Optionally link stores to partners

[jayvdb]

I would like to optionally link stores to specific partners, where partners are part of a network offering both physical stores and delivery fulfillment.

Currently the stores data model has separate inventory control, but in this scenario the physical store inventory is effectively shared between online and physical purchases. The Oscar partner component already provides inventory control, and it is undesirable to duplicate it for the stores component.

IMO it would make sense for stores to always link to an oscar partner, allowing that component to handle access control and inventory control. Existing data could be migrated by creating new partner records for the existing stores. However that would make typically mean the offline stock would become online stock, which wouldnt be suitable for most sites. I propose migrating by creating product variants for each store, which can be optionally linked to the Partner, and product variants offer seemingly equivalent stock control as the stores component. Product variants can be marked as not "Is public" in order to remove them from the core online purchase search and catalogue, so those product variants could be visible only in stores component. The one field in StoreStock which doesnt have a suitable mapping to Partner and Product variants is StoreStock.location. I'm still looking into how that might fit into a revised model.

[jayvdb]

@metaclassco, I see you have created https://github.com/metaclassco/django_oscar_multiple_warehouses . I am guessing by the name that you might have similar needs as my own. I was planning to use 'stores' as a mostly hidden component to describe partner warehouses (but we also have bulk purchases who would interact directly with the warehouses and usually doing pickup instead of delivery).

[solarissmoke]

I feel like there are potentially two separate use cases here - stores (customer-facing) vs warehouses (logistics centres), and that this package is aimed primarily at the former. If you need warehouse functionality then I'm not sure bootstrapping the stores app gives you very much?

[jayvdb]

pretty sure I need what I wrote - a customer-facing store which has stock and acts as a warehouse for online deliveries. I can either work with this project to have this component better work with oscar partners, or I can create a separate app which adds only customer-facing features on top of oscar partners.

[solarissmoke]

I just don't think your use case is generic enough to build into this app - especially (a) the stuff about having separate product variants for each store and (b) an assumption that there would be a one-to-many mapping between stores and partners. I feel like you're better off building a custom app to do this.