Setting up Safety Stock

Overview

Safety Stock is a feature that adds a level of protection by reserving products to be sold only in-store, especially if there are only 1 or 2 items left. It helps eliminate the chance of an online stockout.

Other Ways to Use the Safety Stock Feature

• Saving products for regular in-store customers (purchased via POS)
• Reserving items for limited in-store specials
• Hiding all accessories from your menu in one step

Understand Safety Stock

• Safety Stock ensures certain products are available exclusively in-store when stock levels are low.
• It prevents online customers from purchasing the last few items, ensuring they are available for in-store customers.

When Safety Stock is most useful:

• Sometimes, your POS and Buddi menu are out of sync for a short period. This can happen if:
  • A customer places a pickup order but does not pre-pay; the inventory count is only reduced in Buddi after the order is paid/completed in your POS.
  • A product sells out in-store during the time between your scheduled POS syncs.
    
    In these cases, the last unit(s) may still appear online, which can lead to overselling. Setting a Safety Stock buffer helps prevent this by hiding products from your menu before they actually sell out in your POS.
     

How to Set Safety Stock for Individual Products:

1. Go to the Admin Portal > Inventory Levels page.
2. Identify the product you want to protect from online stockout.
3. Enter the desired Safety Stock level for that product (2nd column from the right).
4. Hit the Save icon.
    

Once the specific product's inventory level drops to or below this number, it will no longer appear on your Buddi menu but will still be available for purchase in your POS.

Example: You have only 2 items left of "Chocolate Fondue DNA Genetics by Canopy Growth Flower - 1 gram."

1. Under the Safety Stock column, enter a Safety Stock of 2 for that product.
2. Since there are only 2 items left, this product will no longer appear on your Buddi menu, but customers can still purchase it in-store.
    

How to Set Safety Stock for Categories + Global Safety Stock:

1. On the Inventory Levels page, click on [Set Safety Stock].
2. Set a Safety Stock level for specific categories and/or for all products (Global Safety Stock). Hit 'Save'.
   
   Typically, the Global Safety Stock is set to 1.
   
   

This means any product with only 1 item left will not show on your Buddi menu, while products with 2 or more items left will still be available for purchase in your POS.

Best Practice

Setting Safety Stock for individual products:

• Popular or promotional items are especially good candidates for individual Safety Stock settings, as they tend to sell quickly and are more likely to oversell online.
  
  

Location-specific tip:

• If you have multiple store locations, you can set higher Safety Stock values for specific stores where overselling is more common. Use the store selector in the top-right of the Inventory Levels page to adjust per-location settings.

Setting the right buffer:

• While a Global Safety Stock of 1 is common, you may want to increase it to 2-4 for high-demand products or during peak sales periods. This extra buffer helps reduce overselling risk before the next sync cycle.
   

FAQs

What is Safety Stock?

• Safety Stock reserves low-stock items for in-store (POS) purchases only, preventing online customers from buying the last few items.
  
  

What is Global Safety Stock?

• Global Safety Stock applies a uniform Safety Stock level across all products you're carrying.

Will this setting affect my actual inventory count?

• No, this is only a protective measure. Products triggered by Safety Stock will not change actual numbers in your POS.

Will the product still show in the Buddi dashboard?

• Yes, it will still appear on your Inventory Levels page if in stock.
• On the other hand, if you want to hide the product completely (unless the 'Display Hidden' feature is enabled), refer to the link below.

Article: Hiding Products in 'My Menu'