Avoid overselling inventory in Shopify Fulfillment Network (SFN)

Note

This guide is for merchants who started using the Shopify Fulfillment Network (SFN) before January 30, 2024. The Shopify Fulfillment Network app has been rebuilt to offer fulfillment solutions in partnership with Flexport. If you use the new SFN app, then refer to the new SFN guide.

Overselling inventory happens when a customer places an order for a product that's available on your Shopify store, but Shopify Fulfillment Network (SFN) doesn't have any inventory for that product to fulfill the order. Review the following table to learn how to avoid overselling.

Causes of overselling and how to avoid them

Cause	Prevention
Manual adjustments	Avoid making any manual adjustments to inventory for the Shopify Fulfillment Network location in your Shopify admin. Use override syncing as your inventory syncing method.
Bundles	Items that are the component parts for your bundles can be sold individually or across multiple bundles. This can cause delays in inventory calculations that result in overselling, especially during periods of heavy demand. If you have bundles, then make sure you have high availability for the items in your bundles to avoid overselling inventory.
Third-party apps	Some third-party apps, such as inventory management solutions, pre-selling, and bundling apps, attempt to make adjustments to your Available inventory in your managed locations. Make sure that you aren't using an app that could adjust the Available inventory in the Shopify Fulfillment Network location.