Inventory-aware product listing

This article describes how organizations can configure inventory-aware product listing pages on their Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce e-commerce sites. Product listing pages include category landing pages and search results pages.

Shoppers generally expect product discovery throughout an e-commerce website to be inventory aware, so that they can decide what to do if a product is out of stock. The Commerce module library category and search results modules can be configured to incorporate inventory data. By using these modules, you can provide the following experiences:

• Display inventory level labels alongside products.
• Hide out-of-stock products from the product list.
• Move out-of-stock products to the bottom of product list pages.
• Support inventory-based product filtering.

To enable these experiences, first enable the Enhanced e-commerce product discovery to be inventory-aware feature in Commerce headquarters.

Note

• In Commerce version 10.0.29 and later, the Enhanced e-commerce product discovery to be inventory-aware feature is enabled by default.
• Inventory-aware product listing is calculated in headquarters and doesn't use channel-side inventory calculation. Discrepancies can occur between these two features.

Set up product attribute for inventory availability

Inventory-aware product listing uses the product attributes framework. As a prerequisite, create a dedicated product attribute to capture inventory availability data.

To set up product attribute for inventory availability in Commerce headquarters, follow these steps:

1. Go to Retail and Commerce > Retail and Commerce IT > Products and inventory > Populate product attributes with inventory level.
2. In the Populate product attributes with inventory level dialog box, in the Product attribute and type name field, enter a custom name for the dedicated product attribute that captures inventory data.
3. In the Inventory availability based on field, select the quantity type that the inventory level calculation should be based on: Available physical or Total available.
4. Set the Batch processing option to Yes.
5. Select OK.

Note

For consistent inventory level calculation across the pages of your e-commerce website, ensure that you select the same quantity type in both the Inventory availability based on field for the Populate product attributes with inventory level job and the Inventory level based on setting in Commerce site builder.

After you create the dedicated product attribute, configure the attribute for the online channel.

To configure the attribute for the online channel in Commerce headquarters, follow these steps:

1. Go to Retail and Commerce > Channel setup > Channel categories and product attributes.
2. Select the online channel to enable the inventory-aware product listing experience.
3. Select and open an associated attribute group, and then add the new product attribute to it.
4. Go to Retail and Commerce > Retail and Commerce IT > Distribution schedule, and run the 1150 (Catalog) job. Schedule this job as a batch process that runs at the same frequency as the Populate product attributes with inventory level job.

Note

In Commerce version 10.0.26 and earlier, after you add the inventory availability product attribute to an attribute group, you must also select Set attribute metadata, and then turn on the Show attribute on channel, Retrievable, Can be refined, and Can be queried options for the new product attribute.

Configure the display behavior for out-of-stock products on product listing pages

After you complete all the preceding configuration steps, the refiners on category and search results pages include an inventory-based filter option. An inventory level label appears for each product tile on the page.

The category and search results page displays products at the product master level, not the product variant level. The inventory level that appears alongside each product is an aggregated inventory level that comes from the inventory level of all a product's variants. The inventory level of a variant comes from the on-hand inventory of that variant in the default warehouse of the online channel in Commerce headquarters. The inventory level of a product master has two possible values that represent in-stock and out-of-stock states. A product master is out of stock when all its variants are out of stock. Otherwise, the product is in stock. The label for the value comes from the inventory level definition. If no inventory level is defined, the default labels (in English) are Available and Out of stock.

You can configure the Inventory settings for product list pages setting in Commerce site builder to control how the category and search results page displays out-of-stock products. For more information, see Apply inventory settings.