Track Every Unit
Distancer.ai includes built-in inventory management for physical products. Stock levels update automatically as customers place orders and you fulfill them, so your storefront always reflects what’s actually available.
How Inventory Tracking Works
Your inventory is tracked using two key numbers for each product:
- Available Quantity — Units currently in stock and available for purchase
- Allocated Quantity — Units reserved by customer orders that haven’t shipped yet
When a customer completes checkout, the ordered quantity is allocated (reserved). When you ship the order, the quantity is deducted from your stock. If you cancel an order, the allocation is released back to available stock.
Inventory Flow Example
| Event | Available | Allocated | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| You stock 50 units | 50 | 0 | Initial stock set |
| Customer orders 3 | 50 | 3 | 3 units reserved |
| Another customer orders 2 | 50 | 5 | 5 total reserved |
| You ship the first order (3 units) | 47 | 2 | 3 deducted from stock, allocation reduced |
| You cancel the second order | 47 | 0 | 2 released back |
Setting Stock Levels
Set the available quantity for each product through the provider dashboard or by asking the Distancer AI assistant:
- Navigate to your product and update the inventory count
- Or tell the AI: “Set available quantity to 100 for my product”
You can update stock levels at any time — for example, when a new shipment from your supplier arrives.
Low-Stock Alerts
Configure a threshold for each product so you’re notified before you run out:
- Low inventory notification threshold — When available stock drops to this number, you receive an alert
- Set the threshold to 0 to disable notifications
- Adjust the threshold at any time through the dashboard or AI assistant
This helps you reorder from suppliers before your store shows items as out of stock.
Preventing Overselling
Enable the prevent purchase when out of stock setting to automatically block checkout when a product’s available quantity reaches zero. This ensures customers can’t order items you don’t have.
You can also choose to show stock status to customers so they can see whether an item is in stock, low stock, or out of stock before adding it to their cart.
Inventory and Product Variants
If your product has variants (sizes, colors, materials), each variant tracks its own inventory independently. A medium blue t-shirt and a large red t-shirt each have their own available and allocated quantities.
AI-Assisted Inventory
The Distancer AI assistant can help you manage inventory through natural conversation:
- “What’s the current stock for my handmade candles?”
- “Set the low inventory alert to 10 units”
- “Update the available quantity to 200”
The AI reads your current configuration and makes updates on your behalf — no need to navigate through settings screens.