Tracked vs Non-tracked Variants
Why some variants never reserve stock or trigger low-stock alerts, and how to switch a variant to tracked.
- Estimated time
- 4 min
- Difficulty
- Intermediate
- Required plan
- Any plan
- Last updated
- June 29, 2026
Overview
A variant's SellPilot tracking mode determines whether inventory machinery runs. Non-tracked and service variants are never reserved, never produce stock movements, never push inventory to a channel, never block an order, and never raise low-stock alerts. Shopify metadata can seed the mode on first import, but later Shopify refreshes do not override the SellPilot setting. If the stored classification and compatibility mirror ever disagree, SellPilot fails safe as non-tracked until they are reconciled.
Related articles
- Inventory Overview
How SellPilot tracks stock per variant per warehouse, including reservations and the canonical pipeline that protects your data.
- Connect Shopify
Install the SellPilot app on your Shopify store to sync products, orders, customers and inventory in both directions.
- Inventory Push to Channels
How tracked stock changes are sent back to Shopify (and other supported channels), and why a missing mapping turns a warehouse into Local-only.
- Inventory Reservations
Reservations hold stock for confirmed orders so two customers don't oversell the same unit.