Stock rarely stays in one place for long. You start with a shelf at home, then add a storeroom, a shop floor, a pickup point or a partner warehouse in another city. Each new location makes selling easier and stock counting harder. A single total like "35 in stock" no longer tells you whether you can ship today.
This article explains how to keep stock accurate across several locations, and how RedCart's Warehouses module handles it.
Why one stock number is not enough
With several locations, the total hides the details that matter:
- A buyer orders an item that shows as in stock, but all units are in the shop across town.
- A shop assistant sells the last unit from the floor while the website still counts it.
- Goods are moved from the storeroom to the shop, but nobody records it, and both locations' counts are now wrong.
The answer is to track stock per location and per SKU, and to record every movement between them.
The basic principles
1. Every location is its own warehouse. Even if it is just a back room, give it a name and its own stock counts.
2. Stock is counted per SKU in each warehouse. A T-shirt in size M has a count in the storeroom and a separate count on the shop floor.
3. One location is the default. Online orders need a clear source. Decide which warehouse ships online orders unless you choose otherwise.
4. Moving goods is a transfer, not two corrections. When 10 units go from the storeroom to the shop, record one transfer: 10 out of one, 10 into the other. The total stays the same, and the history shows exactly what happened.
5. Every change leaves a trace. Restocks, sales, returns, corrections and transfers are all recorded with their type.
How a transfer works in practice
Example with made-up round numbers
Example: you have a main storeroom and a shop floor.
- Storeroom: 50 units of SKU TS-CLS-BLU-M
- Shop floor: 4 units of the same SKU
The shop is running low, so you move 12 units. After the transfer:
- Storeroom: 38
- Shop floor: 16
- Total: still 54
The movement log shows a "transfer out" of 12 from the storeroom and a "transfer in" of 12 to the shop floor, at the same moment. If someone later asks why the storeroom has 38, the answer is in the log.
Returns: back to the right shelf
A returned item has to go somewhere. With several locations, it matters where. A buyer in the second city may return an item to your local pickup point, not to the main storeroom. Record the return into the warehouse where the item physically arrives, so the item is available to sell from that location immediately.
Keeping counts honest
Even with transfers and a log, physical stock can drift: damage, a miscount at delivery, a parcel packed from the wrong shelf. Some habits help:
- Count each location separately. Never count two places together and split the result.
- Use cycle counts. Count a few SKUs per location each week rather than everything once a year.
- Record differences as adjustments, with a short reason.
- Agree who may create transfers. Fewer people means fewer surprises.
When to add another warehouse
Add a warehouse in your system whenever goods sit in a place where someone could physically pick them for an order or a sale. Common cases:
- a separate storeroom or garage;
- a physical shop with its own stock on the floor;
- stock held by a partner or a fulfilment service;
- a second city or country.
If goods only pass through a place for a few hours, you probably do not need a separate warehouse for it.
A multi-warehouse checklist
- List every location where stock can be picked.
- Create a warehouse for each and choose the default for online orders.
- Enter opening stock per SKU in each warehouse.
- Agree that every move between locations is recorded as a transfer.
- Decide where returns go for each delivery or pickup method.
- Plan weekly cycle counts per location.
- Review the movement log whenever a number looks wrong.
How RedCart handles several warehouses
The Warehouses module in RedCart lets you add any number of warehouses and mark one as the default. The database makes sure a default always exists, so the last default warehouse cannot be deleted and the store never ends up without a home for its stock. Storefront orders are sold from the default warehouse, and stock is written off in the same transaction as the order.
Each SKU has its own quantity in each warehouse. To move goods, you create a transfer in the cabinet: choose the SKU, the source, the destination and the quantity. The transfer is logged as a transfer out of one warehouse and a transfer in to the other. Every other change is logged the same way: a restock, a manual adjustment or a sale each leaves a movement with its type, so you can trace how any number came to be.
Returns fit into the same system. When staff accept a return in the cabinet, they choose which warehouse the items go back into, and the restock appears in the movement log like any other.
Because stock, products, orders and customers live in one shop database, the stock you see in the catalog and the stock in your warehouses are always the same numbers.
Summary
With more than one location, track stock per warehouse and per SKU, choose a default for online orders, record moves as transfers, send returns to the right shelf and keep a full movement history. That is how a growing store keeps its stock numbers trustworthy.
If you run stock in more than one place, create a RedCart account and set up your warehouses with us.