Shopify inventory management: where a reorder app fits
Shopify now handles stock levels, purchase orders, transfers and counts in the admin. What it doesn't give you is the date to reorder by, after your supplier's lead time, and how many to buy. Canopy Inventory is a read-only Shopify inventory app for that one job.
Do you need a Shopify inventory management app?
Shopify's own inventory tools record stock: levels per location, purchase orders, transfers, counts and adjustments. If you buy from suppliers with lead times of weeks or months, you also need to know how many weeks of stock each SKU has left, the date to reorder by and how many to buy. That is what a reorder app adds. Canopy Inventory does it read-only, from your Shopify sales and stock.
What Shopify does natively, and what Canopy adds
| Task | Shopify admin | Canopy Inventory |
|---|---|---|
| Track stock per variant and location | Reads it | |
| Create and receive purchase orders | Yes, received through a linked transfer | |
| Move stock between locations | Yes, transfers | |
| Stock counts and adjustments | ||
| Weeks of cover per SKU | Days remaining estimate (report) | |
| Stockout and reorder-by dates | ||
| Suggested buy quantity (lead time, target cover, safety stock, pack size, MOQ) | ||
| Cash to buy at your Cost per item | ||
| Bundle sales counted towards each component | ||
| Dead stock and overstock flags |
Use both: Shopify to record and move stock, Canopy to decide what to buy and when.
Where Canopy fits
Shopify shows how many units you have. Canopy turns that into weeks of cover: how long your stock lasts at your current sales rate, from a 7, 14, 30, 45, 60 or 90-day sales window. It steps forward day by day to find the stockout date, takes away your lead time and safety stock to get the reorder-by date, and suggests a buy quantity rounded to your pack size and minimum order, with the cash it needs at your Shopify Cost per item.
Day 0
Today
240 in stock. 120 sold in the last 30 days, so 28 a week: 8.6 weeks of cover.
Day 16
Reorder by
The stockout date minus 30 days lead time and 14 days safety stock.
Day 46
Stock arrives
If you order on the reorder-by date, 30 days later.
Day 60
Stockout date
When 240 units run out at 4 a day, with nothing on order.
The formulas and edge cases are in how Canopy calculates; the full feature list is on how it works; what it reads from your store is on the Shopify connection page.
Replace the reorder spreadsheet
Canopy Inventory is coming soon to the Shopify App Store. One email the day it's live. Free for your 50 most recently sold SKUs.
Honest limits
- Read-only: it never changes stock or costs, and doesn't create purchase orders in Shopify.
- No barcode scanning, stock counts, receiving or transfers. Use Shopify's own tools for those.
- No marketplace or multichannel stock sync, and no accounting connection.
- Incoming purchase orders are entered by hand (Growth and Pro). Canopy doesn't read Shopify purchase orders.
- Days when a SKU was out of stock are not taken out of its sales rate, so a SKU that was out for part of the window can look slower than it is.
- With no Cost per item in Shopify, cash to buy is left blank rather than guessed.
- Sales windows longer than your synced history show n/a until the history builds up.
Choosing a Shopify inventory app: five questions
- Does it need write access to your store, or can it work read-only?
- Does it work per variant, or only per product?
- Does it count units sold inside bundles towards each component?
- Does it allow for stock already on order before suggesting more?
- Does it tell you when a figure is weak, for example a missing cost or a short sales history?
Moving from Stocky? See what Canopy replaces, and what it doesn't. Need warehouse or multichannel tools instead? See when Linnworks is the better fit.
Shopify inventory management: frequently asked questions
Yes. Shopify tracks stock per variant and location, and the Shopify admin has purchase orders (received through a linked transfer), transfers between locations, stock counts, inventory adjustments and inventory reports. Its Inventory remaining per product report estimates days of stock left, but it doesn't give a reorder-by date from your supplier lead time, a suggested buy quantity, or the cash that order needs.
It depends on the job. If you need warehouse work such as barcode scanning, picking or marketplace sync, you need a warehouse or multichannel system. If your problem is knowing what to reorder and when, a reorder planning app such as Canopy Inventory sits alongside Shopify's own tools. Check whether an app is read-only, works per SKU, counts bundle sales, and tells you when its figures are weak.
Yes. For every SKU it shows weeks of cover, the stockout date, the reorder-by date and a suggested buy quantity covering your lead time, target cover and safety stock, rounded to pack size and minimum order. It does not place the order: you create the purchase order in Shopify or with your supplier.
No. It is read-only. It reads products, inventory, locations and orders, and never writes stock, costs or anything else back to your store.
No. On Growth and Pro you enter incoming purchase orders in Canopy by hand, with expected dates. Units on order are deducted from the buy quantity and added to the stockout forecast on their expected date.
Free for your 50 most recently sold SKUs. Growth is $39 a month and Pro is $79 a month. Paid plans have a 14-day free trial and Shopify bills them.
Sources
- Shopify Help Center: purchase orders
- Shopify Help Center: inventory transfers
- Shopify Help Center: inventory counts
- Shopify Help Center: adjusting inventory
- Shopify Help Center: inventory reports
Last updated 6th November 2026.
Related pages
Weeks of cover, reorder dates, buy quantities and cash to buy.
Free for your 50 most recently sold SKUs. Growth $39/mo, Pro $79/mo. Billed by Shopify.
Work out a reorder point from lead time and safety stock. Free, no sign-up.
What Shopify's built-in inventory tools do, and what they miss.