Vendor Inventory Management FAQs

Q: I work with several vendors. They all carry the same item, but each vendor uses a different SKU. How do I manage the inventory on my listing?

A: There are two good ways to manage this scenario.

Normally Solid Commerce matches items by the Warehouse ID, which poses a problem in this multi-vendor situation. To accommodate one item being carried by multiple vendors, each with a different SKU, you can setup your Solid Commerce Market List to match your items by:

1. UPC
2. SKU / Alternate SKU

Q: How does the match by UPC option work?

A: Solid Commerce always favors finding items by Warehouse ID. After you activate the "Match by product 'UPC'" box, the system will continue to search your Vendor Inventory Lists and/or Warehouses for the Warehouse ID, just like it normally does. If it finds an item in a Vendor Inventory List or Warehouse with the Warehouse ID as your listed item, it will connect to that item, no matter how many other UPC matches there are in other Vendor Inventory Lists or Warehouses.

If the system doesn't find the Warehouse ID in any list or warehouse, it searches for the UPC of the listed item. Any item with the same UPC is an inventory match, regardless of the Warehouse ID or SKU.

Q: How does the match by SKU and Alternative SKU work?

A: Just like with the match by UPC option, Solid Commerce always favors finding items by Warehouse ID. After you activate the "Match by product 'SKU' (Including Alternate SKU's)" box, the system will continue to search your Vendor Inventory Lists and/or Warehouses for the Warehouse ID, just like it normally does. If it finds an item in a Vendor Inventory List or Warehouse with the same Warehouse ID as your listed item, it will connect to that item, no matter how many other Product Custom SKU and Alternate SKU matches there are in other Vendor Inventory Lists or Warehouses.

If the system doesn't find the Warehouse ID in any list or warehouse, it searches for the Product Custom SKU and all Alternate SKUs in your Vendor Inventory Lists and/or Warehouses. The Product Custom SKU and all Alternate SKUs are weighted equally, so the system searches for all SKUs at the same time. Any items with the same SKU, or one of the Alternate SKUs, is an inventory match.

Using this option allows you to assign every SKU that your vendors use to a product. That way Solid Commerce can find the product in every Vendor Inventory List and/or Warehouse.

Q: What are the advantages of matching by the UPC vs. the Alternate SKU?

A: The UPC match is super easy. If every vendor provides you with a UPC, it doesn't really matter what their SKU is.

However, if some, or all, of your vendors don't provide a UPC, the UPC match won't work.

The match by SKU and Alternate SKU gives you a way to match any items. To use this feature, you have to find the matching item from each vendor and assign all the vendors' native SKUs to your product as Alternate SKUs.

Of the two options, the UPC option the easier, but the Alternate SKU more versatile.

Q: How to do I setup Solid Commerce to match items by UPC or SKU and Alternate SKU?

A: These features can be set on any Market List.

If you want your Amazon listings to search your Vendor Inventory Lists and/or Warehouses for your UPCs, you would select your Amazon Seller Central Market List in the Inventory Manager, and click the black "- Edit -" button. In the Edit List Data pop up window, you would check the "Match by product 'UPC'" box and click the "Save" button.

If you want your Amazon listings to search your Vendor Inventory Lists and/or Warehouse for your Product Custom SKU and Alternate SKUs instead, you would check the "Match by product 'SKU' (Including Alternate SKU's)" box instead of the "Match by product 'UPC'" box. Don't forget to click the old "Save" button.

NOTE: In order to get Solid Commerce to search for matches in multiple Vendor Inventory Lists and/or Warehouses, you need to assign multiple PO Sources to your listings.

Q: I'm using multiple PO Sources on my listings, which Vendor Inventory List or Warehouse will Solid Commerce choose as the correct inventory source?

A: If Solid Commerce finds a matching Warehouse ID, we will use that item for inventory purposes.

If Solid Commerce finds the same Warehouse ID in multiple Vendor Inventory Lists or Warehouses, we have default preferences:

1. We prefer the list or warehouse with the lowest cost.
2. If the cost is the same in all Vendor Inventory Lists or Warehouses, we prefer the source with more inventory.

If you are using the match by UPC or match by SKU and Alternate SKU feature, first Solid Commerce will search your Vendor Inventory Lists and/or Warehouses for the Warehouse ID of your item. If the system finds a list or warehouse with that Warehouse ID, we will use that as the inventory source. We only search by UPC or all SKUs if we cannot find any list or warehouse with the Warehouse ID.

If we find multiple Vendor Inventory Lists and/or Warehouses with the same UPC, or find multiple lists and warehouses with the SKUs, the preferences listed above are used to choose which list or warehouse to select as the inventory source.

Q: If I'm using the match by UPC or match by SKU and Alternate SKU feature, what happens if Solid Commerce doesn't find the UPC, or any of my SKUs, in any list or warehouse?

A: First Solid Commerce will try to find the Warehouse ID in a Vendor Inventory List or Warehouse. If we don't find the Warehouse ID, we'll search by UPC or Product Custom SKU and all Alternate SKUs. Depending on the matching option you selected, if we don't find the UPC, or any SKUs, then we will return an error in Excel, or reset the quantity to 0 in the user interface, depending on how you updated your PO Sources. Here are three scenarios:

1. If you are using Excel to add a brand new item to Solid Commerce, your Excel upload "results" will be, "Unable to find matching inventory source for item." The item will not be added to the Market List. That also means it will not be available to list to your marketplace.
2. If you are using Excel to change the PO Sources assigned to an existing item, your Excel upload "results" will be, "Unable to find matching inventory source for item." The PO Sources will not be updated to your new choices and the old PO Sources will remain in effect.
3. If you manually update the PO Sources on an existing item through your Solid Commerce Market List, and the system cannot find your UPC, or any of your SKUs, in any of the Vendor Inventory Lists and Warehouses now set as a PO Source, the quantity will eventually reset to 0. We do not want you to oversell.