8 Manage Multiple Inventory Locations

By default, Oracle Commerce maintains one set of inventory values for each product or SKU. You may want to maintain multiple inventory locations so that you can provide inventory information to shoppers.

This section describes how to use the Admin API to create locations and manage location-specific inventory data. For example, you may currently have multiple international sites that are supplied from a centralized inventory warehouse, but now you would like to have multiple inventory locations that service specific sites so that your Scottish site accesses a Scottish distribution warehouse and your German-based site accesses a German-based distribution warehouse.

An inventory record uses a location ID (locationId) that associates it with a location with the same location ID (locationId) value. A site is associated with the location when its location inventory ID (inventoryLocationId) matches the location’s location ID (locationId).

Note that the inventory’s location ID does not need to match a location’s location ID. You can create an ID that allows you to manage inventory data. Multiple inventories allow you to provide different inventory values per site, rather than a single inventory, and help you to split inventory data.

Note that any changes you make to inventory are reflected on the storefront immediately. However, when you create or modify a location, you must publish these changes before they appear on the storefront. Also, note that the Store API has endpoints for retrieving locations and inventory data, but not for creating or modifying these resources.