Reservations

Reservation refers to the process of putting a temporary hold or setting aside a certain quantity of items from the available inventory to fulfill specific orders. In contrast to demand, where a customer places an order and the business works to fulfill it, a reservation is established when an order has not been finalized, but the customer has expressed the intention to make a purchase by adding the item to their cart. When a customer adds items to their cart, businesses often generate a temporary or soft reservation that is typically valid for 10 to 15 minutes. This reserves the inventory for the customer, ensuring that the items are not sold out before the customer completes the checkout process after potentially adding more items to their cart.

Customers can reserve an item’s required number of units for a given period. If the customer does not place the order within the expiry window, then the order is no longer valid or is considered expired, and the items in the order are released for other customers to use. The customer may also choose to cancel the reservation placed on the order, as a result of which the reserved quantity of items is removed or released back into the available inventory. If a customer proceeds to checkout the reserved items, then the reservation is finalized and the order is considered confirmed.

The following are the two types of Reservations supported by OneTruth:

Soft Reservation: This has an expiry window, beyond which the reservation will no longer be valid. The number of units reserved are also removed or reduced from the available-to-sell inventory by the enterprise. During soft reservation, the system displays the status as "Reserved".

Hard Reservation: This does not have an expiry window, and any order made using hard reservation is final. During hard reservation, the system displays the status as “Confirmed”.