ShopFactory comes with manual or automatic stock control built in. This allows any product with a catalog number or any product option to be stock controlled. You can also combine the catalog numbers of a product with the choices of one option, for even more flexibility –see Combine Catalog numbers. This allows you to enter stock levels for different sizes for a specific pair of shoes for example. Or if you are allowing your customer to select different components for a computer as options for example, such as hard disk size and amount of memory, you can set stock levels for each of the components, too.

In manual stock control, you have to update the stock levels manually, when you have sold a product.

If you have a PHP enabled server, you can also make use of the automatic stock control item. In this case whenever an order is placed, your stock levels online will be reduced appropriately. You will need a  GlobeCharge/Total Care account (FREE or a service subscription account so you will have a username and password) to enable this function.

Setting Up Stock Control

• Stock Control Enabled
• Allow buying if out of stock
• Stock Display Type: Traffic Light/None/Exact
• Message and Threshold
• Use this separator between different numbers - / 0 Space None

Entering Stock Levels

• Enter Product Stock
• Minimum and Maximum Order Quantities
• Out of Stock Message per Product
• Combine Function

Setting up Stock Control

To set up the stock control function, click on Central and select Stock levels.

The Stock Control Settings Wizard dialog box appears, allowing you to enable and set up stock control.

• Stock control is enabled/
• Allow buying if out of stock (leave unticked if you enable automatic updates of stock levels)Stock Display Type: Traffic Light/None/Exact
  • If you tick this option, customers can order products, even if it is out of stock. This can be useful if your “out of stock message” contains a delivery time, such as “Delivered in just two weeks”.

This option defines how the stock levels are displayed to your customers.

• None: Customers do not see the stock levels.
• Exact: Customers will see the exact stock level displayed with each product
• Traffic Light: This is the recommended stock display method. It will display one of three stock level messages to the customers, depending on the stock level you have.
• Message and Threshold

These messages can be set, depending on the display type you have selected. Traffic Light gives access to all three settings.

• Out of Stock: This message is displayed if a product is out of stock. You can override the out of stock message on the product level for each different product.
• Low Stock: This message is displayed if a product is low on stock, depending on the Threshold defined by you.
• In stock: This message is displayed if a product’s stock levels are higher than defined in the Threshold.
• Threshold: Defines the stock levels for the different traffic light settings.
• Use this separator between different numbers - / 0 Space None

A number of separators you can use between catalog numbers, when using the Combine function to combine catalog numbers of a product and its choices. 

Entering Stock Levels

Once you have created set up Stock levels, you can click on the Central dropdown and choose Stock Levels at any time to enter the stock levels for your products.

Alternatively you can select the product and click the Properties button -> Available Stock to access Stock Levels for a specific product.

All products with a unique catalog number and all Choices with catalog numbers will be displayed, allowing you to enter your stock levels as well as the Minimum and maximum allowed order quantities.

You can simply click on an entry field with your mouse to select the row – then click on the field you want to edit. You can then use your Tab button and the up and down arrows to navigate the table.
Alternatively you can click on a row, and then click on the Edit button to launch a small editing window for the values.

Out of Stock message per product

To override the Out of Stock message for a specific product, it must be part of stock control. In the Stock level window select the product, then click on the Edit button. A small dialog opens and allows you to enter an out of stock message which is specific to the product.

Minimum and Maximum Order Quantities

Allows you to define what the minimum and maximum order quantities are for a product as part of Stock control.

Combine

Combine means the catalog numbers of the Choices for the Option selected will be combined with the catalog number of the product to generate a single order catalog number, such as P1_red_17. In stock control you will then be able to add stock levels for these combined catalog numbers.

This is a great function for example when you use option templates. You can now use the same option template with the same catalog number for example for all shoes for the option Size. When the catalog numbers of the choices are combined with the catalog number of the product, you will have unique catalog numbers without the need to enter catalog numbers again and again for every shoe size available. A simple example: The shoe catalog number is Puma49 . The catalog number of the sizes are 8, 9, 10. In combination your unique catalog numbers will be Puma49-8, Puma49-9 and Puma49-10.