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Inventory and Orderability

Inventory truth and orderability are not the same thing.

Inventory Truth

Inventory truth is the durable record of stock by:

  • SKU
  • location
  • quantity on hand
  • quantity reserved

Orderability

Orderability is the serving-layer answer to:

  • can this item be sold right now?
  • from which location?
  • why is it not orderable?

Typical reasons:

  • out of stock
  • low stock
  • location disabled
  • store closed
  1. maintain canonical stock_positions
  2. derive orderability_projection
  3. serve app reads from the projection or cache-backed view

Why This Matters

Without this separation, teams end up mixing:

  • catalog assortment
  • physical stock
  • reservation state
  • UI availability

That is one of the fastest ways to create overselling and stale availability bugs.