Fulfillment & Releases
Inventory Holds and Blocking Issues
How inventory is held during fulfillment, what happens when a payment fails, and common issues that block an order.
Inventory Holds and Blocking Issues
During fulfillment, each order ties up inventory for the items in that order. This guide explains when inventory is held, what happens when a payment fails, and the common issues that can block an order from moving forward.
How Inventory Holds Work
When a order is created and items are assigned, inventory for those items is held - meaning those bottles are reserved for that member and are not available for other orders. This hold persists through every active status:
- Pending, Pending Choice, Confirmed, Ready, Awaiting Shipment - all of these tie up inventory until the order is either fulfilled or cancelled.
Inventory is released (returned to available stock) only when a order reaches one of these terminal states:
- Fulfilled - the order is complete, inventory has been delivered
- Cancelled - the order was cancelled, items return to stock
- Released - the order was reset, items return to stock
- Skipped - the member opted out, no inventory was consumed
Payment-Failed Orders
When a order enters Payment Failed status, inventory is still held for that order. MemberZone does not auto-release stock on a failed charge because most failures resolve on retry - releasing stock prematurely would force you to re-allocate from a different bottle if the retry succeeds.
How to Free Up Held Inventory
- Wait for retry success - If Stripe retries and succeeds, the order moves back to its prior state and stays held until fulfilled.
- Cancel the order - From the member's fulfillment sidebar, cancel manually. This releases the held inventory back to available stock.
- Cancel the membership - Cancelling the underlying membership releases all its open orders.
For more on payment failures and retry options, see Failed Payments and Retries.
Blocking Issues
Some orders can't move forward until a problem is resolved. MemberZone calls these blocking issues and surfaces them on the Needs Attention filter pill in the fulfillment stats bar.
Common Blocking Issues
| Issue | What It Means | How to Resolve |
|---|---|---|
| Shipping state not allowed | The member's shipping address is in a state your business doesn't ship to | Update the member's address, or configure the state on Shipping → States |
| No address or incomplete address | The member needs a valid shipping address | Contact the member to collect their address, or update it in the member sidebar |
| No payment method | No card on file for this member | Send a card collection link or ask the member to add a card |
| Not yet charged | A scheduled charge is overdue | Trigger the charge manually or investigate why it didn't run |
| Charge failed | A previous charge attempt failed | Retry the charge or wait for automatic retry - see Failed Payments and Retries |
| Missing template | No template has been assigned to the order | Assign a template from the member's fulfillment sidebar |
Open the member sidebar to see the specific issue and the recommended fix for that order.
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