How to Manage Stock / Inventory in Magento 2?

Effective inventory management is essential in eCommerce, and this is also true for Magento 2 websites. You should control your store’s stock and always get to know the quantity of products in your store.

There are two ways to manage stock in Magento 2. You can take all goods’ general stock settings under control or handle each item individually. However, both methods are needed to achieve the ultimate effectiveness.

In this guide, we’re going to show you how to manage inventory of an online store that runs on Magento 2.

Let’s dive deep now!

Table of contents

• General Inventory Settings
  • Stock Options
  • Product Stock Options
• Advanced Inventory Settings
  • With Stock Management Approach
  • Without Stock Management Approach
• Summary

Generally, Magento 2 offers users with two options of stock management: managing the entire inventory through the General Inventory Settings and dealing with each item in a store via the Advanced Inventory Settings.

General Inventory Settings

To configure General Inventory Settings, navigate to Stores in the Admin Panel, and choose Configuration in the Settings section. Then you can extend the Catalog tab and open the Inventory menu. Next, you can find Stock Options and Product Stock Options. Extend any of these options to configure.

Stock Options

With the Stock Options configuration, you can decide the global logic of inventory management. You can determine the availability status of products by selecting between two variants: In Stock and Out of Stock. The configured settings will be automatically set for the entire catalog of goods based on the selected status.

Open the Stock Options menu to begin the configuration.

If you want the discarded orders to be brought back to your inventory, choose Yes in the Set Items’ Status to be in Stock When Order is Cancelled field.

The inventory level of items will reduce whenever their products are ordered if you select Yes in the Decrease Stock When Order is Placed field.

Then, select Yes in the Display Out of Stock Products field if you want to show the items that run currently out of stock on your catalog pages. You can enable customers to get notifications if these items are restocked by allowing the Product Alerts option in the corresponding section in Configuration.

Learn more:

• Magento 2 Out of Stock Notification Settings
• Enable Notify me when this product is in stock in Magento 2

Next, fill in the required number in the Only X left Threshold field to identify the threshold value of the products in your inventory. If the quantity of the items approaches this value, the notification message “Only X Items Left” will be shown on your product page. The “X” means the value you decide. For more convenience, it’s suggested to set up this parameter for each item individually.

Lastly, to show the “In Stock” or “Out of Stock” availability status of your goods on the frontend, choose Yes in the Display Products Availability In Stock on Storefront field.

If you’d like to configure all the inventory option settings automatically, leave a tick on the Use system value boxes near the fields.

That’s all about the configuration of the stock option. Nevertheless, you should think about configuring the settings for each item in your inventory in the Product Stock Options.

Product Stock Options

The Product Stock configuration allows you to identify the general logic of the product management practice on a per-product basis. Firstly, extend the Product Stock Options panel in the Inventory menu in Catalog.

To allow the functionality, choose Yes in the Manage Stock option. For instance, when you sell virtual or downloadable items that never run out of stock, you can turn off this function, if needed.

Then, decide the availability of the backorders service in your store by selecting between the variations below:

• No Backorders - your customers will not be able to make backorders for the items that run out of stock.
• Allow Qty Below 0 - your online store begins to accept backorders as the number of the items in stock is below zero.
• Allow Qty Below 0 ad Notify Customer - This option is similar to the previous one. However, there is one big difference: your customers will be informed of the possibility of making backorders for goods.

In the Maximum Qty Allowed in Shopping Cart field, determine the maximum number of items that customers can put to their shopping carts.

Then, in the Out of Stock Threshold field, enter the threshold value of the products. If the value determined approaches the number of products in your inventory, customers will see the “Out of Stock” notification message on the product page.

After that, set the minimum number of products enabled to be included in a shopping cart by deciding the required value in the Minimum Qty Allowed in Shopping Cart field. You also can identify the customer group in the corresponding box for which the value determined in the field will be applied.

Notice: You can configure each quantity value for some customer groups by choosing the Add button that includes a new customer group correspondingly. If you want to remove the customer group, click on the Recycle Bin box under Action.

In the Customer Group box, you can select between the options below:

• ALL GROUPS - the determined minimum quantity value will be applied to every customer group.
• NOT LOGGED IN - the value will be available exclusively for guest visitors.
• General - the option will work only for the main audience.
• Wholesale - the option will work for wholesalers.
• Retailer - the option will be applied for retailers going to your web store.

Next, define the required value in Notify for Quantity Below. The value added corresponds to the number of products in stock, based on which the “Out of Stock” notification message will be turned on.

To allow the quantity increments option for the goods, select Yes in the Enable Qty Increments field. You also can set the quantity of an item in a different lot. The quantity can be configured in Qty Increments that will show below the Enable Qty Increments field.

If you’d like to bring the refunded products back to the stock, select Yes in Automatically Return Credit Memo Item to Stock.

Allow the configured basic settings by choosing the Save Config button on the top of the Configuration panel.

To utilize the default values for the most part of product stock options, tick the Use system value boxes next to the fields.

Advanced Inventory Settings

To reach the Advanced Inventory Settings, navigate to the Products menu in your Magento 2 Admin Panel. Then, go to Catalog in the Inventory section. In Catalog, pick the item to be configured and choose the Edit button. On the window showed up, seek the Quantity option among all settings, and select the Advanced Inventory button.

Note: Magento 2 provides two advanced settings approaches: With Stock Management and Without Stock Management. The first approach has a larger set of options than the second one. With it, you can configure each product’s settings in stock - from quantity and threshold values to the inventory status. Meanwhile, the second method provides several options and can be utilized for the goods managed mostly under the global settings, with only some essential individual changes.

Now explore each approach individually.

With Stock Management Approach

To begin the configuration of the approach, select Yes in the Manage Stock box. In the Qty field, choose the quantity of the items that are currently in stock.

Then, identify the threshold value in the Out-of-Stock Threshold fields. If reaching this value, the number of the item in stock will be marked “Out of Stock” on the product page.

In the Minimum and Maximum Qty Allowed in Shopping Cart fields, choose the minimum and maximum number of the product that can be put to a shopping cart.

Next, determine if your customers can add values in decimal format for the number of the products ordered by selecting between the two options below:

• Yes - adds order quantity values in the decimal format, which is appropriate for the items sold by length, volume, or weight.
• No - enables to add only whole numbers as order quantity values.

If you wish to offer different shipments of your goods, select Yes in the Allow Multiple Boxes for Shipping field. Then, define how backorders should be handled by deciding between the No Backorders, Allow Qty Below 0, Allow Qty Below 0, and Notify Customers options in the Backorders box.

In the Notify for Quantity Below field, decide the value that will be equivalent to the number of products in stock below the threshold value specified previously.

To sell goods in individual lots, configure Enable Qty Increments to Yes. Then, identify the number of products per lot in the Qty Increments field.

Lastly, choose the product availability status in the Stock Status field by selecting between the options below:

• In Stock - the item is in stock and ready for purchase.
• Out of Stock - the item can’t be bought in the store. However, you can enable the Backorders option for these items that are running out of stock.

Now you are all set! Choose the Done button on the top of the Advanced Inventory menu to enable the settings.

Notice: You can utilize the default values for almost all options in the settings by putting a tick on the Use Config Settings boxes. Thereby, the system will automatically attach default values to equivalent fields.

The settings for each product in your inventory can be implemented in a “quick mode” without stock management options. We’ll figure out how it can be completed.

Without Stock Management Approach

To select this approach, set the Manage Stock field to No.

After that, decide the maximum and minimum number of the product that can be bought in one order in the Minimum and Maximum Qty Allowed in Shopping Cart fields.

With Magento 2 Enterprise edition, users can leave Yes in the Use Deferred Stock Update option. The option updates stock quantity indicators asynchronously after product orders are made.

Finally, allow the Enable Qty Increments option by choosing Yes. Then, decide the quantity of products in a lot in the Qty Increments field.

To apply the default values to all the above options, tick the Use Config Settings boxes for each field.

Summary

Thanks to the stock management options, you can effectively handle your web store’s work on any level of stock inventory. Hope that you find this guide useful.

In case you have any questions related to inventory management, leave them in the comment box. We’re here to help and support you.

Have a nice day!

If you want your customers to know your current stock quantity, you should consider Custom Stock Status for Magento 2. The extension comes with appealing stock status labels, boosting your sales drastically.