Overview
Inventory management for subscription products helps prevent billing errors and ensures that customers are only charged for items in stock. When a subscription product is part of an order, Shopify automatically checks its inventory level at the time of billing. If there is insufficient stock, the billing attempt will fail. This article provides a guide to managing inventory for subscription products and how to handle out-of-stock situations to avoid disruptions in billing.
How Inventory Works for Subscription Products
The product’s inventory is checked during each billing attempt for subscription products. This process ensures that customers are not charged for items that are unavailable.
If inventory is available (greater than 1), the billing attempt will be processed.
If the product’s inventory is below 1 (out of stock), the billing attempt will fail, and an "INSUFFICIENT_INVENTORY" error will be returned. This means the subscription contract cannot be fulfilled due to the lack of available stock.
How to Prevent Billing Errors for Out-of-Stock Products
If you do not track the inventory of a subscription product, your billing attempts will be processed regardless of the inventory level.
However, if you want to track inventory and continue processing subscription contracts even when a product is out of stock, you need to enable the "Continue selling when out of stock" option for your subscription products in Shopify. Here's how to enable this setting:
From your Shopify admin, go to Products.
Click the name of the subscription product you want to track.
If the product has variants, click the variant that you want to track.
In the Inventory section, check Track quantity.
To allow customers to purchase the item when it’s out of stock, check Continue selling when out of stock.
By enabling this option, recurring orders will be processed regardless of the inventory level, even if the product is out of stock.
If you prefer to only process billing attempts when inventory is available, no action is required. Shopify will automatically check inventory, and orders will only be processed if stock is sufficient. If the product is out of stock, the order will fail with an "INSUFFICIENT_INVENTORY" error.
If you don’t want to enable the "Continue selling when out of stock" option to allow new orders but still want subscription orders to be processed regardless of inventory levels, simply reach out to the Subi support team. Our team will take care of it for you
What Happens if I Have Multiple Products in One Contract, and One Has Inventory While the Other Doesn’t?
If one product in a subscription contract has inventory and another does not, the same thing will happen: the billing attempt will fail. All products in the contract must have sufficient inventory for the billing attempt to be processed successfully. If any product is out of stock, the entire contract will fail, and you will receive an "INSUFFICIENT_INVENTORY" error.
Need Help?
Feel free to contact our support team. We're here for you anytime:
Live Chat: Message us from within the Subi app or your Shopify Admin.
Email: Reach us at [email protected].