Pre-Sales & Inventory Sync

If you're a brand that launches seasonal collections or any type of pre-sale, there are a few options that you have to ensure everything runs as smoothly as possible. We'll list the options below in order of our personal preference and explain the pros/cons of each.

Sell Ahead

Sell ahead is a great option to pre-sell your inventory, without the risk of overselling. Here's how it works...

Let's say you have 0 units of SKU 00123456 in inventory because it's a new style and you want to launch it before the inventory gets to the warehouse. If you don't enable Sell Ahead, the system will sync back an inventroy quantity of 0 to your marketplace (i.e. Shopify, WooCommerce, etc.), this would show the item as sold out, customers couldn't purchase it. With Sell Ahead, you end the quantity you would like to presell and Shiphero will then sync that inventory number back to your marketplace. For example:

In the image above you can see we entered 50 units in the Sell Ahead box of the PO. We ordered 100, but we just want to presell 50 units. Once we save that PO the 50 units will sync to our marketplace and allow them to be sold.

Disable Inventory Syncing for New Products

If you want to prevent Shiphero from updating the inventory levels on your marketplace for specific SKUs you can also do this. It's important to remember that you do need to turn this sync back on once inventory is in the system, otherwise you risk overselling. This method will also require that you update the inventory levels manually in your marketplace, otherwise the last quantity that was synced through will be the one shown. So if the last quantity synced was 0, then your marketplace will show 0 unless it is manually updated.

To disable the inventory syncing at the product level, you can do this via a bulk edit by following these steps:

A. Go to Inventory > Products (https://app.shiphero.com/dashboard/products)

B. Select the SKUs that you want to edit by clicking the check boxes for each.

C. Click "Bulk Edit" in the top left

D. In the box that pops up, scroll down to "Manage Inventory" and select "No" as well as the channel that you would like it to apply to. For 99% of accounts, you can just leave it as "All Available"

E. Click "Process"

This will now prevent the inventory sync of those SKUs from syncing to your marketplace.

Enable "Continue selling when out of stock" in Shopify

If you're using Shopify, you can set a product to "Allow Oversell". This bascially means that even if inventory quantity is 0, a customer will be able to purcahse the product.

A. Within Shopify, go to the Edit Sku page for the product you're wanting to edit.

B. Scroll down to the "Inventory" section and look for "Continue selling when out of stock".

C. Check the box and click "Save"

Now a customer will be able to order this product, regardless of the inventory that is available.

Completely Disable Inventory Sync

The last method is not one we typically recommend as it is an "ALL or NOTHING" type approach to syncing inventory. This will tell ShipHero to not sync anymore updates to your marketplace. This method will also require that you update the inventory levels manually in your marketplace, otherwise the last quantity that was synced through will be the one shown. So if the last quantity synced was 0, then your marketplace will show 0 unless it is manually updated.

A. Go to your manage stores section witin ShipHero: https://app.shiphero.com/dashboard/stores

B. Click "Settings" next to the store you would like to adjust.

C. UNCHECK the box next to "Have ShipHero Manage My Inventory"

Once that is done, Shiphero will not push anymore inventory updates to your store. This also includes any updates with POs being received in, so it is very important to manage this on your end and ensure inventory is syncing as you wolud like it to.