Why is my out of stock item still selling on my online store?

[aaykayy94]

Hi,

We created a Fast Selling Item in our store and made sure that the 'Continue selling while out of stock' checkbox is unchecked and 'Track Quantity' is checked but the product got sold and now we are facing issue of fulfillment. Even in the Inventory its showing negative quantity.

Any help appreciated.

Thanks

[Imogen]

Hey there, @aaykayy94. 

Thanks for reaching out to the Shopify Community today with your inventory question! I'm happy to take a look here for you to see if we can determine what may have happened. 

Often times, the overselling of a product is a result of the 'Continue Selling When Out of Stock' box has been checked and enabled. To avoid that you aren't overselling a product, you do want to ensure that this setting has been checked off before orders start creating negative quantities. You mentioned that you have this box unchecked now but has that setting always been turned off for this product? 

Another potential cause could be that someone has requested a refund for their order. When processing a refund, the product ends up being restocked into Shopify, if Shopify is tracking the inventory. This can lead to overselling because the on-hands will be adjusted to account for the refund, but you may not have the product on hand to actually sell. If you account for not having this refunded product manually in your inventory, this will result in negative quantities. This is a lot less common of an occurrence, however. 

I just have a couple questions to gather a bit more information to determine if this is something that we can resolve here in the Community, or if you will have to speak to our Live Support Team for some assistance: 

• When did you first notice that your product was overselling? 
• Is the product still purchasable in your store at this time? If it's sold out, the product should be visible but flagged as 'sold out' and not purchasable on it's product page. If it is still purchasable, try downloading a fresh, free theme from our Theme Store and see if the product is still able to be purchased. 
• What theme are you using in your store? 
• Do you have a link to your store that you can provide us so we can take a look at the website and see the product ourselves? 

I'll keep my eyes peeled for your reply so we can determine what some next steps are here for you to help pinpoint the cause.