Store-specific stock numbers

Retailers with both online and physical store channels, so-called omnichannel retailers, frequently have a large share of visitors who use the site to explore the product range and discover items to buy, but still prefer making the actual purchase in the store. To cater to that need, Elevate supports supplying store-specific stock numbers for variants. This enables visitors to get an experience that is tailored towards their preferred physical stores.

Supply store and stock information

Store and stock information is defined on variants in the catalog import. Supply the online stock information in the stock number element, stock, of the variant data object, and the store and store-specific stock information in the storeStock attribute, within the variant. If a store is not supplied on a variant, that variant will be considered out of stock for that store, which is the same behavior as if the stock number would be set to 0. The only difference between setting a store’s storeStock to 0 and omitting the store is that the omitted store will not be returned in the availability array on the variant, as opposed to the store being returned with stock number 0. Thus, unless stores should be displayed with stock 0, we recommend omitting the store instead of setting storeStock to 0, in order to save on the amount of data being sent back and forth.

Query parameters

There are two query parameters related to store-specific stock numbers: stores and channels. The stores parameter should contain the keys of the stores that the site visitor has selected, as a pipe-separated string. The stores provided are taken into account when computing the stock status of products and variants for the query. The availability array returned on variants shows the online stock number and the stock numbers for all the stores in the stores parameter, unless on a product page, where all stores are always returned. The channels parameter can normally be omitted, but needs to be used if the online (default) store should be ignored. The valid values for channels are:

ONLINE — ignores the stores parameter.
ONLINE|STORE — uses both the online store and the provided stores.
STORE — uses only the provided stores.

If STORE is explicitly provided (for example STORE or ONLINE|STORE), then stores is required and cannot be empty. Omitting channels is identical to ONLINE|STORE, except that an empty or omitted stores is allowed. See query parameters for a detailed example with a table.

Example

The following example shows a site with stock levels online and in two physical stores identified by the store keys 240 and 100. The site has three products, and each product has one variant. For the sake of the example, we assume these products belong to a chainsaw category.

Catalog import example

The information in the catalog import for those products is as follows:

Simplified example catalog import

{
    "replace": {
        "key": "1001",
        "productGroup": {
            "products": {
                "1001-100": {
                    ...
                    "variants": {
                        "1001-100-1": {
                            "defaults": {
                                "stock": 10,
                                ...
                                "storeStock": {
                                    "240": 5,
                                    "100": 0
                                }
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                "1001-200": {
                    ...
                    "variants": {
                        "1001-200-1": {
                            "defaults": {
                                "stock": 10,
                                ...
                                "storeStock": {
                                    "240": 0,
                                    "100": 0
                                }
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                "1001-300": {
                    ...
                    "variants": {
                        "1001-300-1": {
                            "defaults": {
                                "stock": 0,
                                ...
                                "storeStock": {
                                    "100": 1
                                }
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

The products and their stock levels can be summarized as follows:

Product key	Online stock level	Store stock levels
`1001-100`	10	`240`: 5, `100`: 0
`1001-200`	10	`240`: 0, `100`: 0
`1001-300`	0	`100`: 1

Query

A query with the search phrase chainsaw is made to the search-page endpoint. Included in the query are additional parameters to show stock levels online and from the physical store with the key 240.

REST API
JS Library

curl -X GET \
'https://{cluster-id}.elevate-api.cloud/api/storefront/v3/queries/search-page?market=US&locale=en-US&customerKey=b65f78d4-23f0-4043-bd5e-fea24b5837d3&sessionKey=cc6772fd-65e2-4392-a1ee-24977c99fd2e&touchpoint=desktop&limit=60&skip=0&viewId=production&q=chainsaw&channels=ONLINE%7CSTORE&stores=240'

const api = esales({ clusterId: 'w00000000', market: 'US', locale: 'en-US', touchpoint: 'desktop' });
const results = await api.query.searchPage({
  q: 'chainsaw',
  channels: 'ONLINE|STORE',
  stores: '240'
});

Result

All three chainsaws are returned. If the Only in stock facet had been used, the result would only include two of the three products matching the search phrase chainsaw, as the third product, 1001-300, has no stock level online or in the selected store. Note that the availability array of the 1001-300-1 variant does not include an entry for store 240, since its storeStock entry is omitted for that variant.

Simplified example result

{
  "q": "chainsaw",
  "primaryList": {
    "productGroups": [
      {
        "products": [
          {
            "key": "1001-100",
            ...
            "inStock": true,
            ...
            "variants": [
              {
                "key": "1001-100-1",
                ...
                "inStock": true,
                "stockNumber": 15,
                ...
                "availability": [
                    {
                        "channel": "ONLINE",
                        "stockNumber": 10
                    },
                    {
                        "key": "240",
                        "channel": "STORE",
                        "stockNumber": 5
                    }
                ]
                ...
              }
            ]
            ...
          }
        ],
        "key": "1001"
      },
      {
        "products": [
          {
            "key": "1001-200",
            ...
            "inStock": true,
            ...
            "variants": [
              {
                "key": "1001-200-1",
                ...
                "inStock": true,
                "stockNumber": 10,
                "availability": [
                    {
                        "channel": "ONLINE",
                        "stockNumber": 10
                    },
                    {
                        "key": "240",
                        "channel": "STORE",
                        "stockNumber": 0
                    }
                ]
                ...
              }
            ]
            ...
          }
        ],
        "key": "1001"
      },
      {
        "products": [
          {
            "key": "1001-300",
            ...
            "inStock": false,
            ...
            "variants": [
              {
                "key": "1001-300-1",
                ...
                "inStock": false,
                "stockNumber": 0,
                ...
                "availability": [
                    {
                        "channel": "ONLINE",
                        "stockNumber": 0
                    }
                ]
                ...
              }
            ]
            ...
          }
        ],
        "key": "1001"
      }
    ],
    "totalHits": 3
    ...
  }
}

The effects of the parameter combinations for this query are shown below:

Channels	Stores	Displayed when filtering	1001-100 result	1002-100 result	1003-100 result
`ONLINE\|STORE`	`240`	`1001-100`, `1001-200`	`inStock`: true `stockNumber`: 15 `availability`: online: 10, store `240`: 5	`inStock`: true `stockNumber`: 10 `availability`: online: 10, store `240`: 0	`inStock`: false `stockNumber`: 0 `availability`: online: 0

For more information about the parameters, and how parameter combinations affect pages, see stores and channels.

Overview

Catalog modeling

Feature concepts

Search and facets

Recommendations

Pages and navigation

Storefront responses

Operations

Supply store and stock information

Query parameters

Example

Catalog import example

Query

Result

​Supply store and stock information

​Query parameters

​Example

​Catalog import example

​Query

​Result

Supply store and stock information

Query parameters

Example

Catalog import example

Query

Result