Good inventory management means never losing a sale to a stockout, and never tying up cash in overstock. This guide connects the core ideas — from forecasting demand to knowing exactly what to reorder and when — with a deeper guide for each.
Start with forecasting
Everything rests on predicting demand. Seehow to forecast inventory on Shopifyfor the overview, and forecasting methods(moving average, weighted average, exponential smoothing) for the how.
Sales velocity
Sales velocity — units sold per day — is the number that drives everything else. Use a recent window so it reflects current demand.
The reorder point
Your reorder point is the stock level at which you place a new order: (sales per day × lead time) + safety stock. Use the free calculator to find it per product.
Safety stock
Safety stock is the buffer that absorbs demand spikes and late deliveries — enough to avoid stockouts, not so much it ties up cash.
How much to order — EOQ
Economic order quantity balances ordering cost against holding cost to find the order size that costs the least overall. The reorder point sayswhen; EOQ says how much.
Measure health: turnover and days on hand
The inventory turnover ratio shows how many times you sell through your stock in a period; days of inventory on hand flips that into a countdown of days left. High turnover without stockouts is the goal.
Prioritise with ABC analysis
You can't watch every SKU equally. ABC analysissorts products into A, B and C classes so your best sellers never run dry while you stop over-managing the long tail.
Moving off Stocky
Shopify is retiring Stocky. See the best Stocky alternative for what to look for and how to migrate your suppliers and lead times.
Automate the whole thing
Doing this by hand for hundreds of SKUs isn't realistic. Foreshelf reads your Shopify sales history and turns it into plain-language reorder recommendations — what's about to run out, how much to order, and when — so you plan in minutes, not spreadsheets.