Manage stock, control availability, and understand the basics of Multi Source Inventory (MSI).
Inventory management is on the product form under Quantity near the top, and in more detail under Advanced Inventory (a link right next to the Qty field).
The most important values in the main form
- Qty: the currently available quantity.
- Stock Status: "In Stock" or "Out of Stock" – can override the quantity, e.g. to temporarily block a product despite remaining stock.
Advanced Inventory in detail
- Minimum/Maximum Qty Allowed in Shopping Cart: minimum and maximum order quantity per order.
- Qty Uses Decimals: enable when selling in partial units (e.g. by the meter, by weight).
- Backorders: whether customers can still order when stock is at 0 ("No Backorders", "Allow Qty Below 0" with or without customer notification).
- Notify for Quantity Below: the stock level at which the product shows up in the "Low Stock" report (see the "Product Reports" chapter) and on the dashboard.
- Enable Qty Increments: forces customers to order only in fixed steps (e.g. always in packs of six).
Multi Source Inventory (MSI)
Since Magento 2.3 there is Multi Source Inventory, managed under Stores > Inventory:
- Sources represent physical stock locations (e.g. main warehouse, returns warehouse, a physical store) with their own address – relevant for shipping cost calculation and delivery time display.
- Stocks group one or more sources into a logical unit and are in turn assigned to specific websites – a product never "belongs" directly to a source; instead its stock is maintained per source and summed per stock.
The total stock shown on the storefront for a product is the sum across every source belonging to the stock assigned to the current website. For a single store with just one warehouse, the default source Magento ships with is entirely sufficient, without needing to dig into MSI in any detail.
Manage Stock and the out-of-stock threshold
Within the Advanced Inventory settings, Manage Stock determines whether Magento tracks stock for this product at all: set to "No", the product is always orderable regardless of Qty – practical for services or products with no real quantity limit. The Qty for Item's Status to Become Out of Stock field defines the (even negative) quantity at which a product is automatically marked "Out of Stock", independent of a manually set stock status. Global defaults for these fields are maintained under Stores > Configuration > Catalog > Inventory > Product Stock Options.
Creating sources in detail
Under Stores > Inventory > Sources > Add New Source you create a new source with a Source Name, an internal Source Code, the Enable Source toggle, and full address details (Country, State/Province, City, Postcode, Street). If Latitude and Longitude are filled in, the distance-based source selection algorithm can prefer whichever source is closest to the shipping address.
Stocks: sales channels and source priority
Under Stores > Inventory > Stocks > Add New Stock you first give the stock a Stock Name, assign the relevant website(s) on the Sales Channels tab, and link one or more sources on the Sources tab, each with its own Priority – priority 1 is drawn from first, and the next source only kicks in once it's depleted. Which algorithm is used for this (e.g. plain priority order or distance-based) is set under Stores > Configuration > Catalog > Inventory > Source Selection Algorithms.