Stock items

Maintain item-level stock records, watch low-stock risk, and open item detail.

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Use Inventory → Stock items to maintain item-level stock records. Clicking the top-level Inventory row in the sidebar opens the unfiltered Stock items list. The linked SKU and product title open the stock item detail form.

Create a stock item

Use Create stock item when a product needs its own inventory record before it is listed, ordered from a supplier, or used on a sales order.

The create form captures the core product setup:

  • Stock group: optional grouping used for organisation and group-level SKU policy overrides. Choose this before entering the SKU when a group has its own policy.
  • SKU (Stock Keeping Unit): the internal item code. SKU is required and is locked after creation.
  • Product title and Description: the product-level wording used as the starting point for listing drafts.
  • Units of measure: base, purchase, and sales/listing units.
  • Status: whether the item is active.
  • Reorder level and Reorder quantity: low-stock guidance.
  • Location, Primary bin, and optional Reserve bin: storage defaults for pick paths and multi-bin workflows.
  • Internal barcode: the warehouse-first barcode. Leave it blank to auto-generate on save, or enter one manually if needed.
  • Manufacturer barcode and Manufacturer barcode format: UPC, EAN, GTIN, ISBN, or other supplier/on-item barcode details.
  • Tax code: the VAT default used by downstream workflows where applicable.

The create page also shows Rules for this item. Empty SKU fields show guidance only; SKU policy warnings appear after a SKU has been entered. SKU guidance shows an example-first format where ChannelWeave can describe the active rule, with the advanced pattern kept secondary. Manage those policies in Settings → Inventory.

Stock item detail

The stock item detail form is the product workspace for one SKU. It brings together identity, inventory settings, replenishment defaults, storage, barcodes, pricing defaults, product images, stock history, and draft-creation actions.

The top of the detail form also includes Catalogue readiness, a data-quality checklist for the current stock item.

Catalogue readiness

Catalogue readiness checks whether a stock item has enough clean product data to be understood by marketplaces, search engines, and AI shopping agents.

It is not a ranking promise. It is a practical data-quality check that helps you fix missing product facts before exporting or publishing.

Where to find it

Open Inventory → Stock items, then open a stock item. The stock item detail page includes a Catalogue readiness card near the top of the page.

The card shows:

  • Ready: the item has passed the current checks.
  • Needs attention: the item can be improved, but has no blocking issue.
  • Not suitable yet: the item has at least one blocker, such as being inactive or missing a sale price.
  • A score out of 100.
  • The specific fixes to make next.

What ChannelWeave checks

ChannelWeave checks the current stock item, product family, product images, reference facts, published listing state, and channel-scoped listing defaults.

The checks include:

  • active stock status
  • buyer-readable product title
  • sale price
  • known availability
  • variant option values for multi-variant products
  • useful default listing description
  • recognised product identifier such as GTIN, EAN, UPC, ISBN, manufacturer barcode, or matching reference fact
  • at least one product image
  • category, taxonomy, or stock-group context
  • brand, manufacturer, label, maker, or publisher reference fact
  • published listing
  • weight, size, dimensions, or equivalent physical facts

How to improve an item

Use the stock item form to fix the issue shown in the card:

  • Edit Product title and Default listing description in the Identity section.
  • Add Reference facts such as Brand, Manufacturer, MPN, GTIN, EAN, UPC, or dimensions.
  • Add or sync images in the Stock image manifest.
  • Add a Suggested sale price in Pricing.
  • Add manufacturer barcode details in Advanced fields.
  • Create or update listing defaults so category and listing copy are available.
  • Create and publish a listing when you are ready to make the item visible to buyers.

When form-level warnings are present, the Eden leaf beside Stock item switches to warning state. Eden opens with a clean input and suggested questions for the current record, such as low stock, catalogue readiness, reference facts, or listing copy. Pick a suggestion when you want Eden to explain what to fix first or draft a fuller default listing description; the suggestion sends immediately as a one-click starter. The suggested question is shown as a short label, while Eden receives the current stock item context behind the scenes so the answer uses the latest quantities, reorder settings, catalogue-readiness checks, and reference facts for that record. If you reopen the modal from the same stock item and continue a saved stock-item help conversation, Eden restores that current-record context for the next turn.

Use Explain readiness issues when you want advice only. Eden explains the current readiness score, blockers, and warnings, then suggests what to improve without applying changes.

Use Fix readiness with Eden when you want a turn-by-turn guided action. Eden starts with the first missing readiness blocker, asks for a missing sale price when needed, confirms the value, and then shows an inline Apply action. The button still submits the confirmed action back through the server; Eden saves only after that explicit confirmation. The open stock item form is refreshed with the saved sale price. Eden can then draft a fuller default listing description and save it to the form after a second inline Apply description confirmation. Description drafts use the fuller saved reference-fact set for the item, so edition, numbering, release, condition, and similar details are not silently left out.

Review the result after saving or after a guided Eden apply. The readiness card refreshes after stock item saves, guided sale-price applies, reference-fact changes, and image changes.

Catalogue exports

Catalogue exports live in Inventory → Data exchange. They are authenticated downloads for the current customer's active stock catalogue:

  • Canonical JSON: ChannelWeave's canonical commerce product export, including stock item identity, price, availability, identifiers, images, options, and the readiness result.
  • Google CSV: a Merchant-style product CSV with best-available fields and readiness labels in custom label columns.
  • schema.org JSON: Product JSON-LD objects that can be used as a starting point for website structured data.

Exports are manual download files for review, upload, or developer hand-off. ChannelWeave does not submit them automatically. Exports include active stock items by default. Inactive items can be included by adding ?include_inactive=1 to the export URL.

Important limits

Catalogue readiness does not invent missing product facts. If a GTIN, brand, MPN, weight, listing, or category is unknown, ChannelWeave reports it as missing rather than guessing.

The Google CSV and schema.org JSON exports are feed-preparation outputs. Review them before uploading to any external service, especially where a channel has additional policy, category, shipping, tax, or destination-country requirements.

Description drafting with Eden

Saved stock items include Draft with Eden and Add reference facts beside the product title. Use them to prepare the stock item's Default listing description, which then preloads listing drafts unless a template or draft value overrides it.

Draft with Eden drafts restrained product copy from the current stock-item facts, including product title, SKU, unit of measure, the existing default listing description, and saved stock item Reference facts. Optional facts approved in Add reference facts are merged into the same draft request. It does not route the request through general Eden onboarding answers.

Description drafting can use up to 24 saved or approved reference facts. That limit keeps the draft focused without hiding a normal curated stock-item fact list. When the list is short, Eden is expected to preserve buyer-visible details such as edition, numbering, release year, format, label, condition, and additional notes. Eden may vary sentence order and wording between drafts, but the factual content should stay stable.

Eden must not add unsupported collectability, rarity, fan-demand, fulfilment, shipping, or packaging claims. Source-only metadata such as evidence snippets, source URLs, database IDs, and release IDs is kept out of the buyer-facing draft; product catalogue numbers are still used when they are saved as catalogue-number facts.

Add reference facts fetches a trusted public product page, extracts candidate product facts from structured Product data, metadata, and page text, then shows those facts for review. Normal scripts, styles, links, comments, and other non-content blocks are discarded while JSON-LD Product data is preserved; generic page-section headings such as Features or Reviews are filtered out. Tick only the facts Eden may use, then choose Draft with Eden or clear the facts before drafting. If the stock item title is still empty and the reference page includes a product-name fact, ChannelWeave offers Use as product title so the title is applied only after user approval. ChannelWeave reads up to 2 MB of remote HTML and keeps up to 1.25 MB of stripped page content.

Review Eden's draft before saving. Saved and approved reference facts support the draft, including buyer-visible details such as edition, numbering, release year, label, format, and condition; the raw page is not sent to Eden.

Columns

  • SKU (Stock Keeping Unit): your unique internal code for the item
  • Item: product title and summary of the stock record
  • On hand: physical quantity held in stock
  • Allocated: quantity reserved against open sales orders
  • Available: on hand minus allocated — what can still be sold
  • Reorder at: the level at which the item is flagged as low stock
  • Reorder qty: the suggested quantity to bring back in
  • Status: the item's current state

Actions

  • Create stock item: add a new stock record
  • Create drafts: open the listing-template chooser to create channel drafts directly from the item
  • Low stock: when low-stock items exist, the sidebar badge shows a warning count and the list exposes a Low stock filter badge for reorder-risk items

Stock groups

Stock groups organise related items and can carry group-specific SKU policy behaviour. A stock item can be left without a group, or assigned to an active group from the create/detail forms. Use Manage stock groups from the form, or open Stock groups, to review group setup.

When a stock group has its own SKU policy, choose the group first so ChannelWeave can show the right SKU guidance before the item is saved.

Units of measure

Each stock item now has a base unit, a purchase unit, and a sales/listing unit.

  • Base unit is the inventory unit ChannelWeave stores in stock balances, warehouse movements, allocations, reservations, and valuation.
  • Purchase unit is the supplier-facing unit used on purchase order entry. Purchase order lines keep the entered purchase quantity, then convert it into base units for receipts and stock history.
  • Sales/listing unit is the buyer-facing unit used for sales order entry, channel order imports, listing draft quantities, and listing availability fan-out. ChannelWeave converts it into base units before reserving, allocating, or dispatching stock.

For example, if the base unit is Each and the sales/listing unit is Case with 12 base units per case, listing availability shows whole cases while stock history and warehouse balances remain in eaches.

Once a stock item has stock movements, purchase lines, sales lines, or non-zero bin balances, its base unit and item conversion factors are locked. Create a new stock item if the physical counting basis needs to change after transactions exist.

Storage and barcodes

Stock items can store a default Location, Primary bin, and optional Reserve bin. Select a location first; ChannelWeave then shows the available bins for that location. These fields support pick paths and multi-bin warehouse workflows, but can be left blank for simpler stock setups.

Barcode fields support warehouse scanning and supplier/manufacturer identity:

  • Internal barcode is the warehouse-first barcode. It can be generated on create and is read-only after save.
  • Manufacturer barcode records the UPC, EAN, GTIN, ISBN, or other barcode printed on the product or supplied by the manufacturer.
  • Manufacturer barcode format records the known format, or can be left as auto-detect/unknown.

SKU, internal barcode, manufacturer barcode, and product title all help operators recognise the right item during search, picking, replenishment, and listing preparation.

Media and images

The stock item detail page includes a Stock image manifest. This is the product-level image list reused by channel drafts and listings.

Use Sync from Media library to append matching files from Media library by SKU-based names, or Open Media library to upload and manage product images. For predictable matching, use names such as:

  • sku.jpg
  • sku-front.jpg
  • sku-detail.png

Existing manifest images are not duplicated when syncing. Once images are on the stock item, channel draft flows can reuse them instead of rebuilding the image list from scratch.

Pricing and replenishment defaults

Stock item detail stores operational defaults that downstream workflows can reuse:

  • Suggested sale price: default price guidance for new listing drafts.
  • Cost price: default cost used by purchasing and valuation workflows where applicable.
  • VAT code: default tax treatment for the item.
  • Reorder level and Reorder quantity: values used to flag low-stock risk and guide replenishment.

Stock history

The stock item detail page includes Stock history, a statement-style view of inventory movements for the item. It shows the movement date, transaction type, source, In, Out, and running Balance columns, with the newest dated row at the top.

The opening balance brought forward is sorted by its own date/time, like every other row. This reconciles the current stock summary with recorded Warehouse movements so older imported or pre-ledger balances remain visible alongside later receipts, adjustments, transfers, and dispatches.

Stock item detail also includes a separate Record change history card. Use it for record-level audit events, such as when the stock record itself was created or changed. Data Exchange imports now write stock-created or stock-updated events there, while quantity changes still appear in Stock history with their Data Exchange movement source.