available_for_sale field is not present in product/update webhook for variants

Shopify Discussion

Topic summary

A technical limitation exists where the product/update webhook does not include the available_for_sale field at the variant level, creating challenges for inventory tracking.

Core Issue:

  • Merchants using third-party inventory management systems often have inventory_policy set to “deny” and inventory_quantity showing as 0, even when stock exists externally
  • Without available_for_sale in webhooks, determining actual variant availability is difficult

Current Workaround:

  • Using GraphQL Admin API queries to fetch variant data (including availableForSale field)
  • Requires separate API calls for each product update

Problem with Workaround:

  • Resource-intensive and inefficient
  • Availability data is only needed when products update or orders are placed
  • Unnecessary API overhead when information could be included in webhook payload

Proposed Solution:
Include available_for_sale field directly in product/update webhook payloads at the variant level. This would eliminate redundant API calls and provide more efficient, scalable inventory tracking.

Status: Unresolved. Recommendation made to submit a formal feature request through Shopify’s official support or development channels.

Summarized with AI on October 29. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

Some merchants use third-party inventory management services, and not all of them allow Shopify to track inventory.

In such cases, the inventory_policy is set to deny by default and inventory_quantity appears as 0, even though the third-party system may have sufficient stock. This makes it difficult to accurately determine the actual availability of a variant.

Additionally, the product/update webhook does not currently include the available_for_sale field at the variant level. Relying on a separate GraphQL query for every product update is resource-intensive and inefficient.

Would it be possible to include the available_for_sale field for variants in the product/update webhook? This would significantly improve our ability to track product availability accurately and reduce the need for costly API calls.

2

Hi,

Hope this will help

Set a cron job to pull variant data every few minutes/hours via GraphQL Admin API:

Code example

{
  product(id: "gid://shopify/Product/123456789") {
    variants(first: 10) {
      edges {
        node {
          id
          title
          availableForSale
        }
      }
    }
  }
}
3

As mentioned earlier, relying on separate GraphQL queries is both resource-intensive and inefficient. This information is only required when a product is updated or an order is placed.
Including the available_for_sale field directly in the webhook payload would be a much more efficient and scalable solution.

4

It would indeed be beneficial for the product/update webhook to include the available_for_sale field at the variant level to streamline inventory tracking and reduce unnecessary API calls. Currently, this field is not included, and it can be resource-intensive to make separate queries to check product availability. You may want to submit a feature request to Shopify through their official support or development channels, as this would improve efficiency for merchants using third-party inventory systems