How do you deal with selling items that you do not stock but you you get in as required?

There are some items that I want to sell that I have found which I do not need to stock and order in as I sell(same day lead time). I would like to product to be listed on my website as in-stock and list a price that it can be purchased by our customers at, I do not want to artificially import a P.O so it that I have qty on hand as that would affect my stock value in my inventory management ( I use "Maropost Commerce Cloud Inventory"). I have read that if you adjust the "inventory policy" to "do not track inventory" it is always listed as available although not sure how this works with inventory valuation in "Maropost Commerce Cloud Inventory" module.

Anyway what is you tip or trick for making this as easy as possible.

Thank you

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Erik Merkley

"Do Not Track Inventory" is definitely what you want. That converts it to a "virtual" product in Commerce Cloud. It won't have stock levels at all, won't have any inventory value, and will always be available to purchase.

Alternatively if your supplier provides stock levels you could leave it as an inventory product and import stock levels on a schedule. Then if your supplier runs out, it will automatically go out of stock on your website.

Look into the docs on dropshipping. Cloud Commerce handles this really well. Even if you aren't shipping directly from your supplier to your customer, you could totally automate the ordering of the items as they are sold.

Ben Apex Imports Pty Ltd

If it didnt use the drop ship route, how do you capture the cost of sales component of the sale on neto?

Erik Merkley

That is indeed a problem. Even if it's virtual, Neto won't let you set a cost price once you have Advanced Inventory activated. Definitely a design flaw.

I usually advise merchants to do their reporting outside of Neto - in your accounting system, for example. Neto handles anything accounting-related very poorly and its reports aren't particularly useful. Advanced Inventory was added many years after the core of the system was developed so it doesn't always mesh in ways that make sense.

Scott Marett

Hi Ben,

I work with Maropost customers who do exactly what you are wanting to achieve everyday. Some stores do stock some parts, whilst others stock nothing. Whatever they do not have in stock, they order from the supplier to ship to them, then they reship to the customer, or drop ship directly to the customer.

The tip is to obtain a stock on hand file from your supplier/s, minimum updated daily and import this into your store.

I have customers with up to 20 stock on hand files that are processed daily to their store, and I use external systems to facilitate the automation of this (especially the files that are emailed).

Ensuring you have accurate stock on hand reported to your store and subsequently your sales channels (ie. eBay, catch, kogan, mydeal etc) is paramount to avoid Out of Stock selling which will harm your Marketplace KPIs and your company's goodwill... and the unnecessary customer service time drain and refunds required.