The Importance of Stock Status: Empowering Brands with Comprehensive Insights

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Why Stock Status Matters

Stock status serves as a crucial indicator of product availability across various channels and locations. It’s not always a simple Yes/No when it comes to understanding stock status. This article sheds light on the fulfillment channels available during an online shopping experience, how we track stock status today, where to access the relevant stock status reports, and the upcoming changes we are making to the stock status evaluation.

Available Fulfillment Channels

Retailers use many channels retailers use to fulfill orders today. These include shipping, pick up, in store purchase, and delivery.

Shipping: A retailer ships a package to the user in the mail upon an online order.

Pick up: The user completes the purchase online, but physically retrieves the item at the store.

In Store: The user initiates and completes the purchase of the item physically in the store. Depending on how a retailer presents various stock statuses, an item may be shown as available in store.

Delivery: The user orders items online and a personal shopper (via delivery/courier service) physically completes the order and delivers the item(s) to the user. Delivery service typically requires a paid membership.

These are currently represented by the following columns in our reporting:

Field	Values
Shipping	True, False, N/A
Pickup Today	True, False, N/A
In Store Only	True, False, N/A
Deliver To Home	True, False, N/A

As of 4/4/2024, the following columns will be updated to the following:

Field	Values*
Available for Shipping	True, False, N/A
Available for Pickup Today	True, False, N/A
Available for In Store	True, False, N/A
Available for Delivery	True, False, N/A

*N/A: Retailer does not support the fulfillment channel or the fulfillment channel is not shown on the page.

Capturing Fulfillment Channels via Fulfillment Details

Based on the columns in report builder, we can determine the specific channel where an item is available. This is aggregated into a new column called “Fulfillment Details”. Fulfillment Details returns the following possible options:

• Pickup Only
• Delivery Only
• In Store Only
• Item No Longer Available
• No Channels Available
• All Channels Available
• Multiple Channels Available

The overall stock status is then summarized from the available fulfillment channels reflected in “Fulfillment Details.”

Overall Stock Status

There are three possible stock statuses:

• In Stock
• OOS
• INLA

Stock Status focuses on online availability so any product that is found to be available for an online fulfillment channel will have a stock status of “In Stock.” This means as long as the Fulfillment Details column returns one of the following, the product’s stock status is considered “In Stock”:

• Shipping Only
• Pickup Only
• Delivery Only
• Multiple Channels Available

On the flip side, if a product is found to be available in store only, the stock status would be OOS (Out of Stock).

Legacy Stock Statuses

Our legacy stock statuses blended fulfillment channel availability and stock status information into one column. Fulfillment channel details and stock status will be decoupled with the new stock statuses. Included is a list of the legacy stock statuses and how they map to the new Fulfillment Details column.

• INLA
• Pickup Only
• Out of Stock
• In Store Only
• In Stock

Mapping legacy stock statuses to Fulfillment Details:

Old	New
Stock Status (Legacy)	Fulfillment Details	Stock Status (New)
INLA	Item No Longer Available	INLA
Pickup Only	Pickup Only	In Stock
Out of Stock	No Channels Available	Out of Stock
In Store Only	In Store Only	In Stock
Online Only	Shipping Only	In Stock
In Stock	Multiple Channels Available	In Stock

Stock Status Examples

Stock status availability based on whether an item can be purchased online. The following are examples of products that are IN STOCK, OOS, and INLA.

IN STOCK Example (Kroger):

 

OOS Example (HEB):

INLA Example (ABT):

Accessing Stock Status in Syndigo Reporting

Syndigo currently tracks shipping, pickup, in-store availability, and delivery via the stock status reports in the Syndigo platform.

Stock Status is accessible via the following reports:

• Out of Stock curated report
• Report Builder > Stock Status Summary
• Report Builder > Digital Shelf Raw > Live Site Product (with relevant stock status columns selected)

Logic Changes as of 4/4/2024

The following changes will be made to accommodate delivery channels on various sites. The stock status column will be simplified down to show just 3 statuses: INLA, In Stock, and Out of Stock.

In order to decouple the legacy stock statuses from fulfillment channel availabilities, we are adding a column called Fulfillment Details. This column will provide the following possible values:

1. No Channels Available
2. Pickup Only
3. Delivery Only
4. In Store Only
5. Shipping Only
6. Multiple Channels Available
7. All Channels Available

Stock Status will then be evaluated based on these fulfillment channels. As long as one of these channels are available, the stock status will be In Stock.

Breakdown of Changes and Rollout

There are several categories of changes being made.

1. Decoupling: Decoupling Fulfillment channel availability from stock statuses. Fulfillment Details will denote channel availability and be rolled up into stock status. Decoupling will be implemented across ALL sites.
2. Delivery Channel Implementation: Scraper and logic development to assess the delivery channel across sites. Not all sites support delivery so this list will expand as additional sites use delivery fulfillment.

Phase 1: Sites that currently support the delivery channel

Decoupling will be rolled out across all sites. The Delivery Channel Implementation will be rolled out to the following sites first.

1. Albertsons
2. Big Lots
3. Amazon Fresh
4. Costco
5. Costco CA
6. Family Dollar
7. Safeway
8. Sam’s Club
9. Walgreens
10. Loblaws
11. Stop & Shop

Outside of these sites we will be converting the legacy stock statuses into the remaining Fulfillment Details values. The conversion will ensure a smooth transition as the new logic is rolled out.

Phase 2: Additional Sites

These are sites that require additional investigation and development to support as they may require sign-in, full address, or other details to access the delivery channel. These sites will be added and communicated as they become available.

1. BJ’s
2. Kroger
3. Walmart
4. Meijer
5. HEB
6. Shoprite
7. CVS
8. ... and more!

Curated Out of Stock Report

• A new Fulfillment Details column will be added to show the availability of various fulfillment channel options.
• Stock Status now only shows INLA, In Stock, and Out of Stock
• Bar chart will now show Fulfillment Channels instead of Stock Status

Report Builder - Stock Status Summary

• Fulfillment Details will be added to show fulfillment channels available.
• Stock Status now only shows INLA, In Stock, and Out of Stock

Report Builder - Live Site Product

• Fulfillment Details will be added to show fulfillment channels available.
• Stock Status now only shows INLA, In Stock, and Out of Stock
• Additional columns added for each fulfillment channel type populated by boolean values:
  • Available for Shipping
  • Available for Pickup
  • Available for Delivery
  • Available In Store

Report Example

Crawl Date	SKU	Available for Shipping	Available for Pickup	Available for Delivery	Available in Store	Fulfillment Details	Stock Status
3/1/2024	ASIN 123	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	No Channels Available	INLA
3/1/2024	ASIN 789	FALSE	FALSE	FALSE	FALSE	No Channels Available	OOS
3/2/2024	P123454	TRUE	FALSE	FALSE	FALSE	Shipping Only	In Stock
3/1/2024	ASIN 456	FALSE	TRUE	FALSE	FALSE	Pickup Only	In Stock
3/3/2024	P123457	FALSE	FALSE	TRUE	FALSE	Delivery Only	In Stock
3/2/2024	P123455	FALSE	FALSE	FALSE	TRUE	In Store Only	OOS
3/2/2024	P123453	[VARIABLE]	[VARIABLE]	[VARIABLE]	[VARIABLE]	Multiple Channels Available*	In Stock
3/2/2024	P123456	TRUE	TRUE	TRUE	TRUE	All Channels Available	In Stock

Multiple Channels Available*: Multiple TRUE/FALSE combinations are possible when multiple channels are available. They are not shown here.

API

• Call columns endpoint (GET api/report/insights/v2/{companyid}/columns) to pull all available columns needed for a specific report to include.
• Call reports endpoint (POST api/report/insights/v2/{companyid}/reports) to generate the corresponding report.

Report Builder: Stock Summary

Column	Values
Fulfillment Details	No Channels Available, Shipping Only, Pickup Only, Delivery Only, In Store Only, Multiple Channels Available, All Channels Available
Stock Status	OOS, In Stock, INLA

Report Builder: Live Site Product

Column	Values
Available for Shipping	TRUE, FALSE, N/A
Available for Pickup	TRUE, FALSE, N/A
Available for Delivery	TRUE, FALSE, N/A
Available in Store	TRUE, FALSE, N/A
Fulfillment Details	No Channels Available, Shipping Only, Pickup Only, Delivery Only, In Store Only, Multiple Channels Available, All Channels Available
Stock Status	OOS, In Stock, INLA

API Column Names

The column names in the reporting can be accessed by calling the API column name as shown in the tables below.

Report Builder: Stock Summary

API Column Name	Report Builder Column Name
FulfillmentType	Fulfillment Details
SS_StockStatusName	Stock Status Name

Report Builder: Live Site Product

API Column Name	Report Builder Column Name
FulfillmentType	Fulfillment Details
Shipping	Available for Shipping
PickupToday	Available for Pickup
DeliveryToHome	Available for Delivery
InStoreOnly	Available in Store
StockStatus	Stock Status