Inventory models

The inventory model object and the allowed CRUD operations on the related resource endpoint

An inventory model defines a list of stock locations ordered by priority. The priority and cutoff (max is 10) determine how the availability of SKUs gets calculated within a market.

The list of inventory stock locations determines the availability of SKUs that are being purchased. The list of inventory return locations determines the available options for returns.

Inventory strategies

Multiple inventory model strategies are available. You can select a specific one by setting the strategy attribute accordingly, depending on how you want your order items to be fulfilled. An inventory model strategy is responsible to decide how many shipments are generated and from which stock location each shipment will be shipped. Based on the selected strategy, if an order contains line items from two or more stock locations, the order can be split into two or more shipments, one for each location. Stock transfers from a stock location (e.g. secondary) to another (e.g. primary) can be created as well.

In case the inventory model strategy is left as default – no split – just a single shipment from a single stock location is always created.

Stock reservation settings

Draft stock reservations (i.e. created before the order placement) have a default expiration date of 1 hour. You can override the default duration by setting the inventory model stock_reservation_cutoff attribute to the desired value (expressed in seconds).

Any change to the stock reservations expiration date won't affect existing stock reservations. It will be applied to the ones created after the update only.

Manual stock decrementation

By default as soon as an order is approved the related stock item quantities are decremented and all the involved stock reservations cancelled. If you need to manually manage the stock decrementation and the concomitant stock reservation cancellation at any time after the order approval, you can override this behavior by setting the manual_stock_decrement flag to true.

Please note that the manual stock decrementation does not happen at the order level, but you need to perform it at the shipment or (if you need more granular control on the action) at the stock line item level.

Data model

Check the related ER diagram and explore the flowchart that illustrates how the inventory model resource relates to the other API entities.

How-to

Check the related guide to learn more about the available inventory model strategies and how they work.