Shopify

Fulfillable & Sellable

Role: Design Lead, Domain Leadership Team Member for the Fulfillable Workstream

Timeline: Sept 2023 – Ongoing

Projects included:

  • Fulfillable quantities on storefront

  • Fulfillable quantities on contextual surfaces

  • Sellable in Admin

  • Sell from Incoming

Context

Shopify’s inventory model historically calculated available stock at a global level. If an item was in stock at any merchant location, Shopify considered it available for purchase everywhere — regardless of delivery profiles, market rules, or location constraints.
This caused significant overselling and frustration for merchants, leading to operational issues and poor buyer experiences.

Phase 1 — Fulfillable Quantities on Storefront

We redesigned the inventory logic and UI so storefront availability now respects real‑world delivery rules:

  • Honors delivery profiles, market configurations, and location constraints

  • Shows buyers accurate availability for their context

Impact:

  • 3.6% shop adoption, but 30.6% GMV‑weighted adoption

  • 40–50% average overselling reduction for adopters within 28 days

  • Major merchant wins: Victoria Beckham Beauty (94% reduction), TropicFeel (92% reduction), Lashify (33% reduction)

How quantities worked before

How quantities worked after

Phase 2 — Fulfillable Quantities in Admin & Contextual Surfaces

Before: Merchants only saw global inventory values in Admin — which didn’t account for buyer location, shipping rules, or other configurations. This made it impossible to confidently sell and fulfill from within Shopify.

After: Admin now surfaces buyer‑context‑aware quantities, letting merchants:

  • See exactly what a buyer can purchase

  • Use Shopify as a single source of truth for inventory

  • Make informed selling and fulfillment decisions directly in Admin

Phase 3 — Sellable in Admin (Ongoing)

The Sellable initiative extends this accurate availability model deeper into Admin and related workflows — enabling merchants to sell confidently across all surfaces and channels.

Merchant insights

Fulfillable Quantities on Contextual Surfaces in Admin (Shipped)
Research showed merchants:

  • Often rely on Admin as their source of truth for selling & fulfillment decisions.

  • Struggle when global inventory values are shown without buyer context — leading to over‑promising and fulfillment errors.

  • Prefer one clear contextual quantity in Admin rather than multiple conflicting numbers.

  • Want contextual data surface‑wide in Admin, even if they don’t actively use it, since it improves accuracy.

Sell from Incoming (In Progress)
From interviews and concept testing with 14 mid‑ to high‑complexity merchants:

  • Flexible selling thresholds: Need rules for when to sell from incoming — by arrival window (3 days → 2+ weeks), supplier trust, and destination location.

  • Control over scope: Ability to apply Sell from Incoming to collections, product groups, or single products, while still modeling at the variant level.

  • Relationship to pre‑orders: Pre‑orders, back orders, and incoming are related but distinct; many want pre‑order labels on longer lead‑time incoming items.

  • Quantity clarity: Want one clear contextual quantity with strong hierarchy and clear disabled states.

Design process

Fulfillable Quantities on Contextual Surfaces in Admin (Shipped)

Goal: Ensure that merchants see accurate, buyer‑context‑aware quantities directly in Admin — the same values that buyers see on storefront.

Approach:

  • Mapped the merchant decision‑making flow to understand where inventory context was critical.

  • Audited Admin surfaces to identify where global inventory values were misleading.

  • Partnered with engineering to define technical rules for “sellable” quantities and where they should override global inventory.

  • Explored component patterns to surface sellable quantities consistently without cluttering high‑traffic screens.

  • Ran internal pilot with merchant‑facing teams to validate comprehension before launch.

Artifacts:

  • Before/after UI inventory mapping (by surface)

  • Figma explorations for inventory quantity display patterns

  • Rules matrix aligning buyer context variables → displayed quantity

(Visual: Example of contextual quantity display pattern in Admin)

Sell from Incoming (Part of Sellable in Admin — In Progress)

Goal: Allow merchants to start selling products before they physically arrive, based on confirmed incoming stock from purchase orders or transfers.

Approach:

  • Identified top merchant workflows where selling from incoming would drive revenue (e.g., pre‑order campaigns, seasonal launches).

  • Mapped data dependencies: purchase order status, estimated arrival date, sellable quantity rules.

  • Designed inventory state distinctions for:

    1. On‑hand sellable

    2. Incoming confirmed

    3. Incoming estimated

  • Explored visual hierarchy patterns to avoid confusing incoming stock with on‑hand stock.

  • Developed risk‑communication UI for setting expectations with buyers when selling from incoming.

Artifacts:

  • Merchant workflow diagrams for selling from incoming

  • UI pattern explorations for displaying incoming quantities alongside sellable

  • Copy & tone explorations for risk communication

(Visual: Early concept for incoming inventory display in Admin)

Key design decisions

Consistency over customization: One quantity component for on‑hand, contextual, and incoming inventory.

  1. Merchant trust first: Strong visual differentiation between on‑hand and incoming.

  2. Scalable foundation: Built on Sellable’s data model so it can extend to all inventory types and channels.

Why this matters

Together, these projects are building Shopify’s foundational inventory intelligence layer.
They:

  • Reduce overselling

  • Improve merchant trust in Shopify as their source of truth

  • Set the stage for future capabilities like Sell from Incoming and advanced fulfillment optimization

Thank you!