Pre- and backorders

Introduction

In the case of a pre-order or backorder, an order may already be placed even though there is no stock available (yet). Whether it is permitted to order a product even though there is no stock available can be configured in in the listing. If an order is accepted for which there is no stock available, it is placed in a waiting room.

Description

Pre-order

Pre-order is a type of order within an order management system that allows customers to place an order for a product before it becomes available in inventory or before it is officially released by the supplier. This means that the customer is essentially reserving the product, and the seller ships it as soon as it becomes available.

Pre-ordering allows customers to secure their place in line and be among the first to receive the product when it becomes available.

Backorder

Backorder is a type of order within an order management system that occurs when a customer places an order for a product that is currently out of stock or unavailable for immediate shipment. This means that the customer's order is temporarily on hold until the product becomes available again.

Backorders can occur due to various reasons, such as unexpected demand, delays in the supply chain, or manufacturing issues.

Implementation in fulfillmenttools

Configuration

Users can define whether a product is pre-/backorderable on listing level. If an order is created and there is no stock available for a requested item but the item is marked as pre-/backorderable, the system does not try to assign it to a facility but puts the order into a waiting room. When stock is available again for the requested product, the system tries to assign all "waiting" orders to a facility. If there is not enough stock available for all waiting orders, those orders become unroutable again. Currently there is no prioritization rule in place.

For this feature the fence “complete stock” must be active.

Order split & pre-/backorderable items

• Order split for pre-/backorderable items: If an order split is allowed and some pre-/backorderable items are not available, the missing part is split, brought into the waiting room section, and handled like a separate order.
• Order split for not pre-/backorderable items: If the items that are not available are NOT pre-/backorderable, the order is not split and the items are simply not picked.

• Order split for for pre-/backorderable bundled items: Bundled items cannot be split within routing (see: Custom Service) and are treated as one item. This means that if one item is missing in a bundle, all items within the bundle are moved to the waiting room as part of a pre-/backorder.

FAQs

How to make a listing pre-/backorderable?

Use the update listings REST API:

curl --location --request PATCH 'https://your.api.fulfillmenttools.com/api/facilities/{facilityId}/listings/{tenantArticleId\

--header 'Authorization: Bearer TOKEN'

{
  "actions": [
    {
      "action": "<Use the corresponding action, see documentation>",
      "outOfStockBehaviour": "BACKORDER"
    }
  ],
  "version": 1
}

How to deal with "waiting" orders?

Orders (or split order parts) in the waiting room are routed automatically when stock becomes available. However, user are also allowed to intervene.

1. Assign a new facility for fulfillment: Assign an order to a specific facility by ignoring any configured fences. A possible scenario might be to route a same-day order to a given facility, change it to a standard delivery order (see Carrier change ), and fulfill it. It is possible to assign the partial or the whole order.

2. Trigger a new DOMS decision: Rerun the routing process to re-evaluate whether a facility now exists that can fulfill the order. This might come in handy when a misconfiguration of the DOMS has been fixed and all orders should be processed in a regular manner.

3. Canceling an order cancels all corresponding pick jobs of an order. It is possible to cancel the partial order or the whole order.

How to make the complete stock fence "reactive"?

Set the activeMode for the complete stock fence to reactive via routing configuration REST API:

curl --location --request PATCH 'https://your.api.fulfillmenttools.com/api/configurations/routing

--header 'Authorization: Bearer TOKEN'

{
  "version": 33,
  "actions": [
    {
      "action":"ModifyFence",
      "id": "4711",
      "activeMode": "reactive"
    }
  ]
}