Reserve stock
This article explains how inventory reservation works, i.e. how stocks get allocated to orders.
How does inventory reservation works?
Each newly created fulfillments automatically comes with:
an inventory reservation request for all the products in the fulfillment
an inventory reservation priority, either Low, Medium (default value) or High
⚠️ Orders do not reserve stock until the fulfillments are created.
The fulfillment's inventory reservation request is "locked" once the fulfillment is transmitted to the warehouse. Until then, in case of a shortage, the inventory follows those rules:
- If two fulfillments have different inventory reservation priority, the stock goes to the fulfillment with the highest inventory reservation priority.
- If two fulfillments have the same inventory reservation priority, ...
- ... if both fulfillments have a fulfilltime, the stock goes to the one with the earliest fulfilltime;
- ... if a fulfillment has a fulfilltime and the other one is "on hold", the stock goes to the one with the fulfilltime.
How to reserve stock for an order?
- If the order already has a fulfillment, the stock is already reserved! If needed, you can update the fulfillment reservation priority or the fulfilltime to prioritise this fulfillment over other ones.
- If the order doesn't have a fulfillment already, select the line items for which stock should be reserved and create the fulfillment.
How to reserve stock for a later order?
- If the order shouldn't be transmitted to the warehouse just yet, you can put the fulfillment on hold.
- If you already know when to transmit the order to the warehouse, you can define this fulfilltime.
💡 In that case, you might want to use a high inventory reservation priority to ensure that the "regular" orders' inventory reservations do not take precedence over this one's.
Feel free to read more about holding fulfillments in this article.