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Update local inventory for Vertex AI Search for retail

LocalInventory is the inventory information associated with a certain place, identified by its place_id. For example, a LocalInventory could be created for a store or a region where a certain price is available. LocalInventory has the following fields:

LocalInventory.price_info
LocalInventory.attributes
LocalInventory.fulfillment_types

Existing LocalInventory entries are visible through Product.local_inventories (with the exception of fulfillment_types which, for backward compatibility, is available through Product.fulfillment_info). This field is output only. Setting Product.local_inventories for Product CRUD APIs or SetInventory has no effect.

Each (LocalInventory.place_id, LocalInventory.fulfillment_types[...]) pair points to the same (fulfillment_info.place_ids, fulfillment_info.type) pair mentioned in the Inventory update documentation. fulfillment_types updated by AddLocalInventories and RemoveLocalInventories described below reflects a mapping from each place ID to a list of fulfillment types it supports, while fulfillment_info updated by AddFulfillmentPlaces and RemoveFulfillmentPlaces reflects a mapping from each specific fulfillment type to a list of place IDs that supports such type. However, both types of the APIs are modifying the same underlying fulfillment information, and the effect of both types of APIs will be reflected onto Product.fulfillment_info.

Local inventory update methods

Changes to a product's local inventory information can occur much more frequently than changes to its catalog information. A specialized set of methods are provided to handle large volumes of local inventory-specific updates. These methods are asynchronous because of downstream optimizations that support hundreds of concurrent updates per product, without sacrificing performance.

`AddLocalInventories`

AddLocalInventories can be used to create local inventories at new places (represented with new place_ids), or update existing fields on existing local inventories. Fields that are added or updated on the list of LocalInventory entries in the request body can be specified through AddLocalInventoriesRequest.add_mask. Valid add_mask values are:

price_info: overwrites LocalInventory.price_info.
attributes: overwrites all LocalInventory.attributes. Existing attributes that are not mentioned in the request body are removed.
attributes.PLACEHOLDER_NAME: overwrites only the specified custom attribute. If an existing attribute name is not provided in the request, the attribute is deleted. Multiple attributes.PLACEHOLDER_NAME can be specified, as long as each attribute name is different. However, AddLocalInventoriesRequest.add_mask can't include both the attributes value and attributes.PLACEHOLDER_NAME values in the same request.
fulfillment_types: overwrites all supported fulfillment types. Existing fulfillment types that are not mentioned in the request body are removed.

Proto

{
  product: "projects/123/locations/global/catalogs/default_catalog/branches/default_branch/products/p123"
  local_inventories: {
    place_id: "store1"
    price_info: {
      currency_code: "USD"
      price: 100
      original_price: 110
      cost: 95
    }
    fulfillment_types: "pickup-in-store"
    fulfillment_types: "ship-to-store"
  }
  local_inventories: {
    place_id: "store2"
    price_info: {
      currency_code: "USD"
      price: 200
      original_price: 210
      cost: 195
    }
    attributes: {
      key: "attr1",
      value: {
        text: "store2_value"
      }
    }
    fulfillment_types: "custom-type-1"
  }
  add_mask: {
    paths: "price_info"
    paths: "attributes.attr1"
    paths: "fulfillment_types"
  }
  add_time: {
    seconds: 100
    nanos: 100
  }
  allow_missing: true
}

This sample AddLocalInventoriesRequest adds or updates two local inventories with place IDs "store1" and "store2" for the specified product. If store1 exists, and store2 does not exist before the request, the request will update fields of store1, and create store2 with the given field values.

This AddLocalInventoriesRequest.add_mask specifies that price_info, a single custom attribute with the name "attr1", and fulfillment_types should be updated using the values provided in the AddLocalInventoriesRequest.local_inventories.

attributes are attributes associated with a place with customizable name and values. Since LocalInventory of store1 does not provide the value of attr1 in the request, custom attribute attr1 will be deleted from the existing LocalInventory of store1 if it exists. store2 will have its attribute attr1's value set to a text value store2_value. Other existing custom attributes on store1 and store2 are untouched.

fulfillment_types represents a list of fulfillment availability for a Product at a single place. It is the same and accepts the same values as fulfillment_info.type. This AddLocalInventoriesRequest specifies that store1 supports pickup-in-store and ship-to-store fulfillment types, while store1 supports custom-type-1. Fulfillment types existing before this update that are not mentioned in the request will be deleted.

Since AddLocalInventoriesRequest.allow_missing is set to true, even if the product does not already exist, the updated local inventory information will be stored for when the product is eventually created. The update is timestamped with AddLocalInventoriesRequest.add_time to prevent stale updates from overriding the specified fields of these place IDs. For more about preventing stale updates and storing local inventory information before the product is created, see Timestamp protections for local inventory updates and Preloading inventory information.

Proto

{
  product: "projects/123/locations/global/catalogs/default_catalog/branches/default_branch/products/p123"
  local_inventories: {
    place_id: "store3"
    attributes: {
      key: "attr1",
      value: {
        text: "attr1_value"
      }
    }
    attributes: {
      key: "attr2",
      value: {
        numbers: 123
      }
    }
  }
  add_mask: {
    paths: "attributes"
  }
  add_time: {
    seconds: 100
    nanos: 100
  }
}

This sample AddLocalInventoriesRequest adds or updates a single local inventory with place ID "store3" for the specified product. Since its add_mask contains "attributes", all existing custom attributes of store3 are deleted, and replaced with attr1 and attr2 as specified in the request. Note that since allow_missing is not set, it requires the specified product to exist. Otherwise, a NOT_FOUND error is thrown.

`RemoveLocalInventories`

RemoveLocalInventories can be used to remove existing local inventories at places with given place IDs.

Proto

{
  product: "projects/123/locations/global/catalogs/default_catalog/branches/default_branch/products/p123"
  place_ids: "store1"
  place_ids: "store2"
  remove_time: {
    seconds: 100
    nanos: 100
  }
  allow_missing: true
}

This sample RemoveLocalInventoriesRequest removes local inventories for places with place IDs "store1" and "store2" for the specified product. The update is timestamped with RemoveLocalInventoriesRequest.remove_time to prevent stale updates from overriding the deletion of these place IDs. For specified place IDs without existing local inventories, the request also records their update time to remove_time. For more about update timestamps, see Timestamp protections for local inventory updates

Timestamp protections for local inventory updates

To protect against out-of-order updates, each local inventory field is associated with a latest update time.

The latest update time is recorded for each (place_id, price_info), (place_id, attributes[...]), and (place_id, fulfillment_types[...]) pair.

The AddLocalInventories and RemoveLocalInventories methods allow the caller to specify an update time for when the request is issued. This update time is compared against the latest update time recorded for the relevant inventory fields, and the update is committed if and only if the update time is strictly after the latest update time.

For example, suppose place ID "store1" has price_info with the last recorded update time set to time T. If RemoveLocalInventoriesRequest.place_ids contains "store1", the request will remove price_info from "store1" only if the RemoveLocalInventoriesRequest.remove_time is later than time T. The same is true for RemoveLocalInventoriesRequests.

Under timestamp protection, it is possible that a RemoveLocalInventoriesRequest might remove only certain fields of a LocalInventory instead of all of it. Suppose a local inventory with place ID "store1" has price_info with last recorded update time set to time T1, and has its only existing custom attribute with name "attr1" with last recorded update time at T2. If a RemoveLocalInventoriesRequest.place_ids contains "store1", and has remove_time set to T3 (where T1 < T3 < T2), then store_1's price_info will be removed, while its attribute attr1 will be untouched.

Preloading inventory information

Each of the local inventory update methods allows the caller to set allow_missing in the request. When allow_missing is set to true, a local inventory update to a nonexistent Product is processed as if the Product exists according to the method specification(s). The local inventory information will be retained for a maximum of two days if the corresponding Product is not created via CreateProduct within this timeframe.