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If a product is unavailable after an order has been placed, you can substitute it with a similar product. These substitutes are pre-configured at the product level, and then either performed automatically or manually selected by an Order Admin or Fulfiller user. This allows you to fulfill the order for the original sale price, improve customer experience by delivering products similar to their desired product, and supports business models that may frequently use substitutes such as groceries.

Watch: Managing Substitutions

Learn how to create and manage product substitution rules
This feature requires Order Management and either eCommerce or an OMS catalog. If you are using a catalog, ensure that all products in imported order data are valid products in your catalog.

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How Substitutions Work

If a product is out of stock and not configured for substitutes, then any unavailable quantity must be transferred or rejected. But if a product is configured for substitutions, there are a few different scenarios where replacing it with another product may be useful:
  • A product is substituted one-to-one with a different product.
    • For example, 1 quantity of 60oz Bleach is substituted with 1 quantity of 60oz Whitener.
  • A product is substituted for a different quantity of a different product.
    • For example, 1 quantity of 60oz Bleach is substituted with 2 quantities of 30oz Bleach. This requires configuring a Product Bundle to represent the substitute quantity — see the note below.
  • A product is partially substituted with a different product.
    • For example, a shipment requires 5 quantity of Blank Shirt but only 2 are in stock. The remaining 3 quantity are substituted with White Shirt.
    • If there is not enough substitute quantity available to fulfill the original amount, then the remaining quantity can be transferred or rejected. If only 1 quantity of White Shirt was available, then that would be substituted into the shipment and a transfer or rejection would be made for the remaining 2 quantity.
A product is substituted with multiple products, either independently or as a bundle.
  • For example, 1 quantity of 90 Day Cleanser is substituted with 3 quantities of 30 Day Cleanser. Or, it’s substituted with a Cleanser Bundle that includes 1 quantity each of 60 Day Cleanser and 30 Day Cleanser.
  • Multiple products can be used for partial substitutions. If the shipment requires 5 quantity of Blank Shirt and 2 are in stock, the remaining 3 could be satisfied with 1 quantity of White Shirt and 2 quantity of Basic Tee.
Any substitute that applies more than one quantity of a single item, or a combination of different items, must be configured as a single Product Bundle — each entry in the Substitute Products field only supports one product. Create the Product Bundle first, then add that bundle as the substitute. The bundle displays as a single selectable option in the Substitute Item pop-up, even though it applies multiple items or quantities behind the scenes.For example:
  • To substitute 1 quantity of 60oz Bleach with 2 quantities of 30oz Bleach, create a *30oz Bleach 2-Pack** bundle with 2 quantities of 30oz Bleach as its component, then add that bundle as the substitute for 60oz Bleach.
  • To substitute 1 quantity of 90 Day Cleanser with 1 quantity each of 60 Day Cleanser and 30 Day Cleanser, create a *Cleanser Bundle** with those two products as bundle components, then add the Cleanser Bundle as the substitute for 90 Day Cleanser.
  • To substitute 1 quantity of 1 Gallon Milk with 2 quantities of ½ Gallon Milk, create a *Half-Gallon Milk 2-Pack** bundle with 2 quantities of ½ Gallon Milk as its bundle component, then add that bundle as the substitute for 1 Gallon Milk.
See Configure Substitutions for setup steps.
Substitutions are supported for STH, BOPIS, and Delivery shipments. In the case of Delivery, the Delivery service item will always remain on the shipment and cannot be substituted. This ensures that the delivery will still be provided as requested by the customer even when the original shipment item(s) is replaced with an alternative. However, any shipment items with an associated Assembly service item cannot be substituted.

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Manual and Automatic Substitutions

Enabling substitutions will allow Order Admin and Fulfiller users to perform manual substitutions, but you can also allow substitutions to be made automatically upon shipment creation. If no inventory is available for an item at that point, then the system will attempt to perform a substitute before considering a transfer (if transfers are enabled). Substitute products are attempted in order of a given priority. For example:
  • The system goes to create a shipment and finds that there isn’t enough inventory for a product that is a 60-ounce bottle. It automatically substitutes that line item with a 40-ounce bottle that has available inventory.
  • The system goes to create a shipment and finds that there isn’t enough inventory for a product that is a 60-ounce bottle. It attempts to automatically substitute the item with a 40-ounce bottle, but inventory is not available. The system moves to the second-highest priority substitute, a 60-ounce bottle from another brand, and that product has available inventory so the substitution is performed.
  • A shipment is being consolidated and inventory is not available at the consolidation location, so the system attempts to substitute based on inventory at that specific location before attempting a transfer via Order Routing.