Expected stock in availability

Summary

In some cases, stock should be available for sale before it has even arrived at the site or has been produced. This means that expected stock needs to be tracked and communicated to shop systems. It is also necessary that reservations can be made on expected stock.

Use Case Example

A company is selling gift items online and in retail stores. As a special service, the company offers to send the gift directly to the recipient on the day of the birthday. As the delivery date often lies far in the future, it should be possible to take expected stock into account when ordering. Furthermore, some of the gift baskets contain perishable goods. As the company only wants to sell items up to 30 days before their expiration date, this attribute must also be taken into account when customers place orders and reservations are made.

Implementation in fulfillmenttools

1. Create listings

In most set-ups, listings should already be created for all products that are managed via fulfillmenttools' systems. Still, make sure that a listing exists for each product whose expected stocks should be considered. If goods are perishable and/or should only be available for a certain time frame, stock properties and/or stockAvailableUntil must be configured. For this use the facilities listings REST API endpoint.

2. Create purchase order

Create a purchase order for all items that have already been (re-)ordered. After the purchase order has been created, an expected stock is automatically created for each position in requestedItems. If stock properties such as expiry date or batch number are already known at the time of the order placement they can be defined as well. For this use the purchase order REST API endpoint.

Do not create purchase orders with requestedDate.type "ASAP". As we expect these deliveries to arrive as soon as possible, there is no exact date that our systems can use to check the potential availability of these stocks for incoming orders.

3. Query checkout options endpoints for shop availability

Query one of the checkout options endpoints to get the future availability for a specific delivery date or time period. In the future availability, all stock is included that:

• is pickable & accessible,
• has already arrived at the site at the start of the picking

• does not exceed its availableUntil date until the (desired) delivery date

Before using the delivery/earliest REST API or the delivery/timeperiod REST API endpoint, the transit times in the carrier country service mapping for the requested carrier(s) must be configured.

Expected stocks are only considered in the checkout options endpoint if the desiredDeliveryTime is specified in the request and the mode for reservationPreferences is set to "ALAP" (as late as possible).

Use the checkout options REST API endpoints.

Example:

Request availability for a gift item in the store in Cologne for the delivery date 14/09/2024:

1. Request: POST /api/promises/checkoutoptions/delivery/timepoint​

• desiredDeliveryDate: "2024-09-14"

• tenantArticleId: gift-set-01​

• facilityRef: facility-CGN​

  • latestPickingStart for Cologne: "2024-09-10"

If the latest possible picking start for a certain delivery date in a facility is not known, it can be requested via the checkout options REST API endpoint. Systems then calculate the latestPickingStart based on cut-off time of carriers and fulfillment process buffer.​

1. Availability Check:

After the request has been made, an availability check is performed which validates if the expected stock fulfills all necessary criteria to be considered for the (potential) order. ​

• Is desiredDeliveryDate < availableUntil date?​ -> Items should not have expired until they have reached the customer

• Is latestPickingStart > requested date of stock​ -> Items must have arrived in the facility before they can be picked.

1. Response:

The response returns all stock in the requested facility that is currently available and will not expire until the desired delivery date plus all expected stock that fulfills the criteria of the availability check.

• Available: 30

4. Make reservation

If an item should already be reserved but has not been ordered yet (e.g., a customer placed it in the shopping cart), the delivery promise REST API endpoint can be used. If an order was placed and the item should be reserved, the order REST API endpoint can be used.

Go here for more information on reservations.

Expected stocks are only considered in promising and order routing if the desiredDeliveryTime is specified in the request and the mode for reservationPreferences is set to "ALAP" (as late as possible).

5. Manage reservations on expected stocks

Reservations on expected stock can be monitored via the Stock Overview in the Backoffice.

Go here for more information on expected stock.

6. Create stock after delivery has arrived

If the delivery of the ordered products has arrived or the production was finished, a receipt needs to be added to the inbound process of the purchase order to create stock. Use the purchase order REST API endpoint to query the respective inboundProcessRef if it is not stored in your systems.

After the stock was created in the facility, reservations are shifted from expected stock to "real" stock. When shifting reservations, an available stock in the facility is chosen, considering the running sequence (if defined). This means the reservation is not necessarily made on the exact item that has arrived in the delivery.

FAQ

What happens if the requested date for a delivery changes?

If it is known that a delivery will arrive later than planned, the requestedDate in the purchaseOrder needs to be patched for the correct date. After the purchase order has been updated, our systems check whether reservations on the respective expected stocks can still be fulfilled. If the delivery arrives too late to be considered for a reservation, the reservation is shifted to an alternative stock. If there is no alternative stock available, the reservation is still tracked and will be shifted to a stock as soon as some stock becomes available.

What happens if the supplier can only deliver less goods than ordered?

If it is know that there will be less items in the delivery than ordered, the requestedItems in the purchaseOrder need to be patched for the correct items and quantities. After the purchase order has been updated, our systems check whether reservations on the respective expected stocks can still be fulfilled. If a reservation on the purchase order cannot be fulfilled anymore, the reservation is shifted to an alternative stock. If there is no alternative stock available, the reservation is still tracked and will be shifted to a stock as soon as some stock becomes available.

What happens if part of the delivery is missing or defective?

After a delivery has arrived and a receipt was added to the inbound process, reservations are shifted from expected to "real" stock. If there is not enough stock available in the facility due to some items in the delivery being missing or defective, the reservations will still be tracked and shifted to a stock as soon as some stock becomes available.

What happens if the delivery is delayed?

If a delivery is delayed, it is no longer considered for new reservations. Existing reservations on the expected stocks are kept until the purchase order has been cancelled. Therefore, we advise users to update the requestedDate or cancel the purchaseOrder as soons as it is known that the delivery will be delayed.