# Stock control for physical products

> Assign units to each physical product: stock decrements with every confirmed sale and sold-out titles can't be purchased. Managed via dashboard, API, and bulk import.

Source: https://publica.la/en/blog/stock-control-for-physical-products

Posted on September 3, 2026 by [Gonzalo Parra](https://publica.la/en/blog/authors/gonzalo-parra) 1 min read

## **Real inventory for your print catalog — every sale counts itself, and your store never sells what you don't have.**

Meet **stock control for physical products**: assign a quantity of available units to any physical product and every confirmed sale updates it automatically. When a title reaches zero, it stays visible in your catalog but clearly marked as unavailable — no one can buy what you can't deliver.

## Why you'll love it

- **Overselling, solved:** sold-out products can't be purchased, and titles whose digital edition is still available keep selling in the formats you do have.
- **Inventory everywhere you manage it:** set quantities from the dashboard, sync them from your ERP through the API, or update your whole catalog at once with bulk import.
- **Full traceability:** every stock change is recorded — who changed it, when, and where it came from.

Tracking is optional per product: titles without an assigned quantity keep behaving exactly as before, so you can adopt it at your own pace.

💡 **Result:** a catalog that reflects real availability, integrations that stay in sync, and buyers who never order what you can't ship.

Free tools

## Put this into practice

Free, instant, no signup — the same tools our team uses with publishers every week.

[EPUB Checker Validate your EPUB files for structure, metadata, content integrity, and best practices. Get a quality score and detailed issue report. Check your EPUB](https://publica.la/en/tools/epub-checker) [Book Metadata Extractor Upload a PDF or EPUB and get its core metadata normalized to the ONIX 3 standard: title, contributors, publisher, ISBN, BISAC and Thema codes, and keywords. Extract metadata](https://publica.la/en/tools/metadata-extractor) [Book Quality Checker A complete pre-publish audit: epubcheck conformance, accessibility, and the Qualebook production checklist in one report. Run quality check](https://publica.la/en/tools/quality-checker)

[ See all free tools ](https://publica.la/en/tools)

## More from the blog

[Product Updates Aug 20, 2026 Chat with this book The AI reading assistant now works on EPUB — the format most of your catalog lives in — and arrives redesigned as a native part of the reader. Read more](https://publica.la/en/blog/chat-with-this-book) [Product Updates Jul 17, 2026 Location-Based Shipping Checkout now calculates the exact shipping cost for each buyer's region automatically. Set a price per province, offer free shipping where you choose, and watch totals update in real time. Read more](https://publica.la/en/blog/location-based-shipping) [Product Updates Jul 14, 2026 Introducing Origami: the creative toolchain for publishing — free for publica.la customers Origami is a new product from the team behind publica.la: drop in an ebook and get validation, accessibility, quality, metadata and AI descriptions in seconds. It's included at no extra cost for every publica.la customer — here's what it does today and what's coming. Read more](https://publica.la/en/blog/introducing-origami-creative-toolchain-for-publishing)