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The Magento database contains the table cataloginventory_stock with a single entry in there called 'Default'. I know this is the place to start for handling multiple stock locations.

I'm wondering if any of you have had experience in this and what the pitfalls are.

I'm looking to:

  1. Be able to track product stock across various physical locations (shops/warehouses/etc)
  2. Be able to identify where a product's stock is to be picked from for each customer order

If anyone could provide a link to an article or tutorial on this or just share their experience going down this path that would be great. Whether you've developed it yourself or have used a third party module, I'd love to hear from you.

Edit: I ended up writing my own multi-inventory module that adds extra rows to the existing cataloginventory_stock table. It required overriding a few observers and models that check the stock location. In many places the stock ID of 1 was hard coded into the core.

In another project I have used Demac's multi inventory location module. While it's not perfect, it worked out of the box and is written well. I was able to easily extend and customise it for my needs.

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  • see if this one can help, magentocommerce.com/magento-connect/…
    – user9467
    Aug 28, 2014 at 12:19
  • hi ,really nice question, + 1 for this.... what solution you got now.... please post as an answer....
    – Baby in Magento
    Jan 8, 2015 at 5:31
  • >> Edit: I ended up writing my own multi-inventory module that adds extra rows to the existing cataloginventory_stock table. It required overriding a few observers and models that check the stock location. In many places the stock ID of 1 was hard coded into the core. SNH: would you be able to share this??? I am very interested ...
    – snh_nl
    Jan 16, 2017 at 12:04
  • FYI. Maybe interesting reference: magento.stackexchange.com/questions/17327/…
    – snh_nl
    Jan 16, 2017 at 12:11

3 Answers 3

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There are at least two ways to implement a multi warehouse in Magento; we discussed about this topic during a Magento U course.

The first is that of exploiting the fact that Magento is virtually ready to use multiple inventories as you higlighted. This is the most complex way because you should implement indexing logic.

The second way is that of simulating a multi warehouse by customizing magento product page giving the ability to specify a quantity for each inventory and saving their sum on the default quantity field upon product save.

On order placement you have to implement a custom logic to determine which inventory to decrement (or increment upon order failure).

I will implement a proof of concept of this during a workshop in next november, I will be glad to share my results.

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    Dear all, as promised here is the proof of concept of a Multiwarehouse module: github.com/webgriffe/Webgriffe_Multiwarehouse - any contribution is very appreciated
    – Alessandro Ronchi
    Nov 10, 2014 at 11:18
  • Does this support the native stock_id column and cataloginventory_stock
    – snh_nl
    Jan 16, 2017 at 12:05
  • No, it doesn't, it's based on custom entity related to order entity.
    – Alessandro Ronchi
    Jan 16, 2017 at 13:10
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    @AlessandroRonchi I tried your module and it works great! Does it also support the ability for pickers to pick the item from the correct warehouse? If there are only two new tables, then I guess probably not?
    – Vladimir Despotovic
    Jan 24, 2017 at 9:24
  • @AlessandroRonchi where is the additionalData (the data about qty to be picked from each warehouse) stored?
    – Vladimir Despotovic
    Jan 24, 2017 at 14:10
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There are a few extensions that allow you to do that. As a temporary solution for one store, we just added attributes with the locations and ran a conditional script to tell the pickers where to get the items from.

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  • hi, can you please explain this satement : "ran a conditional script to tell the pickers where to get the items from.".... thanks a lot in advance.
    – Baby in Magento
    Jan 8, 2015 at 5:34
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    I was referring to "Be able to identify where a product's stock is to be picked from for each customer order", we created a script that looped through all the products ordered, got their location from the location attribute we added, and based on a few conditions we generated a pickpath. One of the conditions for example was that if an item was located in two bins but one of them was on ground level, we sent the picker to the one on the ground level as opposed to the one on the upper levels - hope this helps
    – Haim
    Jan 8, 2015 at 17:01
  • hi, thanks a lot for reply. as you and charlie said creating attribute is the better option.... thanks a lot in advance
    – Baby in Magento
    Jan 9, 2015 at 6:58
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Yes, you can create custom attribute for product as "location", In admin panel go to

Catalog->Attributes->Manage Attributes

Create your own attribute for each product and while creating product store the location [location id] etc.

For more information to create custom attribute for product check out this link

http://www.magentocommerce.com/knowledge-base/entry/tutorial-creating-attributes-custom-fields

and you need to add this custome attribute to quote and order also check this http://www.atwix.com/magento/custom-product-attribute-quote-order-item/

Thanks

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