What are Feeder Quantities and Why Use Them?

What are Feeder Quantities and Why Use Them?

A feeder quantity is the portion of your physical stock that WMS360 makes visible and available to a specific sales channel. Rather than exposing your full stock count to a channel, you can control how much of your inventory each channel can sell.

Why Use Feeder Quantities?

• Prevent overselling — if you sell across multiple channels, exposing full stock to each channel simultaneously can result in the same unit being sold twice.
• Reserve stock — keep a buffer for other channels, walk-in sales, or operational purposes.
• Control channel priority — allocate more stock to higher-margin channels.

How it Works

Each variation in your catalogue has an Available Qty (total stock minus any pending defects or reservations). A feeder quantity sets a ceiling on what any single channel sees.

For example, if you have 100 units available and set a feeder quantity of 30 for eBay, eBay will show a maximum of 30 units in stock regardless of your actual total.

Where Quantities are Visible

The Variation table on the product view page (Catalogue > Active Catalogue > View Product) shows:

• Available Qty — units available for sale
• Shelf Qty — units physically on shelves

Inventory levels across channels are managed through the Channels section and each channel's individual configuration.

Related Areas

• Inventory > Low Quantity — flags products that are running low on stock.
• Inventory > Inventory Log — tracks all stock movements.
• Inventory > Inventory Check — allows stock auditing.