- E-commerce
- Custom App Development
- ML & Data Science
- E-commerce Solutions
Selling stock that is sitting in a returns crate
A retailer selling across its own store and two marketplaces oversells whenever a return sits unprocessed and stock counts drift. Connecting returns to inventory in real time removes both the overselling and the write off.
Representative engagement. This describes a pattern we build rather than one named client: the situation that produces it, how we approach it, and the range of outcomes that kind of work lands in. Figures are stated as ranges or targets, never as a measured result for a specific customer. Our named client work is on the work index.
- Industry
- E-commerce
- one stock count across store and marketplaces
- Real time
- returned stock back to sellable
- Days not weeks
The problem
Stock is counted in the warehouse, in the storefront and in each marketplace, and the four agree only immediately after somebody reconciles them. Between reconciliations, the store sells an item that is physically in a returns crate awaiting inspection. Returns are where most of the drift originates, because a returned item is neither sold nor available until somebody grades it, and the grading queue is the last thing anyone gets to on a busy day. Perfectly sellable stock sits invisible for weeks, then gets written off. Customers experience this as a cancellation after they have paid, which is the single most expensive way to lose one.
What we built
One inventory service as the source of truth, with the storefront and each marketplace reading from it rather than each keeping a count. Reservations are held at the moment of order rather than at fulfilment, which is what closes the oversell window. Returns are given a real workflow: booked in on arrival, graded against defined conditions, and returned to sellable the moment they pass. An item that is sellable becomes sellable that day rather than at the end of a queue. Alongside it, simple forecasting on the return rate per product and per reason. A product returning at three times the catalogue average has a listing problem or a sizing problem, and both are fixable once they are visible.
What changed
Overselling stops, and with it the cancellation email that costs a customer permanently. Returned stock re-enters the catalogue in days instead of weeks, which recovers margin that was previously written off quietly. The return reason data turns out to be the more valuable half in the long run, because it points at the listings that are causing the returns in the first place.
Built with
- TypeScript
- PostgreSQL
- Shopify
- Node.js
- Redis