Kits let you sell a set of products as a single item—a box of candy, a bundle of socks, or a gift basket. Instead of tracking each component separately, you manage the set as one unit. This article explains how kit availability is calculated and how ShipHero keeps it accurate as your inventory changes.
How Many Kits You Can Sell
A kit's availability equals its lowest-stocked component. Take a chocolate gift basket made up of:
- 1 Belgian chocolate bar (200 in stock)
- 1 German chocolate bar (500 in stock)
- 1 Swedish chocolate bar (4,000 in stock)
You can build 200 baskets—no more—because you only have 200 Belgian chocolate bars. The other components have plenty of stock, but a basket can't be completed without all three.
If one of those components also sells on its own, or its stock is adjusted, the number of baskets you can sell changes immediately. Tracking this by hand is slow and error-prone, especially when a component appears in many kits.
How ShipHero Calculates Kit Availability at Scale
ShipHero calculates kit availability automatically, based on the live stock of every component. Whenever a component's inventory changes, kit availability updates to match—so you never oversell a kit or its parts.
Because this happens automatically, components can sell individually or in multiple kits without you recalculating anything.
Real-Time and Scheduled Updates
Keeping kit availability accurate at scale is demanding, so ShipHero uses two methods to process inventory updates:
- Real-time updates: When a product (SKU) is adjusted, ShipHero publishes its updated availability to any connected store right away.
- Scheduled updates: Tasks run on a regular schedule to check for changes and publish them, keeping connected stores, kits, purchase orders, and inventory in sync.
To balance speed and scale, ShipHero looks at how quickly each SKU sells and picks the right method:
- Real-time updates for low-stock products, where the risk of overselling is higher.
- Scheduled updates for high-stock products, where that risk is low.
Back to the chocolate gift basket. Its components are:
- 1 Belgian chocolate bar (200 in stock)
- 1 German chocolate bar (500 in stock)
- 1 Swedish chocolate bar (4,000 in stock)
Suppose the Swedish chocolate bar also appears in 80 other baskets. Recalculating all of them every time its stock changes would be slow, and with 4,000 in stock the chance of overselling is tiny—so ShipHero updates those baskets on a schedule rather than in real time, saving processing time.
The Belgian chocolate bar is different. With far fewer in stock, ShipHero switches to real-time updates as soon as its availability drops to a set threshold, recalculating kit availability to prevent overselling.
Important
Overselling a single component affects every kit it belongs to. ShipHero automatically prioritizes real-time updates for low-stock components to help you avoid this.
Recap
- Kits let you manage and sell sets of products—kits and their components—even when those components appear in many different kits.
- ShipHero keeps availability accurate at scale by combining scheduled and real-time updates, choosing the right method for each product based on its current stock level.