TABLE OF CONTENTS


Overview

In this FAQ we look at why inventory numbers in our system might be different than what you expect as a Shopify store owner.


Contributing Factors

There are 2 aspects that contribute here:

  1. We use a stock buffer as a way to prevent accidental overselling on Trade Me, see below for explanation
  2. Shopify uses certain methods to track inventory, sometimes these are not properly configured


About the Stock buffer effects

'This is set in the Settings -> Administration page by the field Minimum stock buffer:



If you chose a value greater than zero, it will also show you that on each and every product page in the Trade Me Product View section:


About the Shopify Inventory effects

In Shopify, you have the option to either track inventory or don't track inventory.


If you chose to not track inventory, we will assume a default value for all your inventory numbers, this is because Trade Me needs an actual inventory number. The default value is set in Settings -> Shopify Feed -> General -> Default Quantity and by default is 10.


If you chose to track inventory, you will need to appropriately select the option in the product page for a single variant product or in the variant page for a multi variant product:




Make sure you select "Shopify tracks this product's inventory" for all variants or results are unpredictable.

Advanced users

You can check the values that we get from Shopify, look for "inventory-management"


If it's like this then Shopify tracks your product's inventory:

<inventory-management>shopify</inventory-management>


If it's like this then Shopify doesn't track your product's inventory and we will default the value to 10:

<inventory-management nil="true"/>