Reservation value is required if you enable Magento Orders creation option in Amazon Integration > Configurations > Accounts > Orders.
How does it work? The mechanism is simple:
- Amazon Order is imported;
- Magento Product's quantity is reserved (so it is decreased) until Magento Order is not created;
For example, you have a Product listed on Amazon with QTY=12.
2 Items were bought on Amazon and Amazon Order is imported. However, Magento order is not created yet.
- If quantity reservation is disabled - on Amazon there are still 12 items available for purchase. But physically 2 of them are already sold. As a result - you can sell them again and it causes overselling.
- If quantity reservation is enabled - the Product QTY is reserved, so there are only 10 Items available on Amazon. As a result - these items are not available for buyers and overselling is prevented.
In case you order was Reserved but then canceled, the reserve quantity will be released and becomes available for buyers again.
Default Quantity Reservation period is 1 day. So if 1 Item was bought and Magento Order was not created, Quantity will be reserved, so in Magento it will be decreased and overselling will be prevented.
How long will the Product QTY be reserved?
The reservation period you set up in Account settings - is the maximum period for Reservation.
The Reservation can be canceled after Magento Order creation or manually by click Cancel QTY Reserve button at the top of the Order page.
After the product quantity is released, you can see an appropriate record in Orders Log.