How does STOQ Interact with Shopify Locations, Markets, and Shipping?

To ensure your customers have a seamless purchasing experience, STOQ integrates closely with your Shopify store's native settings. Because STOQ is a highly inventory-aware app, it does much more than just look at your total overall stock. It actively reads your Locations, Markets, and Order Routing to show the right button to the right customer.

Here is a detailed breakdown of how STOQ interacts with your Shopify configuration to prevent overselling and streamline fulfillment.

How STOQ Handles Locations and Markets

Unlike basic apps that only look at a single combined inventory total, STOQ respects Shopify's location assignments and market routing. It determines whether to show a "Preorder", "Notify Me", or "Add to Cart" button based entirely on the inventory of the specific location(s) assigned to the customer's market.

You can check Shopify's location setting by going to Shopify admin > Setting > Shipping and delivery and click the shipping profile.

Example Scenario: Cross-Border Inventory

Let's say you have an item stocked across different global warehouses:

• US Location (Assigned to USA Market): 0 inventory
• Canada Location (Assigned to Canada Market): 100 inventory

If a customer from the United States visits your product page, STOQ recognizes their region, sees that the assigned US Location has 0 inventory, and displays the Preorder or Notify Me button.

If a customer from Canada visits that exact same product page, STOQ sees the 100 available items at the Canada location and displays the standard Add to Cart button.

What if a Market has Multiple Locations?

If you assign multiple locations to a single market (e.g., an East Coast warehouse and a West Coast warehouse both serving the USA Market), STOQ will respect Shopify's combined inventory for that specific market. If both warehouses hit 0, the preorder button will trigger.

Crucial: Enabling Market-Based Settings for Non-Product Pages

While STOQ automatically reads market-specific inventory on your individual Product Pages, Shopify natively handles inventory differently on non-product pages (such as Collections, the Homepage, Search results, or custom landing pages).

By default, Shopify takes the combined global total inventory of all locations for these pages. Using the example above, Shopify's native code would see "100 total items" globally and might mistakenly show an "Add to Cart" button on the collection page for a US customer, even though the US warehouse is completely empty.

The STOQ Solution -

To prevent this mismatch and ensure location-based inventory is respected everywhere on your storefront, you must enable STOQ's market-specific settings.

1. Open the STOQ app in your Shopify admin.
2. Navigate to your Preorder > Settings > Pages > Customize

3. Go to Locations and market > Multiple markets, enable Market based preorders, then add your market and assign the location that serves it.

Once enabled, this forces STOQ to override Shopify's default global inventory on collections, homepages, and search pages. STOQ will dynamically calculate and differentiate the location's inventory for each market, ensuring the correct button is displayed no matter where the customer is browsing.

Shipping Profiles and Rates

Many merchants wonder if they need to build complex, separate shipping profiles just for preorder items.

The answer is no. STOQ operates within your standard Shopify Shipping and Delivery profiles. No separate preorder shipping profiles are required unless you want to offer different shipping rates for preorder item.

• Fulfillment Routing: As long as your Fulfillment Locations are properly assigned to your Shipping Zones (e.g., your India Location routes to the India zone), STOQ will work seamlessly.
• Shipping Rates: When a customer checks out with a preorder item, Shopify calculates the shipping rate based on the location assigned to fulfill that order, just as it would for an in-stock item.
• Split Fulfillments: If you are using STOQ to split in-stock and preorder items, remember that the customer only pays one shipping fee at checkout. Factor this into your overall pricing strategy if you will be paying for two separate shipping labels out of pocket.

Best Practices Checklist

To ensure STOQ works perfectly with your multi-location setup, verify the following in your Shopify Admin:

• Locations: Check that your inventory quantities are accurate at each specific location (Shopify Admin > Products > Inventory).
• Shipping Zones: Confirm that your Fulfillment locations are assigned to their respective Shipping zones, otherwise customers may get an error at checkout (Shopify Admin > Settings > Shipping and delivery).
• App Settings: Double-check that Market-based Preorder / Notify Me is toggled ON inside the STOQ app so your collection pages display the right buttons.
• Incoming Inventory: Remember that STOQ triggers based on "Available" inventory. Inventory marked as "Incoming" via Shopify Transfers does not count as available stock until it is received at the location.

Troubleshooting Common Issues

FAQs

Q: Does STOQ combine inventory across all locations globally to determine if an item is out of stock?

A: No. STOQ specifically looks at the inventory of the location(s) that are assigned to the customer's market. If a specific market's locations are out of stock, STOQ will trigger the Preorder or Notify Me flow for that market, even if other global locations have stock.

Q: Do I need to create a special shipping rate just for preorders?

A: No, STOQ works natively with your existing standard shipping profiles in Shopify.

Q: How does STOQ interact with B2B on Shopify?

A: STOQ respects the market assignments for B2B customers just as it does for direct-to-consumer (DTC) markets. If your B2B market is routed to a specific warehouse, STOQ will base the preorder availability on that warehouse's stock.

Updated on: 28/04/2026