Manage the stock of a product

PrestaShop offers you various stock management options, depending on whether you sell simple products or products with variations.

To access it: Catalog > Products

How to manage the stock of a simple product?

PrestaShop allows you to have precise management of your inventory by configuring it product by product.

To do this, open the product sheet of the item for which you wish to manage the inventory, fill in the "Quantities" field, and click on the following link.

You will then access the "Quantities" tab, the interface of which allows you to configure the stock of this product.

• Quantity: indicate the quantities available for sale.
• Minimum quantity for sale: please indicate the minimum number of products per sale.
• Stock location: please indicate the location of the stock for this product - "Warehouse 1", "Warehouse 2", etc.
• Low stock level: determine at what point the remaining units for sale indicate that your stock is low. You may check the box "send me an email when the quantity is below or equal to this level" to be alerted in case of low stock.
• Behavior in case of stock shortage: in the event of a stock shortage, PrestaShop allows you to refuse orders (default setting) or to accept them (thus effectively engaging in presales).
• Label when in stock: you can customize the label indicating that your product is available - "In stock", "Available immediately", etc.
• If out of stock (and preorders allowed): you can customize the label indicating that your product is available for preorder - "Preorder now!"
• Availability date: determine the date from which your product will be available again.

How to manage the inventory of a product with variations?

In the case of a product with variations, the quantities are managed in the interface that allows for the creation of variations, specifically in the "Variations" tab.

It is your responsibility to indicate the initial stock of all variations. PrestaShop will use this information to determine if a product is soon to be out of stock or if it is no longer available.

How do you activate and deactivate stock management?

Stock management allows you not to have to manually manage the quantity of each product, but to rely on PrestaShop to take care of that. Advanced stock management is very useful if you have a particularly extensive catalog, for example.

By default, inventory management is enabled. To disable it, go to the Store Settings page > Products, click on this option and then on 'Save'.

How to modify stock-out settings?

In the product sheet, the 'Availability Preferences' section allows you to select the behavior to adopt when there is no quantity in stock:

• refuse orders (the product will no longer be available for sale)

• accept orders (in practice, you are therefore engaging in pre-sales)

• use the default behavior

The latter option, 'Use the default behavior', fine-tunes the behavior of PrestaShop based on the availability of the product in question. You can thus customize the label indicating that the product is in stock as well as the label used to inform the customer of a stock shortage.

The options are:

• Label if product is in stock: which allows you to display a message for your visitors once the product is available, for example, "In stock." This is a reassuring element as it means that you can immediately send them the product.
• Label if the product is out of stock but pre-order is allowed: which allows you to display a message to your visitors when the product is unavailable but can still be ordered, for example, "Available for pre-order." This can be a positive aspect for your visitors, who will understand that you can send them the product as soon as it is back in stock.

You can also configure the global setting to apply to all products. The default setting is to refuse orders, but you can modify it from the Store Settings page > Products, option "Allow ordering of out-of-stock products."

Frequently Asked Questions

Why are the stock-related labels not updating?

PrestaShop automatically updates the availability message ("Label if in stock" or "Label if out of stock") when you change the variant on the product sheet, just as it does for the price or images.

If the message does not update dynamically and remains stuck on that of the first variant, it is most likely due to your theme or a customization of the code.

Here is what we recommend:

• Check if the issue is present with the 'Classic' theme (the default theme of PrestaShop).
• Verify that there are no JavaScript errors in the console (by pressing F12 and then changing the variations).
• Ensure that no module or override is overriding the standard behavior.

The problem can often be resolved quickly by reintegrating the native JavaScript functionality or by listening to the updatedProduct event provided by PrestaShop.