Every item on a reservation keeps its own clock. The shop-wide default is just a starting point. A customer needs longer on one thing? Give that one thing longer. Another item needs releasing? Free it without touching the rest. This guide covers how holds and expiry work, and the June updates that made them per-item.
Everything here works on every plan.
How holds work
When an item is reserved, its stock is held: removed from what's available to sell online and at the till, so it can't be oversold while the customer is on their way. Each held item carries an expiry date. When that passes, the stock frees itself and goes back on sale, and the customer gets an expiration email. Nothing sits locked because someone forgot to come back.
That automatic release is the auto-expire setting, and it's on by default. If you switch it off, holds stay until you act: convert the reservation to a sale, cancel it, or release the item's stock yourself. Most stores should leave it on. Note that changing this setting affects new reservations, not existing ones.
Set your default hold period
- In Reservo, go to Settings and stay on the General tab.
- Check Automatically expire inventory holds is on.
- Set the default inventory hold period. Enter a number and pick minutes, hours, or days. Anything from 15 minutes to 180 days. The default is 7 days, which suits most retailers; clearance stock tends to want 1 to 3 days, high-value or custom orders longer.
Give individual items their own hold period
Since June, the default is only the starting point. There are two ways an individual item ends up with its own clock.
At the till, when the reservation is created
Staff creating a reservation at POS can tap any item in the cart and set a hold period just for it. One reservation can hold the everyday item for a week and the special order for a month.
This needs switching on first. In Settings, on the General tab, enable Allow staff to override the default inventory hold period. It's off by default. While it's off, staff can't adjust hold periods at POS, at creation or afterwards.
As a standing rule for a product or variant
You can also give a product, or a single variant, its own default hold period, so every future reservation of it gets the right clock without staff thinking about it. Open the product or variant in Shopify admin and set the hold period override in the Reservo settings block. When an item is reserved, the app resolves its hold in this order: what staff set at POS, then the variant's override, then the product's, then the shop default.
Extend or shorten one item's expiry on a live reservation
The customer rings about one item: they can't get in until next week. You don't need to touch the rest of the reservation.
- In the app admin: open the reservation, find the item, and click the pencil next to its expiry date (Edit expiry). Pick the new date. Works on any active, unexpired item.
- At POS: open the reservation from the Reservo tile and edit the item's expiry there. This uses the same staff override setting as above, so it needs Allow staff to override the default inventory hold period switched on.
Release one item's stock without cancelling
Before May, freeing one item's stock meant cancelling the whole reservation. That workaround is gone:
- Open the reservation in the app admin.
- On the item to free, click the Release reserved stock icon.
- Confirm.
That item's stock returns to available immediately. Every other item on the reservation keeps its hold and its own expiry date.
Common questions
Can I add or remove products on an existing reservation?
No. What you can do is edit any item's expiry, extend it, or release an item's stock. For a different set of products, create a new reservation.
What happens when an item expires?
Its stock goes back on sale automatically and the customer receives an expiration email. Other items on the same reservation are unaffected; each has its own date.
Why can't my staff change hold periods at POS?
The staff override setting is off by default. Switch on Allow staff to override the default inventory hold period in Settings, General tab. If you'd rather every reservation used the shop default with no exceptions, leave it off; admin editing still works either way.
Do reservations for incoming stock expire while the customer waits?
No. On items reserved against stock that hasn't arrived (an Automation plan feature), the clock only starts when stock is actually allocated. See the waitlist guide.
Does changing the default hold period affect existing reservations?
No. Existing holds keep the dates they were created with. Use per-item expiry editing to change a live reservation.