting and bundles.