Bold Subscriptions allows you to choose how you want to handle recurring orders when your products are out of stock.
By default, Bold Subscriptions is set to Allow Overselling. This means that if you are tracking inventory in Shopify, recurring orders will continue to process when they are out of stock. If you prefer, you can update this setting to Prevent Overselling.
This article explains how these settings work, how to configure them, and outlines some important considerations.
Walkthrough
Functionality
In Bold Subscriptions, the overselling permissions apply to recurring orders only and operate independently of Shopify’s overselling permissions. Initial subscription orders and one-time purchases process based on your Shopify configuration.
Note: If you are not tracking inventory in Shopify, then recurring orders will always process. To learn more about tracking inventory and overselling (selling products when they are out of stock) in Shopify, please visit Shopify’s Help Center.
Allow Overselling
If you allow overselling in Bold Subscriptions, recurring orders will continue to process when inventory levels in Shopify are at zero or below. This is regardless of whether or not you've configured Shopify to continue selling when out of stock.
Prevent Overselling
If overselling is prevented in Bold Subscriptions, recurring orders for products that have inventory levels in Shopify of zero or below will fail. This is regardless of whether or not you've configured Shopify to continue selling when out of stock.
A failed order message appears in both the customer portal and admin manage subscriptions page.
Example
Customer email notification
By default, the Inventory Out of Stock - Transaction Failed email notification is enabled in Bold Subscriptions. This is sent to your customer if their order fails due to insufficient inventory. This email is optional and can be customized with your preferred wording. For detailed instructions, please visit Email Notifications in Subscriptions for Shopify Checkout.
Example
Dunning management
You can configure your dunning management settings in Bold Subscriptions to determine what happens when an order fails due to insufficient inventory. These settings determine when the transaction is retried, how many attempts are made, and what happens when the subscription reaches the maximum number failures (cancel, pause, or skip the order). For more information, please visit Cancellation & Dunning Management.
Setup
To configure how Bold Subscriptions handles recurring orders when products are out of stock, please follow the steps below.
- In Bold Subscriptions, navigate to Settings > General settings.
- Scroll down to the Overselling section.
- Choose your preferred setting:
- Allow Overselling
- Prevent Overselling
- Click Save.
Important considerations
Deleted products
Shopify allows overselling on deleted products. This means that if a product involved in an active subscription is deleted from Shopify, recurring orders for that product will continue to process regardless of the overselling configuration in Bold Subscriptions.
Multi-product subscriptions
If Bold Subscriptions is configured to prevent overselling and one product in a multi-product subscription becomes out of stock, the entire order will fail.
Draft and archived products
If products involved in active subscriptions are set to draft or archived, they will process based on your overselling configuration in Bold Subscriptions. If overselling is allowed, then recurring orders will continue to process as normal. If overselling is prevented, then recurring orders will fail if the draft/archived items have an inventory level of 0 or below.
Merchant notifications
Currently, merchants do not receive notification if a subscription fails due to lack of inventory.