Routing rules and overselling the inventory

Payments + Shipping & Fulfilment
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Topic summary

A merchant is experiencing inventory overselling issues with their routing rules configuration. They have set up two rules: “Minimize split fulfillments” and “Use ranked locations.”

The Problem:

  • Available inventory: AL (2), CA (2), NY (2), NC (0)
  • Customer ordered 5 units from Florida
  • System assigned all 5 units to AL location despite only having 2 in stock
  • This creates negative inventory (overselling) while other locations have available stock

Expected Behavior:
The system should split fulfillment across multiple locations: AL (2), CA (2), NY (1), or prioritize NC as second option when it has inventory.

Current Status:
All locations are enabled for online order fulfillment. The merchant has shared their fulfillment priority ranking setup (in attached PDF) and is seeking guidance on correct configuration to prevent overselling while properly distributing orders across available inventory locations.

Summarized with AI on October 27. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

I have a dev store where i have set 2 routing rules.

  1. Minimize split fulfillments
  2. Use ranked locations

I have below locations with inventory:
AL = 2 qty
CA = 2 qty
NY = 2 qty
NC = 0 qty
I have placed an order from FLORIDA, with 5 qty. I checked it, then i found in the order section that the location is showing AL (qty=5)
Which is not good if you have qty=2, then take from AL 2, CA=2, and NY=1. If there is no quantity in NC.
If there is a qty in NC it should take NC as the second option.
However, the system is now selling quantities more than it has, which is over-selling, resulting in a minus. But other locations have the inventory available.

Please let me know what setting i have to do.

2

Quick question: are all your locations set to fulfill online orders? And could you share a link to the dev store or a screenshot of your current fulfillment priority setup?

Ans: Yes all of my location are set to fulfill online order.
Please see the attached pdf for ranking.