Stock control

On a marketplace where sellers offer more than one of the same item — a shop with 20 T-shirts, a farm with 50 boxes of eggs, an event with 100 tickets — one listing can sell many times. Stock control keeps count, so a listing stays up while items are left and stops selling when they run out.

Stock control works together with Buy Now, where buyers pay for an item on your site. Set that up first: Let members sell with Buy Now.

Switch stock control on

1. Go to Settings › Payments.
2. In Pay to post, switch on Stock Control (Sellers set a quantity; the listing sells out at zero.).
3. Click Save changes in the bar at the bottom.

How it works for sellers

• The posting form gets an In Stock field, filled in with 1. Sellers enter how many they have.
• Every Buy Now sale lowers the stock by the quantity bought. Buyers can’t order more than what is in stock (There is not enough stock; please choose another quantity.).
• When the stock reaches 0, the listing is marked as Sold, the Buy Now button disappears, and the seller gets the out-of-stock email with a link to edit the listing.
• When five or fewer are left, Nova shows Only N left by the Buy Now button, which nudges buyers to decide.

Leaving In Stock empty means the listing sells out after the first sale.

Restocking

Situation	What the seller does
Still live, wants to add more	Edit the listing and raise In Stock.
Set In Stock to 0 by hand	The listing goes offline (Unavailable). Editing the stock back above 0 publishes it again.
Sold out through sales	The listing is Sold. In My Listings, use Activate the listing, then Edit and set the new stock.

With a moderation mode, sellers can’t reactivate a sold-out listing themselves, and every edit goes back to the moderation queue. You can reactivate it with Activate in All listings, then the seller edits the stock.

Good to know

• Marking a listing as sold, by you or the seller, sets its stock to 0.
• Stock is only counted for sales made on your site. If a seller sells an item in person, they should lower the stock themselves.
• When you import listings while stock control is on, the CSV can include a stock column.
• Digital downloads and event tickets use stock the same way.

Related guides

• Let members sell with Buy Now — the Buy Now button stock control depends on.
• Orders and transactions — every sale.
• Manage listings — statuses and reactivating.