Shared inventory across stores: separate on-hand stock from sellable units
Align warehouse stock, reservations, unavailable goods, incoming stock and storefront displays.
If stores on Tmall, Douyin and Xiaohongshu each show the same product in stock, the warehouse does not necessarily hold three separate inventories. One store may receive an order before the others update; returned goods may still await inspection; incoming stock may be added prematurely. Any of these can turn apparently ample stock into an unfulfillable promise.
Align the same product variant, warehouse and cut-off, then separate physical units, committed orders, unavailable goods, channel display quantities and incoming shipments. Field names, reservation events and update mechanisms differ across platforms, ERP and warehouse systems; check the actual setup.
Physical stock is not the quantity each channel may independently sell
| Quantity | Question it answers | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Physical on-hand | How many units are physically at a location at the cut-off? | Warehouse, owner, SKU and batch; exclude another party's goods |
| Reserved or committed | Which units are promised to unfulfilled orders or other uses? | Whether the number already includes channel reservations |
| Unavailable | Which units are physically present but cannot be sold? | Inspection, damage or other restrictions; avoid overlap with committed units |
| Safety stock | How many units has the business deliberately held back? | Whether already included in the system's unavailable quantity |
| Orders awaiting synchronization | Which commitments arose after the baseline but are not yet in warehouse reservations? | Deduplicate by order and SKU and check the units remain in the same warehouse |
| Channel displays and incoming | What does each storefront show and what might arrive later? | A shared pool displayed in several stores must not be added together; incoming goods are not current sellable stock before receipt and acceptance |
The Taobao Open Platform inventory synchronization guide describes both a shared pool across stores and allocation through virtual inventory, noting synchronization pressure and possible promotion-period restrictions. That documentation concerns its own scenarios; check each other platform's setup separately. As another system example, Shopify's inventory states distinguish on-hand, committed, unavailable and incoming goods; those definitions do not replace Chinese marketplace rules.
Calculate one warehouse pool
Assume three stores share one SKU in one warehouse. At 10:00, the warehouse records 18,000 physical units. Of these, 4,200 are reserved for unfulfilled orders, 1,200 are unavailable pending inspection or due to damage, and 600 are separately held as safety stock. These groups do not overlap and all are included in the 18,000 units. The 4,200 reserved units already include 1,000 pre-reserved by a marketplace, so those 1,000 are not subtracted again.
By 10:05, the three stores have received 800 additional unique units of orders, still physically in this warehouse, which are not in the 10:00 reservation record. Assume there are no other receipts, shipments or state changes during the five minutes:
| Same warehouse and SKU | Units |
|---|---|
| Physical on-hand at 10:00 | 18,000 |
| Less reserved orders | 4,200 |
| Less unavailable goods | 1,200 |
| Less separately held safety stock | 600 |
| Less new orders not yet synchronized | 800 |
| Pool available to allocate at 10:05 | 11,200 |
The arithmetic is 18,000 − 4,200 − 1,200 − 600 − 800 = 11,200 units. At an assumed reference cost of RMB 280 per unit, that quantity corresponds to RMB 3.136 million at the reference cost. It is not realized sales, forecast profit or an automatic accounting inventory valuation.
With an exclusive allocation, the business could assign 5,000 units to store A, 3,500 to B and 2,700 to C, totaling 11,200. If the same pool of 11,200 is instead displayed simultaneously in all three stores, adding the displays to 33,600 does not create more physical stock. Whether overselling is prevented depends on the actual reservation, synchronization and exception handling. Another 8,000 incoming units are excluded from the current pool; only if all pass receipt and become sellable, with everything else unchanged, does the pool rise to 19,200.
Resolve differences and synchronization delays
- Map the records. Match each store's product and SKU codes, warehouse, owner and unit of sale. Do not combine variants; define how bundles are decomposed and reserved.
- Align the time. Preserve warehouse and storefront extraction times, last successful synchronization and relevant order, cancellation, shipment and return-receipt events. Matching counts at one point do not prove synchronization is consistently working.
- Deduplicate and verify state. Follow each order and SKU through pre-reservation, reservation, release on cancellation and shipment. Subtract a channel commitment only once if it is already in the warehouse reservation. Returned goods become sellable only after the business verifies receipt and the applicable inspection result.
- Resolve exceptions instead of simply increasing displays. Track sales beyond allocated quantities, failed updates, negative stock, warehouse shortages and promotion locks. Authorized staff can investigate and adjust under the applicable platform rules; set alerts and owners.
- Separate custody from ownership and accounting. Consignment, third-party warehouses or shared facilities across legal entities do not automatically make every unit a saleable asset of this company. Review the agreement, actual control and financial evidence.
CaiGeek is an AI financial assistant for small and medium-sized businesses. Start by reconciling one SKU's storefront orders, warehouse records and stock movements; explore cash tied up in inventory, deduplicating multi-store data, or contact CaiGeek about a discrepancy.
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