Inventory Ingestion
Author:
Fluent Commerce
Changed on:
9 Feb 2025
Overview
Inventory Ingestion in Fluent Commerce ensures that stock levels across all sales channels remain accurate and up-to-date, enabling effective inventory management. It allows businesses to send inventory updates to the platform using two distinct methods: Inventory Batch and Inventory Delta. Each method is tailored to different scenarios, depending on data volume, frequency, and operational needs.
Key points
- Inventory Batches handle large-scale updates (thousands to millions of records), while Delta updates are ideal for smaller, incremental changes in real time.
- Batches use asynchronous processing for bulk data, grouped into Jobs for tracking, whereas Deltas are processed individually directly by the workflow engine.
- Batches are suited for periodic updates like ERP integrations and stocktakes, while Inventory Deltas are designed for real-time changes to reflect inventory movements such as store sales, returns, or daily adjustments.
- Batches require management of file sizes and grouping, while Deltas focus only on incremental updates, ensuring simplicity and speed for smaller changes.
Inventory Batch
Inventory Batches are designed for high-volume, periodic updates that consolidate inventory changes collected over a defined period.
Key Features
- Data Volume: Best for large data volumes (e.g., thousands to millions of records). Inventory Batches are capped at 5,000 records each. Jobs are used to group Inventory Batches, providing visibility into the success or failure of associated updates.
- Performance Considerations:
- Asynchronous processing allows for efficient handling of large datasets.
- Requires splitting large data sets into appropriately sized batch files for optimal performance.
- When to Use:
- Periodic updates from an ERP or other inventory source of truth, typically daily or hourly.
- Stocktake updates or large-scale inventory adjustments after audits or manual corrections.
- Use cases requiring a comprehensive update to stock levels across multiple SKUs and locations.
Inventory Delta
Inventory delta updates are real-time or near-real-time updates, ideal for incremental changes to inventory levels rather than full updates.
Key Features
- Data Volume: Best suited for low to moderate data volumes, with updates reflecting changes (deltas) at a more granular level (e.g., store sales).
- Performance Considerations:
- Designed for smaller updates without duplication, ensuring each update is unique and accurately reflected.
- Eliminates the need for batching, offering direct integration with OMS for time-sensitive updates.
- Requires less overhead compared to batch processing, making it efficient for smaller, incremental data volumes.
- When to Use:
- Reflecting real-time changes, such as sales in physical stores, returns, or transfers.
- Scenarios where updates cannot be batched.
- Offline stock movements during daily retail trading that need quick synchronization with OMS.
- Situations where only incremental changes (deltas) need to be communicated, avoiding the overhead of sending complete inventory updates.
By selecting the appropriate method—Batch for bulk updates or Delta for incremental changes—retailers can maintain accurate inventory levels, improve operational efficiency, and enhance the customer experience.
