Issue with Fulfillment Service when inventoryManagement = false

[GrantNilsson]

I have a public app that services products as manufactured product, so i have setup a FulFillmentService with InventoryManagement: false, as there is no stock levels. All product is manufactured on demand.

I have also imported the products into the shop with Inventory Tracking: false as well, and i have made sure that the product is located on the Fulfillment Location (which was created when the Fulfillment service was first created), and also set the inventoryPolicy: “CONTINUE” as well, but whenever I go to the online shop all of these products are showing as SOLD OUT.

How can a product be sold out when we have it set to NOT track inventory???

I have even set some stock levels to try this as well, in case it didn’t like having a zero inventory level. Still SOLD OUT.

Is this an issue with this sort of setup?

[Nobble]

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Hi there,

This issue usually happens when the product’s fulfillment location or inventory settings don’t match Shopify’s expectations for “available” inventory. Even if you’ve disabled inventory tracking, Shopify still needs to see that the variant is available for purchase from an active location.

Try these steps:

1. Check that the fulfillment location is active

   • Go to Settings → Locations in Shopify and make sure the Fulfillment Service location is marked as active and fulfills online orders.

2. Reassign the variants to that location manually

   • In the Shopify Admin → Products → Inventory → click “Edit locations” and ensure your fulfillment location is checked for those variants.

3. Verify via API

   • Use the inventoryItem and location API endpoints to confirm each variant is linked to the correct location.

   • If needed, update the inventoryLevels to a positive number (e.g., 1) for testing even with tracking off.

4. Confirm product status

   • Make sure the product and variants are marked as Active and Available on the Online Store sales channel.

5. If it still shows “Sold Out”

   • Temporarily set inventory_management: shopify and add a positive stock number (like 9999), then disable tracking again this often “resets” the visibility status.

[AndyX]

Even if you disable inventory tracking, Shopify still determines product availability based on whether the variant is available at an active location. When you create a custom fulfilment service with inventoryManagement set to false, Shopify treats the fulfilment location as “not managing inventory” and therefore doesn’t automatically mark the product as in stock. The result is that there are zero available units at any location, so the storefront shows “Sold out”.

To make on‑demand items purchasable you need to make sure there is an active location with stock available or set up your fulfilment service to manage inventory instead of disabling it. In practice you can:

• Assign a location and quantity: Go to Settings → Locations and ensure the fulfilment location created by your app is active. Assign each product/variant to that location and set a positive quantity (e.g. a large number) with the inventory policy set to continue. Even if you don’t track actual stock, giving the variant an available quantity tells Shopify that it can be purchased.

• Use your fulfilment service to manage inventory: Rather than setting inventoryManagement: false, register the fulfilment service with an inventory management option (its handle) and implement the FulfilmentService API callbacks so Shopify can query your app for inventory. This way Shopify knows the item is always available.

• Ensure products are published to the Online Store and active: Products must be available to the online store sales channel.

Simply disabling tracking alone isn’t enough to mark items as always available. Either provide a stock quantity at the fulfilment location or have your app respond with available inventory, and the items will no longer display as sold out.

[GrantNilsson]

I have tried everything above and it still still showed Sold Out. So decided to try out the inventory management: true. So after lots of looking I finally discovered what the return response was for a fetch_stock.json callback was

{
   "sku_code": amountInStock,
   "other_sku_code": amountInStock
}

where the sku_code(s) were passed in as parameters from the callback

So now I have my products all showing as 9999999 stock levels

so we have stock and the items are are all tracking and assigned to my Fulfillment location

But the stock is STILL showing as SOLD OUT

And just to confirm i checked the details on my Fulfillment service via GraphQL

So the fulfillment location is active and set to fulfills Online Orders. So i am completely baffled
Is this a Bug in Shopify?