How to choose a stock view and ranking window

Everything on What is Inventory? (Selling › Inventory) starts from one menu at the top left of the list. It names the view you are in and, for some views, the stretch of sales history behind it, such as Top 100 by units · Last 90 days. Open it to change either.

What does each view answer?

Alerts

• Oversold: products whose stock has gone below zero. You have sold them and do not have them. The heading gives the full count, such as 14 oversold items.

Low stock

• Top 100 by units: your 100 best sellers by units in the ranking window, whatever their stock. Rows at risk sort to the top, soonest to run out first. This is the view the page opens on.
• Top 100 by revenue: the same, ranked by money rather than units, which brings up expensive products that sell slowly.
• At risk now: Top 100 by units cut down to its Oversold, Critical and Low rows.
• Reorder now: products with 5 or fewer in stock at the locations you ship from, lowest first, with the stock figure alone. A Low stock alert opens this view.
• Everything low: the catalogue-wide reorder plan. It searches the lowest-stocked products at every location you ship from and lists each one with a Reorder figure above zero, with Cover, Reorder and Fill cost. It is where you draft purchase orders.

Catalog

• All stock: your top 500 sellers in the ranking window, for looking a product up rather than being told what matters.
• Dead stock: products still holding stock that have not sold in the idle period you choose, ranked by the cash they tie up.

Your lists

• Any product list your team has saved. See How to filter and save a list of products to watch. People who can save lists also see New list… below the views.

Which one should you actually use?

Everything low for the weekly order, because it covers the whole catalogue and drafts the orders for you. See How to find out what you need to reorder.

Top 100 by units to check on your best sellers, healthy ones included. Reorder now for a quick look at what is nearly empty, the same list the low-stock alert reads.

Oversold when a customer complaint suggests something is wrong, and Dead stock at the end of a season. Both are covered in How to find items running out, oversold, or not selling.

What is the ranking window for?

It decides which products make the list, and in what order. Top 100 by units, Top 100 by revenue, At risk now and All stock rank your products by what they sold inside the window, and only those four views show it.

The choices sit under Ranking window in the view menu: Last 30 days, Last 90 days (the default), Last 365 days, All-time, or Custom range… for your own start and end.

The window does not change Cover or Reorder. Those use the expected rate of sale, the same figure whichever window you pick. Where that figure comes from is in How to find out what you need to reorder.

Which window should you pick?

Last 90 days for ordinary weeks. It is long enough that one odd week does not reshuffle the list.

Choose Last 30 days to see what is selling right now, such as the fortnight after a launch. Choose a custom range over the same weeks last year to see what led a season: golf apparel in January does not sell like golf apparel in June.

Choose All-time when you are looking up an older product in All stock and it has not sold recently.

What does Idle for mean on Dead stock?

It is how long a product has gone without a sale before it counts as dead. The view menu shows it under Idle for, as No sale in 30 days, 60, 90 or 180 days, and the menu button then reads Dead stock · No sale in 90 days.

Ninety days is the default and the usual starting point. Thirty flags anything slow, including products that sell only now and then, and 180 shows only stock that has stopped selling.

How do you narrow a view?

Type in Search name or SKU… to the right of the menu. To filter by category or vendor, press the filter button beside the search box and choose from All categories and All vendors.

Each category or vendor you choose shows as a chip next to the view menu. Click a chip to clear it. Changing the view or the window clears the search and every filter.

On Reorder now and Oversold, use the search box to narrow the list: those two views show no category or vendor choices.

Filtering Everything low to one vendor is how you prepare a single supplier's order. See How to find out what you need to reorder.

What does Show keep-selling items do?

It brings back products Shopify is set to keep selling when they are out of stock, such as made to order or drop-shipped goods. They sit below zero on purpose, so most views hide them until you ask.

The switch is in the filter panel, with a line saying how many are hidden. It shows on any view that has some to show.

On Reorder now, turning it on adds them below the list under Kept selling when out of stock. Turn it on when you are checking your setup rather than ordering.

Oversold and Everything low list only products that are meant to stop at zero, so keep-selling products never appear in either.

How many rows does a view cover?

Each view covers as much as its question needs:

• Top 100 by units, Top 100 by revenue and At risk now: your top 100 sellers.
• All stock: your top 500 sellers.
• Everything low: up to 300 products.
• Reorder now: the 20 lowest, with a note such as Showing the 20 lowest of 46 when there are more.
• Dead stock: the top 100 by cash tied up.
• Oversold: the 200 deepest, with showing the 200 deepest beside the full count.

For the full list of what needs ordering, use Everything low rather than Reorder now.

Can you save your own view?

Yes, as a list of specific products you want to watch together. See How to filter and save a list of products to watch.