Inventory Availability Tracking: Keeping Available-to-Sell Honest Across Every Channel

Availability is the promise you make at checkout

Inventory availability tracking matters because customers do not buy inventory. They buy availability. Research shows that oversells and backorders often come from one root cause: the business is not tracking what is truly available to sell, in real time, across every channel. When availability is wrong, the brand makes promises it cannot keep, and the customer experience pays the price.

Many brands come to G10 after discovering that their system told them they had inventory, but they could not ship it. The inventory was reserved. The inventory was damaged. The inventory was in transit. The inventory was in a location no one could find. Inventory availability tracking is what separates on-hand counts from sellable reality.

As Maureen Milligan said, "Most of the customers who come to us from another 3PL, their challenges have always been access to their data, order accuracy and efficiency, and basically just meeting the committed requirements. So we've seen a lot of people come disillusioned by their last 3PL, where their orders weren't getting fulfilled in time, their inventory accuracy was not there, and they were not able to satisfy customer orders." Availability tracking helps prevent that disillusionment by keeping promises aligned with what the warehouse can actually ship.

Availability tracking starts with real time inventory events

Inventory availability tracking fails when updates are delayed. If receiving takes too long to show up as available inventory, you miss sales. If picking and allocation are not reflected quickly, you oversell. Research shows that delayed receiving updates and delayed allocation updates are common causes of availability errors because the system does not reflect reality quickly enough.

Bryan Wright described the kind of timestamped event history that supports real time visibility when he said, "Absolutely. We have portals that show you the data. We have history that shows you all of that tracking. It shows the product landed on the dock at 8 o'clock. At 8:10, John picked it up and took it to location XYZ, and at 10 o'clock, we picked two items off of that pellet in the location 1, 2, 3, 4, order, you know, ABC, and at 11 o'clock, we packed it, we put it in this box and put this label number on it, and all the way through the process onto the truck and to the customer." Availability tracking relies on this same chain of events, but applied to inventory state changes from inbound to available to allocated to shipped.

Scan-based execution keeps availability data accurate

Availability tracking only works when inventory counts and locations are accurate. Scan-based execution is what makes that possible. If inventory moves without scans, the system can show availability that does not exist, which creates oversells and backorders.

As Connor Perkins said, "You want everything to be scanned in the warehouse, nothing done on paper. You can lose a lot of money in this industry by you know having people ship stuff wrong, or store it wrong, and now it's lost somewhere. So having a 3PL and WMS that is 100% scan-based is crucial." Inventory availability tracking depends on scan discipline because scans keep inventory state aligned with physical movement.

Connor also said, "One of the pain points our clients have experienced with previous 3PLSs is inventory accuracy; maybe their previous 3PL wasn't great at picking the orders accurately. So they were losing money by shipping wrong items or wrong quantities of items." When accuracy breaks, availability breaks, and customers feel it immediately.

Availability tracking requires clear inventory states

Availability tracking is not the same as inventory tracking. A strong system separates inventory into clear states. On-hand inventory is not the same as available-to-sell. Available-to-sell is not the same as allocated. Allocated is not the same as picked. Picked is not the same as shipped. Research shows that state confusion is a major driver of oversells because inventory is effectively sold twice when allocation is not enforced.

Availability tracking should also account for damaged and quarantined inventory. If inventory is not sellable, it should not appear as available. These are the details that keep checkout promises honest.

Allocation visibility prevents the most common oversell mistake

Oversells often happen when orders allocate inventory, but the storefront still shows those units as available. Allocation is a state change, and it needs to be visible in real time. Research shows that multi-channel brands are especially vulnerable because multiple marketplaces can draw down the same inventory pool quickly.

When allocation is visible, planners can react quickly. They can pause ads for a SKU that is running low. They can reroute inventory. They can accelerate inbound receiving. Without allocation visibility, they find out after the oversell happens.

Receiving speed turns inbound into available-to-sell faster

Availability tracking is also a receiving problem. Inventory that is not received is not available. Research shows that delayed receiving is a hidden sales killer because inventory sits on a dock while the storefront shows out of stock.

Availability tracking works best when receiving is fast, accurate, and tied to real time updates. That allows inbound inventory to become sellable inventory quickly and predictably.

Transaction history explains availability changes

When availability drops unexpectedly, teams need to know why. Transaction history is what explains availability changes because it shows the events that reduced or increased availability: allocations, picks, shipments, receiving, relocations, and adjustments.

As Connor said, "Our clients get best-in-class visibility and transparency. They can see their daily orders, they can see KPIs, and they can see historical transactions. They can look at a daily level or go into the more granular version where they're looking at transactional history on an item." Availability tracking becomes more trustworthy when you can trace changes to the underlying transactions.

He also said, "You have easy access to reporting and you can export to Excel, or really any format that you like you know directly from our WMS portal." Reporting access helps brands validate availability behavior, audit changes, and align decisions across teams.

Portals make availability tracking usable for brands

Inventory availability tracking is most useful when brands can see it directly, without waiting for a report. A portal that shows inventory levels and inventory accuracy signals makes availability tracking practical for merchandising, planning, and customer support.

As Maureen said, "We're in the last stages of developing a new portal that will give customers real-time visibility to their on-time order fulfillment, inventory accuracy, and even inventory levels so that they can monitor those things directly in our systems." Availability tracking improves when brands can monitor inventory levels directly and see whether inventory is actually available to sell.

She added, "A lot of the 3PL customer expectations are that order fulfillment is happening extremely timely, that our inventory is accurate, that we're able to execute on their orders very quickly, and get them shipped the same day. So what these real-time portals provide our customers is 100% visibility." Availability is part of that visibility because it connects inventory truth to customer promises.

Availability tracking reduces backorders, cancels, and support tickets

Backorders create tickets. Cancels create refunds. Both damage repeat purchase behavior. Inventory availability tracking reduces these problems by keeping available-to-sell inventory aligned with real inventory movement and allocation.

As Maureen said, "We will take in your inbounds, we will get them received and reported back to you within our SLAs, and oftentimes more quickly than what we contracted for. We will ship your orders out the day they're required. And our inventory accuracy is generally right there at that 99.7% that we agreed. So that's one of the areas where we really do excel, and where we've been able to win business." Availability tracking supports that performance by keeping inventory accurate and sellable inventory visible.

Availability tracking rebuilds confidence after bad inventory data

Brands often switch 3PLs because availability stopped being believable. A SKU showed in stock, but it was not. A shipment arrived, but the system never reflected it fast enough. Availability tracking rebuilds confidence by aligning sellable inventory with real warehouse execution.

As Maureen said, "For customers who have come to us from a bad 3PL relationship, they experience relief. They're suddenly seeing their business scaling, that the data supports what we agreed to, and then the trust begins to build." Availability tracking contributes to that relief because inventory truth makes planning possible again.

Inventory availability tracking is now essential

As ecommerce moves faster, availability accuracy becomes a competitive advantage. Inventory availability tracking requires real time event capture, scan-based execution, portals that expose inventory levels, and transaction history that explains changes.

As Connor said, "This is one of our strengths. G10 is on the cutting edge for this kind of transparency and feedback for clients." If your brand wants fewer oversells, fewer backorders, fewer cancellations, and fewer customer apologies, inventory availability tracking is a practical place to focus.

If you want to see what availability tracking looks like when every movement is captured and every allocation is visible in real time, ask for a walkthrough that maps your current inventory surprises to a clearer, more defensible visibility model.