ChannelEngine: stock

About this article

Table of contents

Introduction

Stock updates

• Via a product feed
• Via the Merchant API
• Via a merchant plugin
• Via marketplace fulfillment programs
• Manually on ChannelEngine

Advanced stock settings

• Dropped products threshold
• Manual stock management
• Stock reservation

General stock settings

• Stock locations
• Stock allocations

Channel-specific settings

• Stock buffer
• Stock limit
• Stock global turnover

View stock levels

Introduction

Stock is the number of available products for sale on marketplaces. It is very important that the stock known to ChannelEngine (i.e.: the stock exported to marketplaces) is correct. Selling products that are no longer in stock results in cancelations, negative ratings, and poor metrics on marketplaces. There are several places on ChannelEngine where you can manage stock-related settings, and they are all mentioned in this article.

Stock updates

Update your products' stock levels via multiple methods: product feeds, merchant integrations, API, or manually on ChannelEngine. 

Via a product feed

If you use product feeds to update your product data, make sure that at least one feed has the stock mapped. Otherwise, all stock is set to zero. You can map stock locations by going to Products, Product feeds, clicking the pencil icon by the feed you want to edit, and scrolling to the section Stock locations at the bottom of the page. 

It is possible to provide a specific stock feed to update the stock more frequently. By default, feeds are imported hourly. This stock feed can also contain incremental updates (e.g.: containing only the products with a change in stock, checked against the last time the feed was imported). If you do choose to provide a stock feed, make sure that:

• The stock feed is set to type Additional.
• The stock feed has the Merchant product no (SKU) for the product that needs to be updated.
• The stock is not mapped in other feeds, or the stock in those feeds is fully up-to-date as well.

More information on product feeds and how to set them up can be found on the article ChannelEngine: product feeds.

Via the Merchant API

If you use ChannelEngine's Merchant API to manage your stock, there are two bulk endpoints you can use:

POST /v2/products

This is the endpoint you used to create products if you are not using an alternative route. Note that this endpoint is purge-and-replace. That is, if you update products via this endpoint, you need to include all the default product data, such as the stock and price. If you leave the CE:Stock attribute out, the stock is reset to zero. Therefore, it is crucial that the stock submitted via this endpoint is up to date and submitted.

PUT /v2/offer

This endpoint allows for the frequent update of the stock or price. All you need to provide is:

• The corresponding Merchant product number
• The value of the stock, price, or stock and price you want to update
• The stock location

This endpoint is not purge-and-replace, so values left out are not set to zero. It is still a bulk endpoint, though, so you are advised to bundle offer updates in batches to limit the number of calls to ChannelEngine's API.

Via a merchant plugin

If you use a merchant plugin – such as Adobe Commerce (née Magento) – which does not use a product feed for product information containing the stock value, the stock values are usually fetched by a custom task you have no direct influence over.

With Adobe Commerce, the stock is retrieved via the webstore's internal API by various API calls. If you have many products and incremental updates are not possible (e.g.: because product/stock updates are imported via an alternative route), you might want to consider using a separate feed or plugin for stock updates. Because Adobe Commerce offers stock data in single calls, many calls are required to fetch the stock for all products – resulting in a task that may run for a long time.

Via marketplace fulfillment programs

If you make use of marketplace fulfillment for a product or set of products, you see additional marketplace stock locations for the given product(s) in Product details, Stock locations, on top of your own stock locations for the given product. The total number of stock locations that are attached to a given product depends on how many marketplaces the product is listed.

View all stock locations for a given product at Product details, Stock locations. You do not influence the marketplace stock levels, because they are imported directly from the marketplace. You can view the timestamp of the last import of the marketplace stock levels in Settings, Scheduled tasks. Once there, check the task Import fulfillment stock from channel. 

Manually on ChannelEngine

If you do not have a system or feed that has the option to provide automatic stock updates to ChannelEngine, you can manually manage the stock on ChannelEngine.

Enable the ChannelEngine manages stock setting at Settings, Settings, Advanced settings, Stock, and save.

To manually manage your stock:

1. Go to Products, Products, Product details, Stock locations.

   

2. In Product details, Stock locations, select the pencil icon next to a product's stock value.
3. Set the stock to a different value.
4. To validate the value, click the checkmark button.

Advanced stock settings

Manage advanced stock settings across all of your connected channels at Settings, Settings, Advanced, Stock.

Dropped products threshold

The dropped products threshold is a defined percentage of your product offers with zero stock on every connected channel, i.e.: dropped products. Take action when the threshold is reached. Set the dropped products threshold at Settings, Settings, Advanced settings, Stock.

• Dropped products threshold - by default, ChannelEngine sets the dropped product threshold to 50%. Modify this value with your desired value, e.g.: '20'.
• Blocked exports when the dropped products threshold is exceeded - (optional) automatically block offer exports to channels that receive more dropped product offers than is allowed by your threshold. 

For more information on the dropped products threshold, check out ChannelEngine: stock (dropped products threshold).

Manual stock management

Turn on the option to manually manage your stock on ChannelEngine at Settings, Settings, Advanced settings, Stock. 

• ChannelEngine manages stock - if you do not have a system or feed that has the option to provide automatic stock updates to ChannelEngine, enable this setting and save.

Stock reservation

A stock reservation is a temporary hold that ChannelEngine places on a specific product once ChannelEngine receives an order for the product from one of your connected channels. 

• Calculate stock reservation - to modify how soon the stock reservation is released, select one of the options from the dropdown.
  • Calculate stock reservation based on orders with the status Awaiting payment - the stock reservation remains intact until the order status changes to New. 
  • Calculate stock reservation based on orders with the status Awaiting payment and New - the stock reservation remains intact until the order status changes to In progress. 
  • Calculate stock reservation based on orders with the status Awaiting payment, New and In progress - (default) by default, the stock reservation remains intact until the order status changes to Shipped, Canceled, or Closed. 
  • None: don't calculate stock reservations - the ChannelEngine-calculated stock is not exported to your channels; whatever stock you submit to ChannelEngine is exported to your channels. 

For more guidance on which stock reservation setting to choose, check out ChannelEngine: stock reservation.

General stock settings

Manage order routing across multiple warehouses, view marketplace fulfillment activity, and allocate a percentage of specific channels in Products, Stock locations and Products, Stock allocations.

Stock locations

If you want to manage order routing across your own stock locations, manage your list of stock locations and their stock levels at Products, Stock locations. To add your stock locations to ChannelEngine and set up order routing, check out ChannelEngine: advanced order management [add-on]. 

Stock allocations

You can allocate a specific number or percentage of stock items to a marketplace at Products, Stock allocations. This feature allows you to control the stock levels shared with the marketplace. Note that you cannot configure stock allocations in combination with the advanced order management feature on ChannelEngine. For guidance, check out ChannelEngine: stock allocations.

Channel-specific settings

Configure the settings below in the Stock step of a given channel plugin. Stock buffer and stock limit can be applied on either the channel or stock location level. Stock global turnover can only be applied on the channel level, i.e.: it affects all products included in the channel’s product selection.

Stock buffer

You can reserve a portion of your stock using the Buffer setting on the channel's Stock step. This way, you make sure that not the whole stock, but only a portion of it is communicated as available to the marketplace. The rest, i.e.: buffer, stays intact and cannot be sold.

In the Stock buffer field, enter a value greater than 0 (zero). E.g.: if a product’s stock is 50, a value of 2 ensures that only 48 items are available to the marketplace. Two items are kept as a buffer.

Stock limit

You can cap the number of items available for sale using the Limit setting on the channel's Stock step. This way, you make sure that no more than the specified quantity is sold on the marketplace, regardless of your total stock.

In the Stock limit field, enter a value greater than 0 (zero) to set a stock limit. E.g.: a value of 20 ensures that at most 20 items are available to the marketplace – even if the actual stock is higher than 20. 

Stock global turnover

Enable the Stock global turnover setting to run ChannelEngine’s stock turnover calculation on the given channel. The setting enables you to export the ChannelEngine-calculated stock quantity at a regular cadence to the channel based on the amount of product sold in the last hour, preventing the risk of overselling. Check out ChannelEngine: stock global turnover. 

For guidance on configuring all channel-specific stock settings, check out ChannelEngine: channel stock settings.

View stock levels

Easily view the stock levels that your connected channels see via the ChannelEngine interface or the Merchant API.

Channel fulfillment stock locations

If you make use of channel or marketplace fulfillment, then you can view the channel warehouse's stock level of a given channel-fulfilled product via ChannelEngine. To view the stock of a given product at a channel's stock location, go to Products, Product details, Stock locations. 

Channel/marketplace fulfillment stock is represented by the name of the marketplace, followed by the label of this type of fulfillment, e.g.: LvB or FBA.

Via the Merchant API, fetch known stock across all channel fulfillment locations via GET /v2/fulfillmentstock.

Merchant stock locations

At Products, Product details, Stock locations, your own stock and warehouses are represented by your account name and a blue asterisk. View your warehouses' stock levels for the given product here.

Via the Merchant API, fetch known stock across all merchant stock locations via GET /v2/offer/stock.

Stock history

For an audit trail of your inventory levels, go to Products, Product details, Content. On the far right of the content section, click the Logs tab. 

The Stock tab shows a complete history of stock update times and dates, the available stock quantities at those timestamps, the originating stock location, and how the stock was updated (e.g.: via the API). (The Price tab shows the product's price history, including price changes.)