Multi Location Inventory

Starting with the 24D release, Oracle Cloud Commerce introduces the capability to support selling and shipping products from multiple warehouses. This feature allows each site to seamlessly manage and ship products from various warehouse locations without requiring any backend customization. Shoppers will now be able to choose a warehouse from which they would like their product to be shipped. Admin Import and back in stock notification features has also been enhanced to support multiple inventory locations. Additionally, a new property in Guided Search, sku.inStockLocationId, is introduced to filter search results based on the availability of products in specific warehouse locations.

This update significantly streamlines the shipping process for businesses with multiple warehouses, reducing the need for custom solutions and enhancing operational efficiency. The improved search capabilities enable better inventory management, allowing customers to view and purchase products available in their preferred locations. This leads to a more personalised shopping experience and potentially higher customer satisfaction.

Steps to Enable

1. Update Site Settings
   • Update the property site.inventoryLocations with the list of inventory locations using the updateSite API. site.inventoryLocationId property will be ignored, if site.inventoryLocations is present.
2. Update Location Specific Inventory
   • Merchant Administrators already have the ability to set inventory for a location using the createInventory and updateInventory API.
3. Guided Search Configuration
   • The new sku.inStockLocationId property will be automatically enabled in the search index .
   • If a product is INSTOCK for 56 locations, that product will have 56 values for sku.inStockLocationId.
   • For filtering search results based on location, an additional URL parameter can be added “&Nr=AND(sku.inStockLocationId:<locationname>)”.

Tips And Considerations

• This feature is made available on the REST API only. Merchants would have to enhance their Storefront UI’s as per their business needs to take advantage of this feature.
• Please refer to REST API documentation of Orders, Site, Stock Status, Inventory for more information on updates made to these APIs.
• Inventory Locations: Ensure that your site’s settings are properly updated to leverage the multiple warehouses feature.
• Admin Import: Admin Inventory import has been enhanced to support locationId property.
• Back in Stock Notifications: Back in stock notifications now considers inventory availability across site.inventoryLocations when multi location inventory feature is enabled i.e. Back in stock notification is sent when inventory is available on any one of the site’s inventory locations.
• Search Filters:
  • To filter products by location, use the query parameter &Nr=AND(sku.inStockLocationId:<LocationID>).
  • Multiple locations can be specified using the OR operator, for example, &Nr=OR(sku.inStockLocationId:Store123,sku.inStockLocationId:Store456) to show products available in either Store123 or Store456.

• Compatibility: The original sku.availabilityStatus behavior remains unchanged, so existing configurations will continue to function without modification. However, for location-specific filtering, adjustments to the application are required.