Checkout

After a shopper finalizes the items to purchase and adds them to the cart, they are directed to the checkout phase. During the checkout phase, the shopper selects their preferred delivery speed and fulfillment option.

The shopper selects either the minimize shipments or the earliest delivery fulfillment options for each item in their cart. Based on the shopper's selection, IBM® Sterling Intelligent Promising calculates the sourcing solutions for each item. For more information, see the Get Checkout Shipment Plan (Pre-Purchase) API.

The checkout calculations consider multiple factors that include:
  • Requested delivery method
  • Maximum shipping SLA days
  • Carrier service calendar
  • Inventory level for both on-hand and future availability across the node in the fulfillment network
  • Number of cart lines
  • Other sourcing constraints
  • batchNo, lotNo, revisionNo inventory tag identifiers or the tagNumber for tag-specific fulfillment requirements.

Tag-aware checkout assignment

The following Calculation APIs support inventory tag identifiers or the tag number: The precise fulfillment of orders requiring specific batch, lot, revision or tag inventory is enabled. This capability ensures contractual compliance, margin protection, and downstream traceability.

Input parameters

The APIs accept either the following optional tag identifier parameters or the tagNumber for each line item:
  • batchNo - Batch number identifier
  • lotNo - Lot number identifier
  • revisionNo - Revision number identifier
  • tagNumber - Tag number identifier
Note: If the tagNumber is provided then it is used, otherwise the tag identifiers are used to identify the tag number.

Sourcing logic

The APIs apply tag-aware sourcing logic based on the presence of tag identifiers:
Strict tag matching
When tag identifiers are provided in the request, the APIs source only from inventory matching the specified tags. If no matching tagged inventory is available, the APIs return "No Availability" or "Backorder" status. The system will not fall back to untagged inventory when specific tags are requested.
Untagged inventory handling
When tag identifiers are NULL or empty, the APIs request availability from the untagged inventory pool. The inventory layer determines whether this pool includes only untagged inventory or aggregates both tagged and untagged inventory based on the untaggedMatchAllTag tenant setting. The Sterling Intelligent Promising relies entirely on the availability totals provided by the inventory layer.

Output response

The APIs response includes the specific batchNo, lotNo, revisionNo tag identifiers or the tagNumber allocated for each line item. These identifiers enable downstream systems to lock the specific inventory during order capture, picking, and packing operations, ensuring accurate fulfillment and complete traceability.

Business benefits

Tag-aware checkout assignment provides the following benefits:
Contractual compliance
Prevents generic orders from consuming vendor-specific or restricted inventory.
Margin protection
Ensures that premium or specific-lot inventory is reserved for appropriate requests.
Downstream traceability
Provides exact batch, lot, revision or tag details to order capture stage.
Regulatory compliance
Supports industries that require specific batch tracking, such as the pharmaceutical or food industry.

For detailed scenarios demonstrating the tag-aware checkout assignment capability, see Scenario: Tag-aware checkout assignment for specific inventory requirements.

Sterling Intelligent Promising provides you with the following options when you use the Calculation APIs:
  • SLA-based promising
  • Cost-based promising

The shipping service level agreement (SLA) option is optimized on the earliest delivery. For more information, see SLA-based checkout.

The cost based promising option provides an estimated shipment solution that is based on the cost to fulfill. For more information see Cost-based checkout.

Support for on-hand and future availability

When inquiring about checkout shipment estimates, Sterling Intelligent Promising considers both on-hand and future inventory at all stores in the network. The fulfillment solution is derived from the optimal delivery time and fulfillment cost. Then, the fulfillment solution that is provided can be divided further by both the shipment and pickup fulfillment methods that are called SHIP or PICK.

When the Checkout assignment API is presented with multiple cart lines in the request, the system determines the earliest availability of the item and sourcing constraints are eliminated automatically. Finally, if cost-based checkout is used, the cost is refined further to achieve the lowest cost delivery while still meeting the shipping SLA requirements.

The system prioritizes on-hand availability to determine shipping solutions as they are available immediately for fulfillment. In some scenarios, the checkout assignment might suggest a future date for items that are presented in the future from an allocated, supply, purchase order.

Example: Multi-line order checkout estimates with on-hand and future availability

Consider the scenario where a shopper is planning to purchase a game console and a pre-order video game that is available a few weeks from today. The shopper creates a cart with:
  • Line1 ItemId=GameConsole Qty:1
  • Line2 ItemId=PreOrderGame Qty:1

At this time, the fulfillment network has on-hand availability for the game console but the pre-order game is only available two weeks from now as per the inbound purchase order from the game distributor.

The checkout solution takes the two line cart and the availability dates of each item into account. If the optimization strategy is based on "earliest delivery" or considerMaxSLADays=false then the solution yields:

  • Shipment1: Line1, GameConsole from Node1 ETA: Today
  • Shipment2: Line2, PreOrderGame from Node 2 ETA: 2 weeks from Today