Unlock Inventory Management Solutions

In this article, we discuss the differences between Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento 2) and BigCommerce in relation to inventory management. You will see how each system behaves so you can determine which is a better fit for your needs.

Inventory Management

Backorders

Many merchants need to keep customers abreast of back-ordered items. Thus, features to show which products are out of stock and perhaps some from being ordered can be important.

Adobe Commerce

Administrators or connected inventory has fine-grained control for most situations. The Stock Status flag does not change when the quantity crosses the out of stock threshold.

No Backorders

Customer Notified

Once the sale is made, Adobe Commerce applies a reservation to a given stock at a warehouse. These reservations affect the quantity available for sale. Fulfilling the order decrements the warehouse's available quantity.

BigCommerce

While BigCommerce has a grid to mass-adjust inventory quantities (a beneficial feature), an administrator cannot enter negative quantities. If a product is sold out, there is no way to allow backorders: the add-to-cart box simply disappears. SwiftOtter can help consult to identify the best solution given your requirements.

BigCommerce has additional universal options to determine what happens when a product is out of stock. For example, you can prevent a product from even being browsable, redirect to a category and more.

Inventory management

eCommerce platforms are designed to sell product online, not also function as an Inventory Management System (IMS). There are many options that cover the gamut of needs in this department. However, many platforms have the capability for basic tracking to facilitate accurate shipping prices for multi-warehouse inventory and in-store pickup.

Adobe Commerce

The Magento way is called Multi-Source Inventory. This system provides extensive control on how products are routed to customers. Regardless, we want to make it clear that Magento is not an Inventory Management System, it simply provides reporting to inform customers.

Administrators can set whether or not to track inventory globally or per product.

Sources represent the warehouse. Stocks map sales channels (websites, Amazon, eBay, etc.,) to sources. Thus, the US warehouse could fulfill orders to Canada and the US. A Mexico warehouse could fulfill orders to Mexico. Depending on which channel is browsed, the inventory (minus reservations) is aggregated to inform the customer what is available.

You can also ship orders from the closest location to the customer. Simply enter a Google Maps API key. Then, when shipping, Adobe Commerce selects the warehouse based on distance or priority. This process feels unrefined and customization will likely be needed.

The only relevant report is the Low Stock report.

BigCommerce

While BigCommerce is not an inventory management system, in line with other ecommerce platforms, it has the essential pieces to support many operations. Administrators can choose whether or not to track each product's inventory. They can specify inventory quantities per location. Unfortunately, this doesn't flow through to the frontend. The Default Location determines whether a product is sellable on the front end. Shipping decrements quantities only from the Default Location.

However, we are impressed with each location's rich set of controls to display hours of operation, address, phone, and notes.

BigCommerce has a convenient editor to control stock quantities across multiple locations or warehouses.

Additionally, a Low Stock filter can be applied to the Product list in the admin. Note that this applies to the total quantity in all warehouse locations.

Out of Stock Threshold

Setting a threshold allows for a reserve quantity, to accommodate replacement parts.

Adobe Commerce

This is set globally and can be overridden for each product.

BigCommerce

When the quantity is 0, the product is considered as out of stock.

Purchase Thresholds

A few merchants have requirements stating at least (or at most) a certain number of products are ordered.

Adobe Commerce

This is native functionality—set at the global level and overridden per product.

BigCommerce

This is native functionality.

Quantity increments

Enforcing increments accommodates case packs. For example, you could sell six-packs of beer, but customers see the per-bottle pricing.

Adobe Commerce

This is set globally and can be overridden for each product.

BigCommerce

This is not natively functionality, but it's a fairly easy lift for a developer to add this.

Credit memo returns product stock

Merchants may issue a credit memo to accommodate broken merchandise (not a return) or returned goods. These involve different mechanisms.

Adobe Commerce

You can select whether or not to return to the purchased stock for each credit memo. The default value for this checkbox can be set globally.

BigCommerce

This is controlled globally in the Inventory configuration.