How do I sell replacement awning fabric cut to size on Shopify?

An awning frame outlasts its cover. The arms and the roller go on for years, the fabric fades, tears at a seam or goes green at the valance, and the owner wants a new cover for the frame they already have. Dickson sells its Orchestra acrylic in 120 cm widths with a 10 year warranty, and Allied Market Research valued the retractable awnings market at $6,024.4 million in 2020. Every one of those awnings will want a new cover one day.

How do I sell replacement awning fabric cut to size on Shopify?

Sell it as one product priced by the size the customer types. They measure the roller width and the projection, pick the fabric and the valance, and the price comes from your own list, by the square metre, by the metre or from a grid. Set the smallest and largest sizes you can sew, so an odd size goes to a quote. Make sure the checkout charges what the page showed. Inchy, a Shopify app for awnings and outdoor shade, does this as a product page block and sends the measurements to your workshop on a production sheet.

The size step from the live demo. The limits sit under each field, and the price changes as the numbers do.

Why can I not list cover sizes as variants?

Because there are too many of them and they do not have one price each. Shopify's Help Center says a product can have up to 2,048 variants and up to three options. A cover for a frame from 200 to 600 cm wide and 150 to 350 cm projection, in 1 cm steps, is 401 widths by 201 projections, or 80,601 sizes before the fabric is chosen. In 10 cm steps it is still 861. Add 20 fabrics and 2 valance shapes and the count is 34,440. Variants are for stock, and a cut cover is not stock.

How is a replacement cover priced?

Start from how the cloth is bought. Acrylic awning fabric comes on rolls of a fixed width, 120 cm in Dickson's Orchestra range, and the cover is sewn from panels that run from the roller to the front bar. The number of panels follows the awning width: a 350 cm awning needs three panels of 120 cm, a 550 cm awning needs five. The projection sets how long each panel is cut.

That gives you three honest ways to price, and a calculator should take all of them.

• By the square metre. Width times projection, times your rate, with a minimum charge. Simple to explain to a customer.
• By the metre of width. Closer to the cutting: each 120 cm of width is a panel, so the price steps up at each panel. A grid by width does this well.
• A grid by width and projection. The same grid you probably already have for whole awnings, with cover-only prices in the cells. The customer's size goes up to the next column and the next row.

In Inchy you paste the grid from a spreadsheet, or set a price per square metre or per metre, and the rule runs on every size the shopper types. The valance shape, a reinforced front hem or a matching valance strip are options, each adding a fixed amount, an amount per metre or a percentage.

Why should the price change with the width?

Because the cloth does. A cover for a 550 cm awning uses nearly twice the fabric of a cover for 250 cm, and a flat price would lose money on one and overcharge on the other. The demo awning shows how a size-priced item behaves. Its "Winter cover, cut to your width" costs £60.00 at 250 cm, £77.00 at 350 cm, £92.40 at 420 cm and £121.00 at 550 cm. The label under it changes too: "Cut to 550 cm".

A replacement cover is that item on its own, with the fabric as the main choice instead of an add-on. How an awning shop should price add-ons like a motor or a winter cover explains the rules behind add-ons priced for the chosen size.

What does the customer need to measure?

Two things, and they are not the same as for a new awning. For a replacement cover the width is the length of the roller tube, or of the old cover from edge to edge, not the space on the wall. The projection is the length of the old cover from the roller to the front bar when fully open, plus whatever is wrapped on the tube. Put that in a "How to measure" note right under the fields, in plain words, with a drawing if you have one. The demo awning's note reads: "Width is the space on the wall you want covered. Leave 15 cm clear at each side for the brackets. Projection is how far the awning comes out from the wall when fully open." Yours for a cover will be different, and it should be.

Ask for the frame make and model as a text field too, because the front bar pocket and the roller groove differ between makers, and a cover sewn for the wrong groove does not fit.

What about the fabric choice and samples?

Show the fabrics as swatches with the cover redrawn or photographed in each one, and put a sample button under the swatches. A customer matching a new cover to an old frame and old cushions wants the cloth in their hand first. The demo shows "Order a free sample" of the chosen cover under the swatches, and you decide whether yours is free or charged. How a Shopify awning shop can offer fabric samples covers the sample flow.

What happens when a size is outside what I sew?

You set a smallest and a largest width and projection. Inside them the customer buys. Outside them the builder shows the limit under the field, clears the total and will not add the cover to the basket, with the note "This size is made to order. Send us the details and we will quote you." Orders above an amount you set can go to a quote form too, which is useful for commercial awnings and anything over 6 metres.

Questions and answers

Can I price by the panel?

Yes. A grid by width with a column for each panel count does that, and the shopper's width goes up to the next column.

Can customers enter the size in inches?

Yes. Sizes can be set in centimetres, millimetres or inches, and the demo lets the shopper switch between centimetres and inches on the page.

Does the checkout charge the price the page showed?

Yes. The checkout works the price out again from the same rules, on every Shopify plan. Why checkout prices can differ from the product page explains why that matters.

How do the measurements reach the sewing room?

Every measurement and choice lands on the Shopify order. Inchy adds a production sheet to Shopify's Print menu with the sizes, the fabric and boxes to tick, and a daily work list of every cover still to make.

What does it cost?

Anything priced by size is on the Made to measure plan at $99 a month, with unlimited products, every look and style and Bundle kits, billed by Shopify with no fee per order. There is a 7-day free trial.

Who makes Inchy?

InterioApp. We have priced and sold made to measure products since 2011, in our own shop first, and our quoting software and calculators are used by made to measure businesses in the UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

If you re-cover awnings, set up one cover product with your own price per square metre and your fabrics, and try it on your own page. See Inchy and try the live builder. Start the 7-day free trial on the Shopify App Store.

Sources

• Dickson, Orchestra awning fabrics: sold in 120 cm widths, 290 g/m², solution-dyed 100% acrylic, 10 year warranty.
• Allied Market Research, Retractable awnings market: $6,024.4 million in 2020, $13,820.0 million expected by 2030.
• Shopify Help Center, Adding variants: up to 2,048 variants and up to three options per product.
• Inchy live demo: size limits, measuring note, sample button and the winter cover price at 250, 350, 420 and 550 cm, read on 1 November 2026. Size counts (80,601, 861 and 34,440) and panel counts worked out from the limits and the sample widths.

Written with AI. Every figure is checked against the sources listed above.