Inventory Tracking

In BigCommerce, inventory tracking can refer to many things, including:

• maintaining an accurate count of how many of each of your products are available for purchase
• sending low stock notifications to yourself or your suppliers
• communicating stock levels and product availability to your shoppers
• automating stock level adjustments
• setting up out of stock product behavior

Stock Keeping Units, or SKUs, are unique identifiers used for tracking inventory. They can be assigned to simple products and to products with variations like different sizes or colors. Some sales channels like Amazon and Facebook require products to have inventory tracking enabled and be assigned a SKU before they can be listed.

• To view and edit products and product options, you must have the Manage Products, Edit Products, and Product Options permissions enabled on your user account.
• To view and edit stock levels in the inventory editor, you must have the Manage Products and View Inventory permission must be enabled on your user account.
• To view and manage inventory settings, you will need the Manage Settings permission enabled on your user account.

Go to Products › View and Edit a product by clicking its name, or Add a new one. On the Add/Edit Product screen, click Inventory in the side navigation.

Enable Track inventory. Select On the product level, then fill in stock levels.

• Current Stock — how much you currently have on hand
• Low Stock — when the stock level reaches this quantity, you will be sent a notification that you are running low.

Save your changes.

Tracking inventory on the variant level (by options)

Enable Track inventory. Select On the variant level and Save your changes. See Updating Stock Levels for details on entering inventory for variants.

Stock for simple products can be updated from the Inventory section when editing a product.

Stock for variants can be updated from the Variants table, under Product Options. Use the Edit columns drop-down to display the Current Stock and Low Stock fields if you don't see these fields on your product.

Stock for simple products and variants can also be updated from the Products › View screen. Click the + next to the product thumbnail.

If your store is using the latest product list, hover over a product's stock field and click the pencil icon to edit stock levels and more in the inventory editor.

Click the gear icon in the top right to customize the visible columns, change column display order, and toggle between the side panel and fullscreen editor as the default single item view.

Expand, contract, and close the side panel using the buttons at the top right.

Click Save to save your current changes and stay on the page, or Save and exit to save and return to the product list.

Updating Stock Levels in Bulk

Stock for multiple products can be updated at the same time using the Edit Inventory action in the control panel to launch the inventory editor.

Track Inventory, Current Stock Level, and Low Stock Level are all updatable fields when importing a product CSV.

If your products or variants have SKUs assigned, then you can also use Import/Export SKUs for stock updates. This decreases your import file's size and makes it easier to edit by eliminating unnecessary fields.

Stores using the modern Import/Export experience can use the specialized inventory template for managing stock across multiple locations. Stores using legacy Import/Export can opt-in for the new experience and its inventory tool. You can update inventory in a single location by importing a product CSV file.

Go to Settings › Inventory. These settings determine:

• what the shopper sees when a product or variant is out of stock
• when store stock levels should be adjusted during the ordering process
• stock level display
• out-of-stock messaging

These settings allow you to specify the storefront behavior when products or variants are out of stock. When these situations occur, this enables you to provide a satisfactory experience for shoppers by providing alternative products or variants, “in stock” alerts that shoppers can enroll in, or simply hiding the product page.

To avoid overselling, you can specify if stock levels should be adjusted when an order is placed, or when the order is fulfilled. You can also specify if inventory should be automatically adjusted for refunds and cancelled orders.

When a product is out of stock

• Hide the product — This setting will remove the product from product listing pages (e.g. category pages, brand pages, and the featured and new product panels on the homepage), and make the product details page inaccessible to visitors and search engines.
• Hide the product, but leave the product page accessible — This setting will remove the product from product listing pages but will leave the product details page accessible to those who have its specific URL, and search engines will continue to be able to crawl it.
• Redirect to category page — This setting will remove the product from product listing pages, and those who try to access the specific URL of the product details page will be redirected to the product's category.
• Don't do anything — This setting leaves the product visible on product listing pages and leaves the product details page accessible.

When an option is out of stock

• Hide the option — This setting will completely remove the option from the product details page.
• Mark the option as out of stock — This setting will leave the option on the product details page, but will mark it with a slash to visually indicate it is unavailable. If a shopper tries to select the option, they will receive a message: "The selected product combination is currently unavailable." If this setting is selected, you will have the additional option to hide out of stock options in product filtering results.
• Don't do anything — This setting will leave the option on the product details page, and does not visually indicate that it is out of stock. If a shopper tries to select the option, they will receive a message: "The selected product combination is currently unavailable."

Update stock levels

• When an order is placed — This setting will adjust the product's stock level when an order is successfully placed. If you edit an order to add or remove products, the stock level is automatically updated.
• When order status is changed to Completed or Shipped — This setting will adjust the product's stock level when an order's status is changed to Completed or Shipped. This is recommended if you want to manually confirm stock levels in the fulfillment process before updating stock levels. If you edit an order to add or remove products, the stock level will not update until the order status is changed*.

*If the order’s status is already Completed or Shipped, any edits to product quantity will automatically update stock levels if this setting is selected.

Check the box next to Automatically adjust stock levels when I refund or cancel an order to automatically update stock levels if an order’s status is changed to Cancelled prior to being marked as Completed or Shipped.

Restocking inventory upon refund is not supported, and it is only available when processing refunds through some legacy payment gateways.

These settings determine whether stock levels will be displayed on the storefront, and allow you to customize and display an out-of-stock message on product listing pages.

This setting determines if shoppers can see exactly how many units of a product or variant remain in stock on the product details page.

Stock level display

The stock level display setting determines if shoppers can see exactly how many units of a product or variant remain in stock on the product details page.

• Show stock levels — This setting shows stock levels on the product details page.
• Only show stock levels when stock is low — This setting shows stock levels on the product details page if the product's inventory is at or below its Low Stock Level.
• Don't show stock levels — This setting will hide stock levels on the product details page.

To show stock levels for pre-order products with inventory tracking enabled, check the box next to Show pre-order inventory.

Out-of-stock message

You can define a custom Out-of-stock message to display instead of the default generic "Sold Out" message. If Stock level display is set to Show stock levels, your custom message will appear on the product details page. Check the box for Show out of stock message on product listing pages to include the custom message on listing pages, such as category pages, brand pages, and the featured and new product panels on the homepage.

Products with out-of-stock variants will only display the custom message when an out-of-stock variant is selected on the product details page.

Enter your preferred email address if you would like to be notified whenever a product's inventory is low or has run out of stock.

To be notified by email when a product's inventory is low or has run out, enter the address that you'd like to be emailed at in one or both of the following fields.

• Low stock level reached — when a product's inventory has reached its configured low stock level.
• Out of stock reached — when a product's inventory has reached 0.

For stores using Multi-Location, email notifications will only be sent for the default location. We plan to add this functionality for non-default locations at a later date.

How does inventory tracking occur across multiple channels?

Each channel in the Channel Manager will have its own system for adjusting inventory, and may not use the same rules as your BigCommerce store when determining stock levels. We recommend reviewing the channel's documentation for a full understanding of how it manages inventory, or utilizing one of the third-party apps and integration partners that can streamline and automate inventory management across all sales channels.

Can I track inventory for digital products?

Yes. If you are offering limited quantities of a digital product, you can enter a stock level for that product to track inventory levels.

Why did I receive an email notification if my product's stock level is higher than the threshold?

You will receive a low stock or out of stock email notification as soon as a product's inventory is low or has run out of stock. Stock levels may be updated after the notification has been sent. Common reasons for stock to be updated include order failures, cancellations, and inventory updates by other users or an integration.

To prevent overselling, stock is temporarily removed from a product when a customer attempts to check out. If the order fails, such as by payment being declined, the stock will return to the product after a short delay.

If you have the Automatically adjust stock levels when I refund or cancel an order inventory setting enabled, stocks levels will be updated if an order's status is changed to Cancelled prior to being marked as Completed or Shipped.