Multi-Source Inventory is a Magento 2’s core which has started from Magento 2.3 version. It lets you define the closest shipping warehouse to the customer; estimate the stock remains and also send “low stock” notifications beforehand. Your Magento will let you know beforehand if your warehouses go empty after the big sale. You can update or improve your version whenever you want. With Magento MSI you don’t need a page builder module or any other feature to add. You don’t have to maintain the code which you don’t use.

Magento MSI allows merchants to allocate products to every fulfillment source like physical stores, warehouse, etc. and they can also customize the default MSI implementation and integrate it with required third-party systems. No matter where your customer and warehouse location is and the type of product or sales channel the current version allows you to manage inventory. With the help of MSI, merchants can create marketing strategies.

Now let’s see the main functionality of Magento MSI

Manage Sources

The very first place you go to leverage MSI functionality in Magento 2 admin panel is Manage Sources. Magento’s core team has given a new term called “source” which basically checks the physical stock where goods are stored and shipped from. It will allow you to create sources manually for every physical location of the products you want for example (England or Scotland in the UK)

Soon after, you can set off a number of available products for each source in the product configuration menu.

If you want to add or edit the sources simply log in to the backend and go to

Stores ⟶ Inventory ⟶ Sources.

If the merchant has several locations, it is necessary to Add New Source to enter the Multi-Source mode

Manage Stocks

Manage stocks has two main features one is multiple source grouping and the other is channel assigning to each group. Only a few Magento websites understand the term “channel”. For example, all your stocks are in one country, state, or region and you want to add a new warehouse in Germany to create a “warehouse GY” stock and assign it an “EU” channel.

To manage stock you have to go to Stores ⟶ Inventory ⟶ Stocks.

Here comes the Magento 2 source selection algorithm which is developed to help select which physical location is nearest to the customer and then provides a shipping location. Using a source selection algorithm it will assign location like if you assign a “warehouse GY” stock to a “US source by mistake then it will not choose these product quantity deductions for a customer from Germany as it will not be near to the location.

Manage Catalog Product Inventory

It has the same logic as in stocks. You need to assign sources for every product and then also allocated the quantity available to the product. You need to enable the “Notify Quantity” option so that you will get a notification of “stock running low on this product” which will help in managing your inventory. By default it takes 1 as the “Notify quantity” but you can customize as per your requirement.

Saleable Quantity

Magento MSI flows are steps that are very systematic like after you create sources and allocate stocks, then the quantity of the product is determined for each source, and then each stock is linked to a particular Magento website. When all this is done then the MSI module evaluates all the products to provide the saleable quantity per stock.

When a customer places an order then the MSI module deducts the quantity of the product from the saleable quantity and it prompts a notification and action chain based on configuration. In case the in-stock product quantity is 0, it shows “out of stock” as the status. Similarly, if a customer wants to add more products to their cart than the available stock then they will be notified about the limited stock. Overall, it enhances performance by offloading the system.

Order Management

What about managing order and how does it work?

Well, after the order is placed then the quantity of the ordered products is reserved until the order is completed. Shipping is provided only after the payment gateway and then the purchased quantity will be subtracted from the existing source quantity. Magento 2.3.0 provides only one source selection algorithm which is completely based on the source priority that is decided manually. Yet, the configuration for the approaching distance priority algorithm is already mentioned in the Magento user guide.

Conclusion

Magento MSI can connect different sources to the store and by using the algorithm of selection that chooses a source that depends on various conditions. In case any issues arise in the default functionality then the Magento community always finds the solution. The architecture of Magento 2 has been improved with the implementation of MSI.

That’s all about Magento MSI. Drop us a line to help you with the Magento 2.3 Multi-source implementation.