The wider picture
Shopify inventory management, and the half of it nobody covers
Inventory work splits into two jobs, and Shopify only does one of them. Operations is the stock you have now: counting, transferring, adjusting, recording. Shopify's admin handles all of that well and you should use it.
Planning is the stock you will need: how fast things sell, when to reorder, how much, and how long your suppliers really take. Shopify stores no lead times and does no forecasting, so this half lands in a spreadsheet unless you give it somewhere better to live. Replinish is built for that half and nothing else.
The two halves of the job
Almost every argument about inventory apps comes from mixing these up. A merchant says "Shopify already does inventory" and another says "Shopify does nothing useful for inventory", and both are describing something real, because they are talking about different halves.
| Inventory operations | Inventory planning |
|---|---|
| How much do I have? | How much will I need? |
| Where is it? | When does it run out? |
| Move it, count it, correct it | Forecast it, order it, time it |
| Record what I bought | Decide what to buy |
| In the Shopify admin | Not in the Shopify admin |
What Shopify already does, properly
Worth being generous here, because paying for something you already have is a waste.
- Stock levels tracked per variant, per location.
- Transfers between locations, and adjustments for damage or loss.
- Cost per item stored against the inventory item.
- A vendor field on products, which is a decent seed for suppliers.
- Basic purchase orders, and receiving stock against them.
- Low stock notifications on a threshold you set yourself.
If your store is small, your lead times are short, and you can hold the whole catalogue in your head, this is genuinely sufficient. Plenty of stores never need more.
Where the gap opens
The gap shows up as your catalogue grows past what you can hold in your head, or as lead times get long enough that mistakes take a month to surface. Three things are missing and all three compound.
Shopify does not know how long your suppliers take. There is no field for it. Without a lead time, no threshold you set can be right except by luck, because the correct threshold is a function of it.
Shopify does not know how fast a product sells. It has your entire order history, but it does not turn that into a rate per product and project it forward. So a low stock alert fires on a number you guessed rather than on a date you will actually run out.
A single threshold cannot fit a whole catalogue. "Alert me under 50" is right for one product and wrong for every other. The product that sells 6 a day with a 30-day lead time needs to be reordered at 234. The one that sells one a week and arrives in five days needs to be reordered at 3. Setting them all to 50 means over-buying one and stocking out of the other, forever.
Which problem do you actually have?
Before shopping for an app, work out which of these you recognise. It will save you money either way.
Signs your problem is operations
- Stock counts in Shopify do not match the shelf.
- You lose track of what moved between locations.
- Nobody records damage or returns consistently.
None of that is fixed by a forecasting app. It is fixed by process, and by using the admin's transfer and adjustment tools consistently.
Signs your problem is planning
- You find out something is out of stock from a customer.
- You place orders on a hunch, or on whichever product is currently bothering you most.
- Cash is tight while the shelves are full, which is the classic tell.
- You rebuild the same spreadsheet every week and still do not trust it.
- Reordering takes a whole afternoon and you dread it.
The numbers worth watching
Five metrics carry almost all of the useful signal. Each one is defined in full in the glossary.
- Days of cover
- Stock on hand divided by daily sales rate. The one number to sort a product list by, because it is directly comparable to your supplier's lead time.
- Sell-through rate
- Units sold as a share of units available in a period. Low sell-through on a product you keep reordering is the earliest sign that cash is about to get stuck.
- Stock value at cost
- What your shelves are worth in money you have already spent. The number to look at when you are wondering where the cash went.
- Stockout days
- How many days a product spent at zero. It is invisible in your revenue reports precisely because the sales never happened.
- Dead stock
- Products with no meaningful movement over a long window. Every unit is money you cannot spend on something that does sell.
Overstock and dead stock: the invisible half
Stockouts get all the attention because they are loud. Overstock is quiet, and usually more expensive. Every unit that is not selling is cash you already spent, sitting still, that you cannot spend on the product that is selling.
The trap is circular. Being burned by a stockout makes the next order heavier, which ties up more cash, which leaves less to reorder the bestseller, which causes the next stockout. Stores stay in that loop for years, and it reads as a cash flow problem rather than an inventory one.
The way out is knowing which products are which. Replinish reports what is overstocked, what has stopped moving entirely, and how much money is parked in each, with a markdown calculator to size a clearance before you commit to a discount you regret.
If Stocky was your tool for this, the migration guide covers what changed and how to bring your data across.
Questions about inventory management
Does Shopify have inventory management built in?
Yes, for operations. Shopify tracks stock per location, supports transfers and adjustments, records basic purchase orders, and can notify you when a product runs low. What it does not do is planning: it holds no supplier lead times, does no demand forecasting, and calculates no reorder points or safety stock.
Do I need a Shopify inventory app?
Only if your problem is planning rather than tracking. If you know what to order and just need somewhere to record stock, the admin is enough. If you are regularly surprised by stockouts, or cash keeps ending up in products that do not sell, that is a planning problem and the admin has no answer for it.
What is the difference between inventory management and inventory planning?
Inventory management is about the stock you have now: counting it, moving it, correcting it. Inventory planning is about the stock you will need: forecasting demand, deciding when to reorder, sizing the order, and holding supplier lead times. Shopify covers the first properly and leaves the second to apps.
How much inventory should a Shopify store hold?
Enough to cover expected sales across your supplier's lead time, plus a cushion sized to how much that product's demand varies. For a product selling 6 a day with a 30-day lead time, that is 180 units of cover plus a cushion, so ordering when stock hits roughly 234. The answer is different for every product, which is why a single reorder threshold across a catalogue never works.
What replaced Stocky for inventory management?
Shopify retired Stocky on August 31, 2026 and points merchants to the inventory features in the admin, which cover the operational side. The planning features Stocky once had, including forecasting and reorder points, are not replaced natively and need a dedicated app.
How do I manage inventory across multiple Shopify locations?
Shopify tracks stock per location natively. Planning per location is the harder part, because a product selling well in one shop and sitting still in another needs two different decisions. Replinish forecasts each location separately on the Swell plan, so each one gets its own reorder points and its own purchase orders.
Find out which half you're missing
Install, let Replinish read your sales history, and look at the first reorder list it produces. 14 days free, and it never edits your store.
Launching on the Shopify App Store shortly. Tell us your store and we'll let you know when you can install it. Plans are billed by Shopify, and you pick one in your Shopify admin after installing.