This article explains how to manage your product availability in your Shopify store to prevent customer disappointment. By enabling the "Update stock availability automatically" feature in your Shopify store, you can ensure that your online store reflects the most up-to-date product availability from Gelato's print partners.
Enabling Automatic Stock Updates for Shopify
This feature automatically updates the availability of specific product types in your Shopify store, such as hangers, framed posters, and drinkware. If a product becomes unavailable or out of stock at one of Gelato's printing facilities, the feature will automatically mark the product as unavailable in your Shopify store.
Please note that this feature works for the following products:
Hangers
Framed posters
Drinkware
Apparel
To activate this feature in Shopify, follow these steps:
In your Gelato account, go to "Stores" and locate the store where you want to enable the feature.
Click on the three-dot menu to the right of your store name and select "Edit store details."
Check the box labeled "Update stock availability automatically."
A new menu called "Selling region" will appear. Choose the geographic region where you primarily sell your products.
Once enabled, this feature will instantly synchronize your product availability based on your selected selling region. If a product is out of stock in your specified region, it will be marked as out of stock in your store, even if it's available in other Gelato regions. While global selling is possible, you must still designate a primary selling region for stock management. Currently, you can only choose one selling region, and it's not possible to select multiple regions or none at all.
How Stock Synchronization Works for Shopify
After enabling this feature and selecting your selling region, Gelato will automatically update your product availability every 2 hours.
Here's a breakdown of how it works:
When the product is in stock, the product inventory setting is set to 'Inventory not tracked'. At the same time, all new products, which are in stock, by default are published with the inventory option 'Inventory not tracked'.
Out-of-Stock Products: For any product variant that's temporarily out of stock, Gelato will set the available quantity to zero in your Shopify store. During checkout, the product will display as "sold out," preventing customers from purchasing it. In practice, in such cases, we automatically enable the inventory tracking for a specific product variant and set the number of items to zero (for the Gelato location). We check product availability every 2 hours.
Back-in-Stock Products: When a product is back in stock, we automatically disable the inventory tracking option for the relevant variant. So, we restored the original option 'Inventory not tracked'.
New Products: When adding new products to your store, Gelato automatically marks any out-of-stock variants accordingly.
Important: If you decide to enable inventory tracking manually on Shopify, e.g., to offer a limited sale, please note that the feature is not compatible with your setup and might not work correctly. The idea of this feature is based on changing the inventory status from 'Inventory not tracked' to 'Tracked inventory' and back and forth.
Why is my product showing as “0 in stock” or “Sold Out” in Shopify?
This can happen for two main reasons, depending on how your store is set up:
Option 1: This is expected behavior with automatic stock updates
If you’ve enabled the “Update Stock Availability Automatically” feature in Gelato, the system updates your product inventory based on availability at Gelato’s production partners.
When a product is temporarily out of stock, Gelato:
Enables inventory tracking
Sets the available quantity to 0
Displays the item as “0 in stock” or “Sold Out” in your Shopify store
Once the product is back in stock, Gelato will:
Disable inventory tracking again
Return the product to “Inventory not tracked”, making it purchasable
To check if this feature is enabled:
Log in to your Gelato dashboard
Go to the Stores section
Select your Shopify store
Click Edit store details
Under Synchronization, look for “Update Stock Availability Automatically”
If the box is checked, the feature is enabled
Option 2: Manual inventory tracking in Shopify is causing a conflict
If you've manually enabled “Track quantity” in your Shopify product settings, this may override Gelato’s automatic updates. As a result, even products that are in stock at Gelato may appear as “0 in stock” or unavailable.
Solution:
Go to the product in your Shopify Admin
Under Inventory, make sure “Track quantity” is unchecked for in-stock items
This allows Gelato to manage stock automatically and show the correct availability.