An online order for the wrong bag
A customer orders a large bag of salmon and potato dog food from your website for local delivery. The website shows it in stock. In the shop, the last large salmon bag sold on Saturday. There are small bags of salmon and large bags of chicken. The website did not know, because it only syncs the product as a whole, not each flavour and size.
Staff ring the customer, who agrees to two small bags instead, but the delivery is delayed and the customer is less keen to order online next time. The same thing happens a few times a week across different foods.
Why online stock drifts
Your till and your website were set up at different times, often by different people, and they describe products differently. The till may hold each flavour and size as a separate product with its own barcode. The website may hold one product with flavour and size options. Linking the two at the right level takes careful mapping that is rarely done.
- The website product has options that do not map one to one to till products.
- Stock syncs for the parent product, not for each variant.
- Some variants were added to the website but not the till, or the other way round.
- Syncs run occasionally rather than frequently.
- No buffer is kept for items that sell fast in the shop.
What overselling costs
Every out of stock online order means a phone call, a substitution or a refund. Customers who order online want convenience, and a phone call about a missing item is the opposite. Some shops respond by keeping the online range small or switching off stock sync altogether, which limits online sales.
Local customers are the ones hurt most. Many pet shop websites exist so regulars can order for local delivery or collection, and those regulars notice every substitution. A national retailer can afford to disappoint strangers; a neighbourhood shop cannot.
Staff time goes too. Checking every online order against the shelf before picking becomes a routine chore.
Stock sync at the variant level
- We map every till product to its matching website variant by flavour and size, fixing gaps and duplicates as we go.
- Stock syncs per variant, from the till to the website, frequently enough to keep pace with shop sales.
- A safety buffer per line holds back a small amount of stock, so the last bag is not sold twice.
- Online orders reduce till stock in the same way, so the shop sees website sales too.
- An exceptions list shows website variants with no till match and till products missing from the website.
- New products added to the till are flagged for adding to the website, with the mapping suggested.
| Problem | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Flavour out of stock in shop | Still sold online | Shown out of stock online |
| Last bag | Sold twice | Held back by buffer |
| Unmatched variants | Unknown | On an exceptions list |
| New products | Added to one system only | Flagged for mapping |
We work with common online shop platforms such as Shopify and WooCommerce, and with your till's API or exports. If either side cannot sync per variant, we tell you what that limits before starting.
Online orders you can fulfil
When the last large salmon bag sells in the shop, the website shows that size as out of stock within minutes. Customers choose from what is actually there, and picking online orders becomes a straightforward job rather than a check against every shelf.
The exceptions list keeps the two systems aligned as products come and go, so the website stays accurate without a big clean-up every few months.
Is your website overselling flavours and sizes?
- Online orders include flavours or sizes you have run out of.
- Stock syncs at product level, not per variant.
- Staff check the shelf before picking every online order.
- Website and till product lists do not match.
- You keep the online range small to avoid problems.