Inventory Federation

When inventory lives everywhere except in one reliable place

The modern brand does not keep inventory in one corner anymore. Some units sit in a primary warehouse. Others live in overflow storage. A portion feeds Amazon FBA. Some SKUs cycle through a 3PL. A few sit at a retail partner's DC or a marketplace vendor facility. Meanwhile the D2C site acts like all of these locations magically behave like one. Without inventory federation, that illusion breaks fast.

Search behavior confirms this pain. Operators type things like unify inventory across multiple warehouses, connect FBA and 3PL stock, and sync inventory across marketplaces and retail. They are not chasing convenience. They are trying to stop the daily embarrassment of oversells, shorts, and contradictory counts.

Fragmented inventory creates predictable chaos

When each location controls its own truth, problems multiply. A warehouse thinks a SKU is plentiful, unaware that FBA drained the last of it. Amazon shows availability even though stock is trapped in a pallet that has not been broken down yet. Shopify oversells because the marketplace feed updated two hours late. Retailers complain about shorts because the 3PL thought it had more cases than it did.

Maureen Milligan sees these patterns in nearly every onboarding call. She 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." Fragmented inventory makes those commitments nearly impossible to honor.

Federation begins with a single operational brain

Inventory federation is not a new system. It is a new structure. Multiple inventory pools feed into a single warehouse management system that acts as the operational brain. FBA counts flow into the same truth as 3PL counts. Retail allocations live alongside marketplace and D2C reserves. Instead of a dozen partial pictures, the brand finally sees one real one.

Connor Perkins described the value of this unified view. He 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." That clarity is the heart of inventory federation. You cannot manage what you cannot see.

The WMS turns many sources into one truth

A weak WMS cannot federate anything. It loses track of units, delays updates, or lacks the structure to reconcile multiple sources. A strong WMS does the opposite. It absorbs counts from every location, aligns them with reality on the floor, and uses rules to determine what can be sold, committed, or reserved.

Bryan Wright, who built the WMS used by G10, said it plainly. "A bad WMS system will not track inventory 100 percent as it should." Federation demands nothing less than perfect. Bryan also explained how the system handles complex retail demands natively. "We can create the Walmart-specific shipping label, send them Walmart-specific EDI transaction, pick it in a specific way for Walmart." That same precision is what allows the WMS to align inventory from multiple sources.

Robotics keep real-world movement aligned with digital truth

Even with a strong WMS, the warehouse floor must behave predictably or the federation model breaks. Inventory moves constantly, and those movements must be traceable. Robotics help ensure that every pick, putaway, and transfer lands exactly where the system thinks it should.

Holly Woods talked about the Zebra robots at G10. "The robot is round, it looks like an industrial Roomba," she said. Those robots guide carts through optimized routes, reducing mispicks and reinforcing consistent workflows. When movement is standardized, the WMS can trust that the federated data matches reality.

Federation keeps channels from stealing inventory from each other

Once inventory is federated, channels stop acting like rivals and start behaving like coordinated parts of the same operation. Amazon sees what Shopify sees. Shopify sees what wholesale sees. Retail allocations remain protected. Marketplaces no longer drain D2C. Everyone operates from the same data, updated in real time.

Joel Malmquist highlighted the day-to-day execution behind this. "We are the ones shipping the orders for these brands," he said. Tracking flows back into Shopify and other channels in real time because they all reference the same inventory truth.

Federation makes planning smarter across facilities

Federated inventory allows forecasting to operate at a higher level. Instead of guessing which location might run out first, the system predicts needs across the entire network. It warns when FBA is low, when a remote warehouse needs replenishment, or when a retail commitment will require rerouting inventory.

Holly explained the work behind strong planning. "We do forecast models, staffing models, and we audit inventory, equipment." With a federated inventory base, those models actually reflect what is happening in the operation.

Federation proves its worth during multi-channel spikes

The real test for inventory federation comes during multi-channel volatility. An influencer sends a flood of D2C orders. Amazon ranking jumps. A retailer pulls a promotion forward. Marketplaces light up simultaneously. Without federation, the system becomes unstable. With federation, the system routes work, protects commitments, and rebalances stock across the network.

Joel described a scenario that demonstrates this resilience. A brand asked whether G10 could handle a case where "Target drops 10 POs and gives us 48 hours to turn it around." Joel said, "Yes we can." That confidence comes from an integrated network built to respond, not react.

Customer service gets one story, not five excuses

When inventory is fragmented, customer service becomes a translator. Each channel gives a different story about what happened. Customers hear one version. Retailers hear another. No one knows which is true. Federation fixes that. One system. One record. One explanation grounded in real data.

Joel explained how this works. "Every single account at G10 has a direct point of contact." That point of contact sees every inventory source in one system, not in disconnected tools.

Federation supports channels you have not added yet

Brands rarely stay in one channel. They expand into Amazon, Walmart Marketplace, wholesale, retail, and new distribution programs. Federated inventory allows new channels to plug into the same unified truth instead of creating new blind spots.

Jen Myers sees this pattern often. "Someone might be a Shopify brand, so they are only selling D2C, and their path to growth might be to start selling on Amazon next." With federation in place, Amazon does not break the structure. It becomes part of it.

A builder mindset behind federated inventory

Inventory federation reflects a founder’s instinct toward expansion. These are brands that expect complexity, not fear it. They want a structure ready for the channels they know about and the ones they have not added yet.

Mark Becker said it best. "At the end of the day, all we are is builders. The two of us love to build." Inventory federation gives builders the foundation to grow boldly without losing operational control.

Next steps toward a federated inventory model

If your team is still reconciling counts manually, discovering inventory conflicts after orders ship, or juggling multiple platforms that do not agree on stock, the issue is fragmentation. Inventory federation replaces fragmented data with a single, real-time operational truth.

With that structure in place, your brand can expand channels, add facilities, scale promotions, and launch new programs without treating growth as a risk. Federation makes complexity manageable and growth predictable.