ARI Responsive Websites

Inventory Rules

Owned by Tad Bremner
Last updated: Mar 13, 2021
3 min read

Once configured these rules will tell the system how to handle the inventory that we are pulling from each of the distributor warehouses.  Here you will decide the price range of products that you want to drop-ship and/or, assign the number of days that product will take to get from the distributor to you.  

Key Definitions

  • Lead Time - The number of days that you need to get tracking into the marketplace, or the number of days that product takes to get to your shop before you are going to send it to the buyer.  

  • Drop-ship Cutoff - The dollar amount that you want to start drop-shipping at.  The system will automatically issue a 1 day lead time for all product that is over the Drop Ship Cutoff dollar amount.

  • Exclude Warehouse - When this box is checked the warehouse simply will not be included in inventory calculations.  Uncheck the box if you wish to utilize the warehouse.  The default for new accounts is to exclude all warehouses so you will need to uncheck these boxes.

Quick Inventory Rules Configuration

  • If you just want to drop-ship everything, set all of your drop-ship cutoffs to $1.00 and Lead Times to 1 Day.  Done.

  • If you don't want to do any drop-shipping and you want all products coming to you first just set all of your drop-ship cutoffs to $9,999 and Lead Times to 4 Days.  Done.

Examples and Explanations

Example #1: Most dealers don't want to pay the fee to have a  $6.00 valve stem seal drop-shipped so they will set a Drop-ship Cutoff to ensure that cheaper product is shipped to them before going to the buyer.  If you had a Drop-ship Cutoff of $50.00 and a Lead Time of 3 Days, this $6.00 valve stem seal would fall under the cutoff and the webstore would tell the buyer that you will need 3 Days to get the buyer tracking information.

Example #2: If a dealer only wants to drop ship product they would set the Drop-ship cutoff to one dollar.  From there the Lead Time field is obsolete because everything is above the dropship cutoff.  Everything would just get a 1-day Lead Time

Example #3: If you set Western Power Sports, CA warehouse to Dropship Cutoff of $150 this means that all product over $150 is going to get a lead time of 1, no matter what.  This means that you have 1 day to get tracking to the buyer.  Anything under $150 will get the value assigned in the Lead Time column.

Example #4: Some distributors do not drop-ship (Parts Unlimited for some).  This means that you will want a high drop-ship cutoff; one that will ensure all product gets assigned the proper lead time.  To disable drop shipping you simply set the dropship cutoff to $9,999.  From here just make sure that your lead times are accurate based on how many days the product takes to get to you.  

To help determine the lead time we recommend visiting UPS or FedEx to calculate the time from the distributor warehouse zip code to your zip code.  UPS Time & Cost Estimator.

How should I set my Inventory Rules?

Everyone has their own way of doing things and each dealer has their own unique set of circumstances so, there is no ultimate way to configure this.  We offer the following words of wisdom:

  1. Don't set all your Lead Times to the same value across the board.  Take the time to determine how long the product takes to get to you from each warehouse.

  2. You can always start conservative and then start taking more risk once you see how fulfillment on your listings goes for the first month.  

  3. These webstores and marketplaces are fairly competitive and a lot of buyers look for fast shipping these days.  Make sure that a portion of your listings are eligible for drop ship or a 1 day lead time.