Ten mugs on a shelf does not mean ten can be sold. Map quantities, locations and responsibilities, then test a sale, hold, return and transfer before trusting shared availability.
A shared stock record helps shops and online sales make compatible promises. First agree which item and location each quantity describes, which goods can still be sold, and which system accepts changes. Connecting two totals without those decisions can leave staff looking at the same number and understanding different things.
Start with one product at two shops. Map the quantities, then follow a sale, a customer hold, a return and a transfer. This gives a retail operations manager something concrete to review with staff and a supplier before trusting the availability shown to customers.
The following business, numbers and responsibilities are hypothetical. Take one blue 350 ml mug, SKU MUG-BLUE-350, counted as individual mugs at North and South shops. Match each channel's product and location identifiers to those exact records. Another size or a pack must not silently share the count.
In this example, product records define the variant and unit. A stock ledger owns the accepted balances for each item and location. The till and online ordering system submit identified movements; the online catalogue displays availability derived from the ledger. An operations manager investigates disagreements. Shop staff supply physical counts for approved adjustments, rather than independently overwriting balances in several systems.
Two are held for customers, three are committed to accepted orders and one returned mug awaits inspection. Four are available to offer. Nothing is incoming.
One is held for a customer and five are available to offer. None is committed or awaiting inspection. Two more mugs are in transit to South, outside its on-hand and available balances.
North's ten physical mugs are the two held, three committed, one awaiting inspection and four available. South's six are the one held and five available. Do not add on-hand to these smaller groups: it already contains them. The incoming mugs are separate, and the returned mug is counted once within physical stock.
These are business definitions for this example. Shopify's inventory guidance also distinguishes on-hand, available, committed and unavailable quantities by item and location, but its names must be read in their own context. In its current guidance, draft-order reservations are committed; reserved is a separate unavailable state. A workflow called a reservation in your shop does not automatically belong in a provider's reserved field.
Write down what each system means before mapping its fields. Microsoft's guidance on translating between systems explains why apparently similar business concepts may need translation, with ongoing maintenance and possible latency. The practical job here is to preserve the meaning of a movement as it crosses the connection.
Each example below starts again from the quantities above. These are proposed operating choices, not claims about a particular platform's default behaviour.
Suppose the ledger accepts an online order for one North mug under the business's allocation policy. Available falls from four to three; committed rises from three to four. On-hand stays at ten because the mug is still there. When staff dispatch it, on-hand falls to nine and committed returns to three. A page view or payment indication alone does not establish that this allocation was accepted.
A shop assistant holds one North mug for collection. In this invented model, available falls from four to three and customer holds rise from two to three. The business must choose an expiry time and name the workflow or person that releases the hold. Cancellation or expiry restores availability only if the mug has not since been allocated or sold. A Shopify draft-order reservation would need its own mapping to committed.
Receipt of one previously sold mug raises North's on-hand from ten to eleven and its inspection group from one to two. Available remains four. Inspection then either releases that mug for sale or records it as unsaleable. A refund and the physical receipt are separate events, so staff need to know which one has actually happened.
Starting from the baseline again, suppose staff dispatch two of North's available mugs to South under one identified transfer. North's on-hand falls from ten to eight and available from four to two. South's incoming quantity rises from two to four; its on-hand stays six and available stays five. The two already incoming in the baseline belong to a different movement.
When South receives this new transfer once and completes any required check, incoming returns to two, on-hand rises to eight and available to seven. A merely planned transfer has not yet departed. Agree when goods are withdrawn from sale and when receipt makes them saleable, so travelling mugs are never offered by both shops.
For every movement, staff should be able to find the item, unit, location, quantity, action identifier and accepted status. A transfer also needs its sending and receiving locations. This evidence lets them explain a balance change instead of guessing from the latest total.
Ask the supplier to demonstrate these proposed acceptance scenarios in a supported separate test setup, using invented items with real stock writes, orders, payments, fulfilment and customer messages suppressed. Inspect the receiving system's accepted movement records and resulting balances as well as the screen staff see.
Make one unit available and request it at the till and online at the same time. Where is allocation decided? Show which request is accepted and what the other customer or assistant sees. A cached availability display cannot decide between competing requests.
Then let a hold expire while an order is being accepted. Check that the same unit reaches the intended state once. Send a return receipt or transfer receipt twice and check that staff can identify the single physical receipt without adding stock twice. These tests establish behaviour in the demonstrated conditions; they cannot prove universal instant updates or eliminate every overselling risk.
Interrupt the connection before confirmation, then repeat with an interruption after the receiving system has accepted a movement. The sender may lack a reply in either case, but the stock consequences differ. Staff need to distinguish pending work, confirmed acceptance and an uncertain outcome before sending anything again.
After reconnecting, compare the action identifier, item, location, quantity and state with the receiving system's evidence. Ask how the connection determines order and freshness if an older response arrives after a newer one. Arrival time alone should not silently make an old balance authoritative.
Choose what staff and customers see: for example, last-confirmed availability with its confirmation time, or an explicit pending status. Withhold a stock commitment when the operation cannot establish it, and send disputed orders to a named person.
Keep both readings and the last known accepted movement. The operations manager checks them against the declared authority, obtains physical evidence where needed, records an approved correction and confirms affected orders before normal promises resume.
Those are example policies for the business to select. Choosing the highest number, or whichever update arrived last, is not a general reconciliation rule. A physical count can expose a discrepancy, but the correction still needs a recorded reason and an accountable owner.
The useful output is an agreed item and location map, definitions for each quantity, an owner for accepted changes, and a named route for uncertain movements and disagreements. Keep the tested sale, hold, return and transfer beside it. Staff should know what they can promise and what needs checking.
A common stock view can support the sales channels you already use. The map helps identify whether the remaining work is configuration, a missing connection or a change in staff responsibilities. If a connection is needed, we can discuss API integration around those movements and exception paths, with scope and ongoing care agreed for the particular project.
No. On-hand counts physical goods under the chosen definition. Some may already be committed, held or awaiting inspection. Available is what the business can offer after its agreed exclusions, for the relevant item and location.
Use the authority agreed for that quantity and check the accepted movements behind it. The named reconciliation owner investigates both readings and physical evidence where needed, then records an approved correction. The largest number or latest arrival is not a universal winner.
Under the business rules chosen for receipt and inspection. A returned mug can be physically present but unavailable. Goods in transit remain incoming at the receiving shop until receipt; they should not be available at both ends.
Treat its outcome as uncertain until the receiving system provides evidence. Check the identified movement before replaying it, show the agreed pending or stale status, and route disputed orders to the responsible person.
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