Selling the same product in more than one store brings in more buyers. It also brings the oldest problem in online selling: two customers in two stores buying the last unit at the same time. This guide explains how Sourship keeps one count for every store you connect, and what to watch so you never sell what you do not have.
One count, not one per store
Every plan lets one account connect several stores. They do not each keep their own copy of your stock. Everything we hold for you is one count, in your Products List, and every store you connect sells from it.
When you build a listing for several stores at once, you decide how the stock is split between them. From then on, three things move between your stores and Sourship without you copying anything:
- New orders come in, each with its products and the customer’s address.
- Stock levels go back. When your stock changes, the quantity on each store follows, so a product that has sold out stops selling.
- Tracking follows. When the parcel leaves our warehouse, its tracking number goes back to the order on the store it came from.
Stock, Reserved and Available
Your Products List shows three numbers for each product. They answer different questions:
- Stock is everything we hold for you: what is physically on our shelves.
- Reserved is what paid orders have already claimed. Those units are still with us, but they are spoken for.
- Available is stock minus reserved: what you can still sell.
Available is the number that matters when you decide whether to restock. Below ten available, a product is marked Low stock, so you see it coming.
What happens when an order is paid
The moment an order is paid, its units are reserved, so no other order can claim them. Our team then packs and ships it. You can set orders to pay from your wallet automatically, so an order can ship without you touching it.
When an order does not match a product
Sometimes an order arrives for a listing Sourship has not linked to one of your products yet. It waits on Needs Matching, and nothing is charged while it does. Tell us which product it is once, and every later order for that listing matches by itself.
When a store gets more orders than your plan allows
Nothing is lost. Store orders that arrive after your monthly orders run out are held in a window on your Orders page. Upgrade your plan or buy additional orders from your dashboard, then process them there, oldest first. See the plans for each one’s monthly orders.
Restocking
When Available runs low, press Request More on the product. A restock is priced and paid from your wallet like any request, does not use a sourcing credit, and its units join the same product when they arrive, ready to allocate to your stores.
If a store stops syncing
Each connected store has a health check. When something breaks, the problem is named and comes with a way to fix it, so you know what to do rather than guess. If you need a hand, our support team can look at it with you.
If you disconnect a store, syncing stops, our access is removed, and that store’s buyer names, contact details and addresses are erased. Your products and their links are kept, ready for when you reconnect.
In short
- Every store you connect sells from one stock count, so a unit is never sold twice.
- Available, not Stock, is what you can still sell.
- Paid orders reserve their units at once; unknown products wait on Needs Matching at no charge.
- Restock with Request More: the new units join the same product, ready for your stores.
Read more about connected stores, or why holding your own stock makes this possible.
