How to manage your Takealot Inventory in Shopify?

Are you looking to expand from selling on Shopify to also selling on Takealot?

Already selling on both platforms and wanting to expand to even more marketplaces?

Not sure how to effectively manage your inventory across all these sales channels?

Wondering if Shopify can be used as your marketplace inventory management system?

If you’ve been looking for the answer to any if these questions, then you have come to the right place. 🤩

Managing your inventory effectively is crucial to ensure a seamless operation across different platforms. This blog will guide you on using Shopify as an inventory management system when selling on Takealot. We'll delve into the concepts of lead time and DC stock, how to set up ‘virtual’ warehouses, and the benefits of using Shopify's locations feature to track your marketplace inventory.

Scenario 1: Selling on Your Shopify Store

When you're only selling on your Shopify store, inventory management is straightforward. You have a default location where all your inventory is stored and orders are fulfilled from. We’ll be referring to this default location as your “Main Warehouse” throughout the blog.

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You can have more than one warehouse/location where you store and fulfil stock from, but for the purpose of this blog we’ll be referring to a single “Main Warehouse”.

How it works on Shopify:

Location: Main Warehouse

Order Fulfilment: From your Main Warehouse direct to the customer.

Inventory Management: Track all stock within your Main Warehouse.

Selling solely on Shopify is simple but limits your reach to customers who visit your online store directly.

Scenario 2: Selling on Shopify & Takealot

There are two methods for selling on Takealot Marketplace: storing your products in Takealot DCs or listing your products as “Lead Time” and shipping to the DC only once an order is received.

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Any stock you send to Takealot DCs will remain yours until it is sold. But you will incur storage fees.

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You can also set up your Takealot Seller account to sell through DC and Lead Time simultaneously. We recommend this approach.

If you have both Lead Time & DC stock:

When an order comes in, it will be fulfilled from the DC first. Orders will keep being fulfilled from the DC until DC stock is sold out, then it will revert to Lead Time. We encourage this as it allows you to continue selling your products even when you no longer have stock in the DC.

As soon as you start selling on Takealot and have stock in their DC locations, you will need keep track of your inventory across multiple locations.

To effectively manage your inventory across different platforms, you can create 'virtual' locations on Shopify using the Locations feature. This allows you to virtually transfer stock from your Main Warehouse to the 'virtual' Takealot DC location when you physically send stock to Takealot for replenishment.

How it works on Shopify:

Lead Time Stock:

Location: Main Warehouse
Order Fulfilment: Stock is sent from your Main Warehouse to a Takealot DC when orders are received, from there the order is Fulfilled by Takealot.
Inventory Management: Create and manage orders directly from your Main Warehouse.

DC Stock:

Location: Virtual locations for the Takealot DCs (Takealot JHB & Takealot CPT).
Order Fulfilment: Fulfilled by Takealot from the relevant Takealot DC to the customer.
Inventory Management: Transfer physical stock sent to a Takealot DC to the ‘virtual’ Takealot DC location to keep it updated, then when an order is received, create the order on Shopify.

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Read more about how to set up ‘virtual’ Locations on Shopify here

Scenario 3: Selling on Multiple Marketplaces

Expanding further to sell on multiple marketplaces requires even more diligence in keeping track of where your inventory is located, especially owing to the different order fulfilment models used by marketplaces.

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DC (In stock): Products are physically in stock in the marketplace’s DC warehouse, and when an order is received it is fulfilled by the marketplace. At the moment, marketplaces with DCs are: Takealot, Amazon SA & Loot.

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Lead Time: Products are stored in your Main Warehouse, and when an order is received you need to send it to the marketplace’s DC. From there the order is fulfilled by the marketplace. At the moment, marketplaces allowing Lead Time orders are: Takealot & Loot.

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Direct-to-customer or Dropship: Products are stored in your Main Warehouse, and when an order is received you need to fulfil the order and ship it directly to the customer. At the moment, marketplaces using the dropship model are: Makro, Leroy Merlin, Takealot and Bobshop.

Again, creating 'virtual' locations on Shopify for all marketplaces with DC warehouses will help a lot with tracking your inventory across all these sales channels.

How it works on Shopify:

Locations: Main Warehouse for Shopify online store, Lead Time or Direct-to-customer orders; ‘virtual’ Locations for all marketplaces where you have stock in DCs.

Order Fulfilment: Based on the order source.

Inventory Management: Create and manage all direct-to-customer orders directly from your Main Warehouse; and utilise virtual warehouses to track inventory and create orders for each marketplace where you send physical stock to their DCs.

How to use Shopify to Manage Takealot Inventory

Locations in Shopify

Shopify has a nifty feature called “Locations” which allows sellers to set up multiple locations in their Shopify store so that they can track inventory and fulfil orders at their various locations. These locations can be physical stores, warehouses, or any place where sellers manage or stock inventory.

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The maximum number of locations that you can have depends on your Shopify subscription plan. You can find your location limit and how many you used on the Locations page.

‘Virtual’ Locations

This is where it becomes very valuable for sellers with physical stock in Takealot DC warehouses. The Locations feature in Shopify can be used to set up what we call ‘virtual’ locations to track the physical stock that was sent to the Takealot DC warehouse(s).

So now, when sending physical stock to Takealot for replenishment, you also virtually transfer that stock from your main warehouse to your ‘virtual’ Takealot DC location on Shopify so that those stock values deduct from your main stock holding and are no longer purchasable on your online store and other direct-to-customer channels.

Adding a Location

1️⃣ From your Shopify admin, go to ⚙️Settings

2️⃣ Go to 📍Locations

3️⃣ Click Add location

4️⃣ Enter the Location name

e.g. Takealot JHB

5️⃣ Enter the location’s address

6️⃣ In the Fulfilment details section:

Uncheck Fulfil online orders from this location

A pop-up will open to confirm that you wish to stop fulfilling orders from this location, click Continue

7️⃣ Click Save

8️⃣ Follow the above steps for each Location you want to add.

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When you have more than one active location, you need to specify from which locations online orders should be fulfilled. Online store:

All locations/warehouses used to fulfil online Shopify orders has to be set to “Fulfil online orders from this location”

This will enable all inventory at this location to be available for sale online

Takealot DC:

The “virtual” location(s) created for physical stock sent to Takealot DC warehouse(s) should not be set to “Fulfil online orders from this location”

This is because inventory that was sent to Takealot DC locations should not show on your online store

Transferring Stock Between Locations

When you send stock to Takealot DC for replenishment, you should also “virtually transfer” that stock from your Main Warehouse to your ‘virtual’ Takealot DC location in Shopify.

To make this transfer, follow these steps:

1️⃣ From your Shopify admin, go to 🏷️Products > Transfers

2️⃣ Click Create transfer

3️⃣ Select the Origin and Destination locations

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“Origin” is the warehouse or location that you want to transfer inventory from, e.g. Main Warehouse

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“Destination” is the marketplace location that you want to send the inventory to, e.g. Takealot JHB

4️⃣ In the Add products section, enter or select the products and variants that you want to add to the transfer, and then click Add to transfer.

5️⃣ Enter the Quantity of each product you want to transfer, and then click Save as draft (top right).

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The “Shipment details” and “Additional details” sections are optional. You can use this to log the shipment of your stock to Takealot DC locations.

6️⃣ When your items are ready for transfer, click Mark as pending.

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After marking a transfer as pending, you can no longer edit the transfer.

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Marking your transfer as pending will adjust Available inventory values at the origin location (Main Warehouse). This means that while the stock is in transit to the Takealot DC, it will not be available for purchase in your online store, nor at the Takealot DC until it is received there.

As soon as your physical stock is delivered to the Takealot DC location(s), you can proceed to ‘Receive inventory’ in the virtual location on Shopify.

7️⃣ Open the transfer that you want to receive, then click Receive inventory.

8️⃣ Click Accept all unreceived.

9️⃣ Click Accept and save.

🔟 Click Save (top right).

Creating a Takealot DC Order in Shopify

1️⃣ From your Shopify admin, go to 📥Orders.

2️⃣ Click Create order.

3️⃣ In the Products section, enter or select the product(s) that you want to add to the order, and then click Add.

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For the Customer section, we suggest creating “Takealot Marketplace” as a customer to be used for all Takealot orders

4️⃣ Click Collect Payment, then select Mark as paid

5️⃣ Click Create order

After creating the order, you can proceed to ‘virtually’ fulfilling the order on Shopify.

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Ensure that the correct Location is selected.

6️⃣ To change the fulfilment location, click on the three dots, and select Change location

7️⃣ Select the relevant Takealot DC location from the drop down labelled Assign selected items to then Click Change location

8️⃣ Click Fulfil items

Why Use Shopify to Manage Takealot Inventory?

Because you will have better visibility across your inventory and into your business.

Asset Tracking & Recon

You can view where the stock of each product is currently located.

Improved Asset Tracking: Keep a clear record of where your inventory is physically located and where it is being fulfilled from. Utilising the Shopify Location feature will help you track where your stock is at all times, whether it's in your Main Warehouse, in transit, or at a Takealot DC.

Accurate Stock Levels for Recon: Virtual warehouses help maintain accurate stock levels across different locations, especially marketplace locations, which makes reconciliation more accurate and efficient.

Efficient Replenishment: Easily track when stock needs to be replenished at Takealot DCs.

Inventory Adjustment History

You can view each product’s adjustment history within each Location with descriptions of why the stock level changed and who/what was responsible for the adjustment.

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You can only view the last 90 days of inventory adjustment history.

When you view the inventory adjustment history for a product, you see the following information:

Date - The date of the adjustment.

Activity - The event that caused the adjustment, such as a transfer or order, as well as the name of the staff member or third-party app responsible for the adjustment.

Unavailable - The inventory that is unavailable after the adjustment.

Committed - The number of units that are part of an order but aren't yet fulfilled.

Available - The inventory quantity that is available after the adjustment and that isn’t committed to any orders or set aside as unavailable.

On hand - The inventory that is on hand after the adjustment.

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A typical example of what the Adjustment History will look like for a product that is sold on Shopify, Takealot DC and listed on Makro Marketplace, where Shopify is used to track the inventory across multiple locations (Main Warehouse and Takealot DCs)

The following can be noted in the adjustment history:

Stock Transfer created in the Main Warehouse & received in the Takealot CPT location

Takealot CPT DC orders created (in the Main Warehouse by default), the fulfilment location changed to Takealot CPT, and the orders then fulfilled from the Takelot CPT location

Online store and Makro orders created and fulfilled from the Main Warehouse

Adjustment history for the “🎒Backpack - Red” in the Main Warehouse

Adjustment history for the same “🎒Backpack - Red” in the ‘virtual’ Takealot CPT DC location

Additional Benefits of Using Shopify for Inventory Management

Shopify also gives you access to sales data which you can use to make informed decisions about which products to consign and which to first test on Lead Time.

Popular Products

When transferring products or creating an order there is a dropdown with “Popular products” where you can view a list of your most popular products. The list is based on sales and is determined across all your sales channels. This can be used to help you determine for which products you might want to send stock to Takealot DCs instead of just selling them on Lead Time.

Market Testing

Using Shopify to manage your Takealot inventory also allows you to conduct market testing. This involves listing some of your products on Takealot as ‘Lead Time’ to gauge interest without committing significant stock. In this scenario, you keep your stock in your Main Warehouse and only ship it when an order is received from Takealot. If a product performs well, you can then send stock to the Takealot DCs.

For example:

You sell Backpacks on your Shopify Online Store and decide to sell on Takealot as well.

You know that the grey backpack is a ‘Popular product’ on your Shopify store and immediately send stock to the Takealot DCs.

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Products that are in Takealot DC locations show as “In stock”

However, you are not sure how popular the coloured backpacks are, so you first sell these through Lead Time to do market testing.

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Lead time products show as “Ships in x work days” on Takealot.

How Wherehouse Can Help

Manually creating marketplace DC orders on Shopify every time an order is received can be tedious. Wherehouse automates this process (and many others😉), saving you time and reducing errors.

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Wherehouse simplifies the entire process of managing your inventory across multiple platforms.

Key Features of Wherehouse:

Automated Inventory Sync: Keep your inventory levels updated across all platforms in real-time.

Pricing Updates: Sync product prices from your Shopify store to marketplaces, with customisable adjustment rules.

For example: Take the Shopify selling price then

Add 15% + R30 + round to the next R9 for Takealot
Add 10% + R25 + round to the next R9 for Makro

Order Management: Automatically create orders for Takealot and other marketplaces in Shopify.

Analytics Dashboard: Get detailed reports on your inventory and sales performance across all sales channels.

Customer Invoice Requests: Generate PDF invoices for Takealot customers without recapturing any data.

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Did you know, Wherehouse also supports using many other leading inventory platforms in the place of Shopify to capture all of the above concepts. Systems like Cin7 Core, Unleashed, inFlow Inventory, Lightspeed X, Zoho Inventory and more.

Conclusion

Managing your inventory effectively when expanding to marketplaces like Takealot is essential for business growth. By leveraging Shopify's Locations feature and creating ‘virtual’ locations for DC warehouses, you can enjoy benefits like:

Centralised Inventory Tracking: Manage all your stock in one place, regardless of where it's sold.

Market Testing: Use sales data to make informed decisions about which products to consign and which to test on Lead Time.

Integrating with Wherehouse further simplifies the process, making it easier to manage orders and inventory across multiple platforms. Start your journey towards streamlined inventory management today and unlock the full potential of selling on multiple platforms.

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Get Connected

Here's how to get started with our Shopify and Takealot Marketplace integration:

Ensure you have an active account on Takealot Marketplace. If you're not already selling on Takealot, you can set up your seller account here.

Wherehouse can only integrate after your Takealot Seller account is set up and approved and your first products (we only need one or two) have been listed.

We'll have you up and running within 1-3 business days, configuring your business logic and adjustment rules. Our onboarding process is completely free.

Choose a subscription plan that suits your business needs here.