Case 02 2024

Sellable quantities

Available inventory and sellable inventory sound like the same thing. For Shopify merchants, they're not. That gap was causing overselling, incorrect stock signals for buyers, and back-office numbers merchants couldn't trust. I joined this multi-project initiative mid-stream and eventually led the design direction.

Role
Lead Designer
Duration
3–4 months
Status
Paused
  • Hundreds of support tickets in a 12-month window tied directly to overselling, concentrated among mid-to-high complexity and high-GMV merchants
  • Available tracks what's in stock. Sellable reflects what can actually be sold, after applying fulfillment rules, regional restrictions, and publishing logic.
  • Stepped in mid-stream and took ownership of project strategy and design direction
  • Ran research sessions with mid-to-high complexity merchants that shaped where and how sellable quantities were surfaced
  • Drove cross-team alignment to land a system-level solution across Products and Draft orders
Example 1

Product index

  • Designed toward two goals: alerting merchants when inventory approached a threshold and a quick breakdown across variants and locations
  • Leveraged the "View as" context switcher to clarify sellable quantities across different selling scenarios
Example 2

Draft orders

  • Replaced available with sellable quantity in the product picker modal, the more accurate data point when building an order
  • Introduced oversell warnings when sellable inventory falls short, with the option to override

Delivered end-to-end design across the product index and draft orders before being deprioritized; priorities shifted to retaining self-shippers at risk of replatforming, which became Pick list.

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