Purchase Order Management for Shopify: Everything You Need to Know

Shopify is primarily a sales platform, it handles the selling side of ecommerce exceptionally well. The buying side (purchasing inventory from suppliers) has always been secondary. For years, Stocky filled this gap by providing basic purchase order functionality bundled free with Shopify. Stocky stopped working on 31st August 2026, so merchants who relied on it have lost that capability. Shopify's admin now has its own purchase orders: you can create one, assign it to a supplier and receive it through a linked transfer, and Shopify recommends this in place of Stocky. What it does not tell you is what to buy and when, so many merchants still plan purchasing in spreadsheets or third-party apps. For brands with a single domestic supplier ordering monthly, spreadsheets work adequately. For brands with multiple international suppliers, long lead times, and dozens of open orders at any given time, working out what to order and when, by hand, creates significant operational risk. Our guide to Shopify inventory management in 2026 covers the other native gaps.

A purchase order is a formal document sent to a supplier that specifies exactly what you want to buy. Every PO should contain:

PO number (unique reference for tracking), supplier name and contact details, order date, expected delivery date, list of products with SKU codes, quantities ordered, unit costs, total cost per line item, total order value, payment terms (e.g., 30% deposit, 70% on shipment), shipping method and incoterms (e.g., FOB Shenzhen), and any special instructions.

The PO is both a communication tool (telling the supplier what to produce) and a financial record (tracking your purchasing spend). When goods arrive, you match the delivery against the PO to verify you received what you ordered at the price you agreed. Discrepancies, short shipments, damaged goods, wrong items, are recorded against the PO for dispute resolution. The unit costs on each PO are also what you need to work out margin per SKU.

A purchase order moves through five stages:

Draft: You create the PO based on reorder needs. Add products, quantities, and costs. Review before sending.

Sent: The PO is issued to the supplier. The clock starts on your expected lead time. Your inventory system should now show these quantities as "incoming" or "on order."

Confirmed: The supplier confirms they can fulfil the order at the specified quantities and prices. Any changes (MOQ adjustments, price increases, unavailable items) are negotiated and the PO is updated.

In transit: The goods have shipped. For sea freight from China, this stage can last 8-16 weeks. Tracking the shipment against the PO helps you predict actual arrival date versus expected date.

Received: Goods arrive at your warehouse. You scan or count the delivery and match it against the PO. Full match closes the PO. Partial delivery keeps it open with the remaining quantities still expected.

Picture a brand sourcing from manufacturers in Guangdong Province, China, with months of production and sea freight and many purchase orders at different stages at once.

A workable process: every Monday, review weeks of cover. Any SKU below 30 weeks of cover (a threshold based on a 27-week lead time plus a safety buffer) gets flagged for reorder. Group flagged SKUs by supplier and create a single PO per supplier, this is important because shipping costs are per container, not per product, so consolidating orders into fewer, larger shipments reduces per-unit freight cost.

Once a PO is sent, track it through production (checking in with the factory at set points), booking freight, customs clearance and final delivery. Update the PO status at each stage so you always know where your stock is.

The most critical part of the process is goods receiving. When a container arrives, check every product against the PO. This catches short shipments, wrong items and quality issues while the driver is still present.

The decision to create a purchase order should be data-driven, not gut-feel. Three approaches, from basic to sophisticated:

Manual review: Log into Shopify, check stock levels, create a PO when something looks low. This works for under 100 SKUs but breaks down quickly at scale, you cannot visually assess 1,000 products.

Reorder point triggers: Set a minimum stock threshold for each SKU. When stock drops below the threshold, create a PO. Better than manual but does not account for varying sales velocity or lead times, a static threshold treats a product selling 10/day the same as one selling 10/month.

Weeks cover triggers: Monitor weeks cover for every SKU. When cover drops below your lead time plus safety buffer, flag for reorder. This is the most intelligent approach because it naturally adjusts for sales velocity, fast movers get flagged earlier than slow movers.

Now Stocky has shut down, Shopify merchants need another way to manage purchase orders. Your options range from Shopify's own purchase orders and free spreadsheets to dedicated inventory apps.

A well-structured Google Sheet or Excel template can handle basic PO management for brands with 1-3 suppliers and fewer than 10 open POs at a time. You need columns for PO number, supplier, products, quantities, costs, status, and dates. The limitation is that spreadsheets do not connect to your Shopify inventory, you are manually reconciling.

For brands beyond that scale, an inventory management app with built-in PO functionality saves time. Canopy Inventory works out what to reorder: it shows weeks of cover, a reorder-by date and a suggested buy quantity for each SKU, using lead times you set for the whole shop (and per supplier or SKU on Growth and Pro). You enter incoming purchase orders by hand and Canopy deducts them, and you can export the list as CSV. It is read-only, so it does not send POs to suppliers, receive goods, scan barcodes or update stock in Shopify.