Glossary
Inventory tracking
Also called: Track quantity
Inventory tracking is the setting that tells Shopify to count a variant. With it off, Shopify holds no quantity at all.
One tick box on the variant, and the single most common reason a stock number refuses to change.
What off actually means
Not zero. Nothing. An untracked variant has no quantity anywhere, sells forever, and cannot run out.
That is right for a made-to-order item, a service, or a gift card. It is wrong for anything on a shelf.
Why your import did nothing
A CSV or an app can send a quantity to an untracked variant and get no error back. The inventory item has nowhere to put the number, so it drops it.
If a stock update looks like it worked and changed nothing, check this box first. It is quicker than reading the log.
Where it goes wrong
Tracking is turned on for a line that has been selling untracked for months. Shopify starts it at zero, and the product disappears from the storefront that afternoon. Count it and set the level in the same sitting.
The other one is turning tracking off to stop a product going out of stock. It works, and it also throws away every future count and every inventory adjustment you might have learned from. The setting you actually want is inventory policy, which keeps the count and lets the product sell past zero.
Related terms
Inventory item
An inventory item is the countable half of a variant. Stock levels attach to it, one per location, not to the variant itself.
Inventory policy
Also called: Continue selling when out of stock
Inventory policy is the setting that decides whether a Shopify variant stops selling at zero or keeps going.
Inventory adjustment
An inventory adjustment is a manual change to a stock number, made when what the system says does not match the shelf.