SKULabs allows you to implement safety stock strategy to eliminate overselling by customizing stock rules per store as well as per listing. Stock rules control the quantities that are synced to sales channels.

Once you opt in to stock sync, you're given the chance to review these rules and the default stock rule is "free" meaning we sync all of your available inventory to all of your sales channels as quickly as they allow.

The key to preventing overselling is to implement a reservation strategy in addition to what you already owe to customers in your unfulfilled orders.

In this guide we'll learn how to set up both "fixed" reserves and "dynamic" reserves.

Fixed reserves act as buffers for things like undocumented exchanges, loss, and damage. They can also be used when you know you your product defect rates to set aside a reasonable amount of inventory for documented exchanges in RMAs.

Dynamic reserves adapt based on the behavior of your buyers or your account configuration including through velocity, reserves, and flash sale detection.

Stock rules are easy to configure, view our article on where to find and how to update the settings for listing and store stock rules.

The default stock rule is "free", which is the amount on hand that is not reserved for open (unshipped) orders. This default rule leaves no margin for error so it's important to come up with an safety stock strategy.

We have a few great examples here but you can always speak with our team for a catered recommendation based on your sales volume, order history, and stocking preferences.

This is our all-in-one solution based on best-practices we've discovered across thousands of ecommerce stores.

This rule adds 10% to your reserved inventory so there is room for exchanges, damage, and overselling. This is especially useful for flash sales. As you fulfill your orders, the additional reserved inventory will be slowly released for sale.

This rule advertises all of your unsold inventory. "Free" is your on hand inventory minus your reserved (unshipped) inventory.

This is like not wearing a seat belt; humans are fallible and even more so when machines are involved. Despite this being how all shopping carts work out of the box you will occasionally oversell in this configuration and you should adopt a different stock rule from this page.

This rule sets aside a fixed amount of inventory. If you have 10 units on hand and no open orders, we would advertise 0 on your sales channel.

This is useful for selling out on Amazon before you sell out on your own personal stores. You should preemptively sell out first on Amazon, Jet, Walmart, eBay, and then other channels in that order to avoid the worst seller performance penalties.

This is useful when you know you have unaccounted in-house damage, loss, or exchanges but you should still regularly cycle count to make up for inventory accuracy issues. When using a rule like this as your store rule, you may want to set individual listings to just "free" to allow those items to sell completely out of stock.

First update your store's stock rule setting to the rule representing your safety stock. Next, go to any individual listings you'd like to completely sell out of and change their listing stock rule to "free". These rules can be imported in bulk from the imports/exports tab.

Go to any individual listing you'd like to add additional safety stock for and override their listing stock rule based on the recommendations here. These rules can be imported in bulk across multiple listings using the imports/exports page.

Sell out faster on marketplaces requiring you meet very high deliverability guidelines for seller performance using stock rules. Preferably stock out first on Amazon then Jet, Walmart, eBay, and others in that order.

The simplest rule is "free - 1" but you can remove one or more inventory from any of the rules listed in this guide.

This is an alternative strategy to using fixed safety stock.

Add a new warehouse on your Inventory tab and when you receive you can manually set aside fixed amounts of inventory each time you receive. Sometimes this is an preferable strategy to ensure you can fulfill 100% of your Amazon orders without delay or seamlessly provide exchanges on-demand if your business model allows for it.

Don't link your backup warehouse to any of your sales channels then release it after you're sure you don't have pending exchanges in the wild or consider only linking your backup warehouse to your in-house operations like on Shopify.

SKULabs offers managed reservation management to optimize sales while minimizing reserved inventory under our Enterprise plans. Special strategies for managing your stock levels in the face of high-profile flash sales are available to Enterprise accounts so talk with our team about Enterprise options today.