Being able to track product inventory has been a long-time feature of the Miva Merchant software, but starting with Miva Merchant 9.6, you get the added control over when product stock is removed from the available inventory in your store.
Let's have a look at this addition, but first let's turn on Inventory Tracking in this store. Once you've logged into the Miva Merchant Admin, click into the Catalog screen and then click on the Inventory tab. Checkmark “Track Inventory” and also “Track Out of Stock Level” then click on the Update button. Inventory tracking is now possible in this store. Now, let's edit a product. Choose the mug product and tell the store to track its inventory. We’ll do that by going into the “Edit Product” screen of this mug and then clicking into its Inventory tab. Here, we’ll checkmark “Track Product” and we’ll increase its stock by 5 and then click “Update.” When the stores configured in this way, it knows that there are only five products available to sell. So a customer can add up to 5 mugs to their basket and the store would be fine with that, but if the customer attempts to add 6 mugs to their basket, the store will know that there are not enough mugs in stock and tell the customer that it can't meet the desired number of mugs. As mentioned earlier, Miva Merchant 9.6 brings an added functionality to the inventory tracking feature. If we go back into the Catalog and click into the Inventory tab will see a new field called remove products from available inventory which has two options; “When Added to Basket” and “At Checkout.” When Added to Basket is historically the way the Miva Merchant software has behaved in regards to product inventory tracking. This means that as soon as a tracked product is added to a customer's basket, the stock levels are updated at that time. So if Customer A adds 5 mugs to their basket and then Customer B attempts to add one mug to their basket, Customer B would see the mugs are sold out even though no one has technically purchased the products yet. This can be undesirable for instances where you're dealing with low stock level items or one-of-a-kind items in which case you may want to have “At Checkout” selected. Configured in this way, Customer A can add up to 5 mugs in their basket and continue shopping, Customer B can also add up to 5 mugs in their basket and continue shopping as well. As soon as Customer A or B gets past the Customer Information Screen at checkout, only then are those five mugs removed from the available inventory. The next customer who attempts to check out with mugs in their basket will be notified that there are no longer enough products in stock to fulfill their order. Choosing when to remove products from inventory will be dependent on what serves your needs best. Either when the product is added to a basket, or when someone goes through check out. Once you've made your configuration, don't forget to click on the “Update” button to save your changes.