Move stock to an unavailable state in Shopify
Some stock is on the shelf but cannot be sold yet: units waiting for a quality check, damaged units, or safety stock held in reserve. This tutorial moves 4 Trail Crew Tees into the Quality control state, so they stay on hand but leave the sellable count.
Written · Shopify admin, desktop steps · 5 minutes read
The worked example
| Product | Trail Crew Tee, Medium Blue |
| Location | Main Street store |
| On hand before | 36 units |
| Moved to Quality control | 4 units |
| Available after | 32 units |
| On hand after | 36 units |
Download the record: trail-crew-tee-hold-record.csv (191 bytes).
A hold record for the Trail Crew Tee: units moved to Quality control, Available before and after, and On hand unchanged.
1Open the Inventory page
From your Shopify admin, go to Products, then Inventory. Pick the Main Street store from the location picker.
2Click the quantity to change
In the Available or On hand column, click the quantity for the Medium Blue variant.
3Switch to Adjust by
Click the Set to drop-down menu, then click Adjust by. Enter 4 as the quantity to move.
4Move it from Available to Quality control
Select the Main Street store as the origin and Quality control as the destination. The store location is the origin when you move available inventory into an unavailable state.
5Add a reason and save
Click Add reason and select a reason, click the check icon to stage the adjustment, review the pending change, then click Save. The adjustment is recorded in the adjustment history under the matching activity.
6Read the two numbers after the move
The On hand count stays at 36, because the 4 units are still in the store. The Available count falls to 32, because unavailable inventory is on hand but cannot be sold.
The arithmetic
The move is a subtraction from Available only:
| Figure | Units |
|---|---|
| On hand before | 36 |
| Available before | 36 |
| Moved to Quality control | 4 |
| Available after | 32 |
| On hand after | 36 |
36 available minus 4 moved is 32 available. On hand stays at 36, because the units are still in the store, only held. Moving them back later reverses the same figures.
Held at the counter
Unavailable is not the same as gone. Units in Quality control, Damaged, or Safety stock still count as On hand. Only Available falls. If you read On hand as the sellable number, you will promise stock that is held.
The destination decides the story. Picking the wrong unavailable state, such as Damaged instead of Quality control, writes the wrong story into the history. The units can be moved back, but the history keeps the first entry.
Held stock still needs a decision. Units in Quality control are not sellable until someone checks them and moves them back to Available or writes them off. A hold with no owner becomes dead stock on the shelf.
Sources
- Adjusting inventory quantities — Shopify's help pages: the unavailable states Damaged, Quality control, Safety stock, and Other, and moving inventory between available and unavailable states.