How warehouse types work
In SKU.io, every place stock can be is a warehouse, including places you don't run yourself. A building you operate, a 3PL's site, Amazon's fulfillment network and a supplier's dock are all warehouses, each with a Type. The type decides three things: who keeps the count, which orders may ship from it, and how its stock is valued. Modeling them all as warehouses means one stock figure, one valuation and one movement history cover everything you own, wherever it sits.
The types
| Type | What it represents | How it's created | Who keeps the count |
|---|---|---|---|
| Direct | A warehouse you operate. | Add Warehouse | SKU.io, from its own stock movements. |
| 3PL | A third-party logistics company that stores and ships your stock. | Add Warehouse, or by mapping a warehouse in a 3PL integration | SKU.io, from its own stock movements. The 3PL's integration lets you compare its count with yours. |
| Supplier | A supplier's ship-from location, used for dropship. | On the supplier record | Nobody. It isn't stock you hold. |
| Amazon FBA | Amazon's fulfillment network. | By the Amazon integration | Amazon. Counts are mirrored from Amazon's inventory ledger. |
| Amazon AWD | Amazon Warehousing & Distribution bulk storage. | By the Amazon integration | Amazon. |
| Walmart WFS | Walmart Fulfillment Services. | By the Walmart integration | Walmart. |
| Faire FBF | Fulfilled by Faire. | By the Faire integration | SKU.io. Faire doesn't publish its stock, so SKU.io's movements are the record: transfers add stock and Faire shipments remove it. |
| Virtual | A stand-in location that a channel integration uses for stock it fulfills. | By an integration | The channel. |
You only create Direct and 3PL warehouses yourself. The others are created and maintained by their integrations, and they can't be archived.
Physical stock you hold
Direct and 3PL warehouses work the same way for stock. Every receipt, sale, transfer, adjustment and count is a movement in SKU.io, and their stock is valued from those movements. The difference is who does the physical work. For a 3PL, SKU.io hands the shipment to the provider and records the shipment and tracking that come back. See Create & edit a warehouse.
Stock a channel holds
When a marketplace stores your stock, the marketplace knows the true count. SKU.io mirrors it from the channel's reports instead of recording its own movements. The stock is still yours, so it still has a cost and a value:
- For Amazon, SKU.io builds cost layers from Amazon's own ledger, so FBA stock is valued like any other stock. See How FBA inventory is tracked and Value your FBA inventory.
- Stock you send to the channel leaves your own warehouse through a transfer, so its cost moves with it.
These warehouses are channel-captive. Only the owning channel's orders can use their stock, so automatic order routing never picks them for another channel's order. Each channel's orders go straight to its own warehouse.
Stock on the road
Stock moving between your warehouses isn't a separate warehouse. It's in-transit stock of the destination warehouse. When you ship a transfer, the units leave the source and are recorded as in transit at the destination, in no bin. When you receive the transfer, they become on-hand stock there. They keep their original cost the whole way. See How transfers work.
Stock you've ordered from a supplier is incoming, not in transit. The valuation report shows it separately as inbound until you receive it.
How each type shows up in valuation
The Inventory Valuation report groups value by warehouse:
- On-Hand covers stock in Direct, 3PL and channel warehouses.
- In-Transit covers transfers that have shipped but not been received.
- Supplier warehouses hold nothing of yours, so they carry no value.
- Consigned stock you hold for a supplier is counted on hand but kept out of your value. See How consignment works.