How to find items running out, oversold, or not selling

Three different problems each have their own view on What is Inventory? (Selling › Inventory). At risk now is about to run out, Oversold has already run out, and Dead stock is money sitting still.

All three sit in the view menu at the top left of the list. See How to choose a stock view and ranking window for switching between them.

Before you start

You need your Shopify store connected and See sales, inventory, reports and the daily brief on Settings › Permissions. That row starts at lead. See How to set who can do what.

What do the status pills mean?

Each row on the ranked views, Everything low and your saved lists carries one pill. It judges the product's Cover (days of stock left) against its supplier's Lead time:

• Healthy: nothing to do.
• Low: 5 or fewer in stock, or no more cover than the supplier's lead time plus 7 days.
• Critical: no more cover than the supplier's lead time itself. A product that is selling but has no stock figure at any location you ship from is also critical.
• Oversold: zero or fewer in stock. You are selling what you do not have.
• Not tracked: Shopify is not counting stock for this product.

A supplier with no Lead time on its page is judged against 14 days. Recording real lead times makes these pills match your suppliers. See How to add and set up a supplier.

Reorder now, Oversold and Dead stock show no pills, because every row on them already answers one question.

How do you find what is about to run out?

Open At risk now. It is Top 100 by units cut down to its Oversold, Critical and Low rows, so it covers your 100 best sellers in the ranking window.

Rows sort by Cover, soonest to run out first. Oversold rows have no cover figure, so they come after the critical and low rows; open Oversold to see them on their own.

Read Cover before the stock number. A product with eleven days of cover from a supplier who takes three weeks is already a problem, and one with four months of cover is not. Rest the pointer on a Cover figure to see the daily demand behind it.

To check slower sellers outside your top 100, use Everything low, which covers the whole catalogue. Turning the list into an order is How to find out what you need to reorder.

What does oversold mean?

The product has fewer than zero available: you have taken money for units you do not have in hand. Each one is a customer waiting for something that is not on a shelf.

The Oversold view lists every product below zero, deepest first. It leaves out products Shopify is set to keep selling when out of stock, and products whose stock Shopify does not track, because neither is a real oversell.

What does the Oversold view show?

The heading gives the full count and how many have stock on the way, such as 14 oversold items · 5 with stock incoming. When there are more than 200, it adds showing the 200 deepest.

Each row shows the product and SKU, with how long it has been below zero, such as oversold since 3d ago. Beside it are Available, the negative figure, and Incoming, the units already on their way.

Those two together are the triage. A product three days negative with stock incoming needs a note to the customer. A product three weeks negative with nothing incoming is the one to deal with this morning.

What do you do about an oversold product?

Work out which of three cases it is.

If stock is coming, chase the order. How to find late orders and plan revisions covers finding what is late.

If the count is wrong, which is common after a stocktake or a breakage, correct it from Reorder now. That view lists products at 5 or fewer, lowest first, so oversold products sit at the top, and each row has a Correct stock button. See How to work out a restock cost and correct a stock count.

If nothing is coming and the count is right, order it. An oversold product's Reorder figure on Everything low covers the shortfall as well as future sales.

How do you find stock that is not selling?

Open Dead stock. It lists products still holding stock that have not sold in the idle period you choose, ranked by the cash tied up in them.

Choose the period under Idle for in the view menu: No sale in 30, 60, 90 or 180 days. Ninety days is the default and the right place to start.

Each row shows On hand and Cash tied up, which is on hand multiplied by the unit cost recorded in Shopify. The heading adds up the rows on screen, such as 38 idle items · ~$21,400 tied up.

What does Dead stock leave out?

Products that have sold within the period, products with nothing on hand, and products Shopify does not track. It also leaves out any product whose product type in Shopify contains the word consignment, because that stock belongs to your supplier until it sells.

A row with a dash under Cash tied up has no unit cost in Shopify. Add the cost to the product in Shopify and the figure appears.

What do you do with the dead stock total?

Take it to the meeting. It is the cost of decisions already made, and it argues for a markdown, a bundle or a wholesale offer better than a list of SKUs does.

Check it before a buying season rather than after. The cash it names is the cash you were about to commit again.

Filter by category or vendor to see one range at a time, such as everything from Kaimen Knitwear that has sat for 180 days.

Can you be told instead of checking?

Yes. Low stock is one of the alerts on Brain › Automations, and it watches your stock without anybody opening the page. It alerts when stock you can ship drops to 5 or fewer. Its panel sets Who gets it, and Also by email sends it to their inboxes too.

It never alerts on products Shopify is set to keep selling, because they go below zero on purpose. Turning it on and choosing who hears is How to set up the stock and order alerts.