Option required : Inventory
Allowed profile : Brand manager
Placing orders based on stocks is one of the core features of Le New Black. It allows brands to manage their reorders and permanent items distribution alongside with their pre-orders in the same interface. When deciding to start selling stocks on Le New Black, you may choose between 3 stock managements modes. These modes mostly differ in the way Le New Black evaluates stock allocation, which directly affects the ATS ("available-to-sell") customers can place orders on.
Before reviewing these modes, let's remind how ATS is defined:
Available-to-sell = Stock - Allocation Stock = the stock quantity as registered in Le New Black
Allocation = the ordered quantity as registered in Le New Black
Here is a brief summary of the 3 available modes with extended details right after:
Inventory movement on LNB | Use case | Implementation | |
---|---|---|---|
Simple stock control | Yes | Low volume sales | Easy |
Advanced stock control | No | Intense sales, centralised system | Moderate |
Time-based stock control | No | Intense sales, decentralised system | Advanced |
1. Simple stock control
In this mode, Le New Black manages inventory movement, which means stock is updated upon order confirmation/cancelations. This mode is very easy to set up and works well when activity is quite basic (low in-stock sales volume, low-frequency stock updates...).
Pending orders may be allocated or not. This is defined in your account settings (Inventory tab) and will affect the way ATS is calculated.
With pending orders allocation = ON:
Available-to-sell = Stock level - Allocation level
With pending orders allocation = OFF:
Available-to-sell = Stock level
A classic sequence with pending orders allocation ON is:
Event | Stock level | Allocated | ATS | |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Initial stock of 10 units for EAN 123 is imported into LNB | 10 | 0 | 10 |
2 | Order is placed on EAN 123 | 10 | 5 | 5 |
3 | Order is confirmed | 5 | 0 | 5 |
4 | Order is exported to ERP which updates its stock level | 5 | 0 | 5 |
5 | Updated stock level is imported into LNB | 5 | 0 | 5 |
6 | ... |
A classic sequence with pending allocation OFF is:
Event | Stock level | Allocated | ATS | |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Initial stock of 10 units for EAN 123 is imported into LNB | 10 | 0 | 10 |
2 | Order is placed on EAN 123 | 10 | 0 | 10 |
3 | Order is confirmed | 5 | 0 | 5 |
4 | Order is exported to ERP which updates its stock level | 5 | 0 | 5 |
5 | Updated stock level is imported into LNB | 5 | 0 | 5 |
6 | ... |
Warning: You should make sure all confirmed orders have been taken into account in your stock levels when importing a fresh stock file into Le New Black. If not, you will put back on sale products that are actually out of stock.
2. Advanced stock control
In this mode, Le New Black does no inventory movement, which means stock level is never updated by Le New Black itself. Stock level is updated either by flat file integration or by API.
When moved to "Invoicing" status, orders can be exported to your system. They will still be allocated until your system acknowledge they have been taken into account, which is done by setting their status to "Closed" either by flat file integration or by API.
Allocation level is calculated this way:
Allocated orders = Pending + Confirmed + Invoicing
A classic sequence is:
Event | Stock level | Allocated | ATS | |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Integration imports initial stock level of 10 units into LNB for EAN 123 | 10 | 0 | 10 |
2 | Buyer places order on EAN 123 | 10 | 5 | 5 |
3 | Brand updates status to confirmed | 10 | 5 | 5 |
4 | Brand updates status to invoicing | 10 | 5 | 5 |
5 | Integration exports order to ERP and marks it as exported | 10 | 5 | 5 |
6 | Integration imports stock level into LNB Integration updates exported orders status to closed |
5 | 0 | 5 |
7 | ... |
3. Time-based stock control
In this mode, Le New Black does no inventory movement, which means stock level is never updated by Le New Black itself.
Allocation level is calculated this way:
Allocated orders = Pending + Confirmed + Invoicing + (Closed with confirmation timestamp > inventory timestamp)
A classic sequence is:
Event | Stock level | Allocated | ATS | |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Integration imports initial stock level of 10 units into LNB for EAN 123 with timestamp 2019-06-25T12:00:00 | 10 | 0 | 10 |
2 | Buyer places order on EAN 123 | 10 | 5 | 5 |
3 | Brand updates status to confirmed | 10 | 5 | 5 |
4 | Brand updates status to invoicing | 10 | 5 | 5 |
5 | Integration exports order to ERP | 10 | 5 | 5 |
6 | ERP confirms by API the ordered quantity 4 with timestamp 2019-06-26T11:00:00 LNB updates order status to closed |
10 | 4 | 6 |
7 | Integration updates stock level to 6 with timestamp 2019-06-26T12:00:00 | 6 | 0 | 6 |
8 | ... |
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