The low-stock report
The buying list: what is about to run out, worked out from what you have actually been selling. You do not have to configure anything for it to be useful — it reads your paid orders and fills itself in.
Days of cover — the idea the whole report turns on
Cover is how long your stock will last at the rate it has been selling. Three in stock selling one a week is three weeks of cover; three in stock selling one a year is years of it. Same number on the shelf, completely different urgency — which is why a plain "under 5 left" list is no use to a buyer.
Worked example. You sold 12 over the last 90 days, so 0.13 a day. You hold 4. That is 30 days of cover — about a month before you are out.
How an item gets on the list
Either of two things puts it here:
- Under eight weeks of cover at its recent rate. Nobody has to set anything — it simply started selling faster than it is being replaced.
- At or below a reorder point you set yourself. Your judgement, overriding the arithmetic.
Rows flagged reorder — the ones under your own mark — are sorted to the top. Everything else follows in order of least cover first, so the list reads as a buying order: start at the top and stop when you have spent enough.
Something with plenty of cover and no reorder point never appears. That is the point: a report that named everything would be no more useful than an empty one.
Sales window
The Sales window picker — 30, 60, 90 (the default), 180 or 365 days — is what "recent rate" means. It changes the answer, so it is worth thinking about:
- A short window reacts fast and is right after a release or a spike, but one busy weekend can make something look like it is flying out.
- A long window is steadier and better for ordinary restocking, but it is slow to notice something that has just taken off.
Reading a row
| Column | What it is |
|---|---|
| Item | The product, with its condition, language and SKU underneath — a Near Mint English copy and a Lightly Played German one are separate items with separate stock, so they are counted separately here too. |
| On hand | How many you have right now — the same number the storefront and the till are working from. |
| Sold | Units sold in the window, with refunds taken back off. Something bought and returned did not sell, and is not counted as demand. |
| Per day | Those units divided by the window. The rate behind the cover figure. |
| Cover | Days of stock left at that rate. A dash means it has not sold at all in the window — it is only here because it is below your reorder point. |
| Reorder at | Your own mark, editable in place. Press Save on the row. |
When to set a reorder point yourself
Most of the time you do not need to — the cover figure does the work. Set one when you know something the sales history does not:
- Something you always keep in even though it barely moves — a staple you would be embarrassed to be out of.
- A long lead time. If it takes a month to arrive, being told at eight weeks of cover is already late.
- Something new, with no sales history for the report to reason from.
A rough rule: what you would sell between placing an order and it arriving, plus a little. There is no penalty for guessing — change it whenever the number turns out to be wrong. You can also set it from the stock scanner while you are standing at the shelf, which is usually when you notice.
Good to know
- Only paid orders count as sales — online and at the till together.
- The list stops at 200 rows, worst cover first. If you are seeing that many, work down from the top rather than trying to clear it.
- Restock something and it drops off by itself. There is nothing to tick off.