Low stock and dead stock are opposite problems that can look the same on a shelf, and treating them the same way is how cash gets wasted after Stocky. Low stock means an item may run out before you can restock it, so the risk is a lost sale. Dead stock means cash is tied up in items that are barely selling, so the risk is money sitting still. The point of telling them apart is to decide what each item actually needs, whether to buy more, move stock you already own, hold and watch, or look closer, before you build a buy list or open a purchase order. Stocky will not be available after August 31, 2026, and from that date you manage inventory in the Shopify admin and Shopify POS, so this is a check you now run yourself from the data Shopify already holds. Here is how to separate the two before you spend.
- Start from a low count A small number on its own is not a buy signal.
- Check recent sales Is the item still selling, or barely moving?
- Read days of cover How long does the current stock last at the recent pace?
- Weigh dead-stock risk Low sell-through or no recent sales points to a slow mover.
Then choose a response:
- Replenish
- Transfer
- Hold
- Look closer
Dead stock vs low stock: the practical difference
The two terms describe different risks, and the difference is about money rather than shelf space. Low stock is a timing problem: an item is selling, but the units on hand may not last until your next delivery, so the danger is running out and losing sales you could have made. Dead stock is a movement problem: an item is not selling at a pace that justifies the cash and space it occupies, so the danger is working capital frozen in inventory you cannot turn back into money quickly. A product can be low and dead at the same time, a slow seller that happens to be down to a few units, which is exactly the case where buying more would be a mistake. Keeping the two ideas separate gives each item a clearer label before you decide anything: is this an item to protect from a stockout, or an item to stop feeding, which is the overstock vs stockout tradeoff every reorder has to weigh.
Why low stock alone is not a buy signal
A low number on its own does not tell you to buy. It only tells you the count is small, which can mean two very different things: a fast seller that needs restocking soon, or a slow seller you should let run down. Shopify’s inventory reports summarize past sales and current stock to help you decide which products to prioritize when restocking, and they are not automatic reorder recommendations and do not calculate reorder quantities, so the judgment stays with you. The cleanest first filter is sales: an item that is low and selling steadily is a candidate to reorder, while an item that is low and barely moving is usually a candidate to stop ordering. Reaching for a purchase order the moment a number looks small is how dead stock gets restocked, because the small number reads as urgency when it is really just a low count on something nobody is buying. Running that filter as part of a wider dead stock after Stocky review keeps the habit in place once the move off Stocky is done. The running view of what is getting low from week to week is the subject of inventory replenishment after Stocky, and this check sits one step in front of it.
Check recent sales before buying more
Start every decision from real sales, not from the count alone. Current stock is the anchor, and you can read it from the admin: Shopify inventory CSV files can export current inventory quantities and update quantities for products in each location, and counts done in Shopify POS feed the same figures. Against that stock, set the recent sales pace, the rate the item has actually sold at over a comparable recent window. Two reports make the dead-versus-live distinction visible. The products by sell-through rate report shows what percentage of the stock you held actually sold over a period you choose, so a low sell-through over a fair window is a strong dead-stock signal. ABC product analysis grades each variant by its share of revenue, with A-grade variants together accounting for the bulk of sales and C-grade variants the smallest slice, which helps you see whether a low item is one you rely on or one you could let go. A closer read of days of inventory remaining after Stocky turns that pace into a timing estimate. The pattern to watch for is simple: steady recent sales point toward restocking, while little or no recent movement points toward holding or clearing, and catching slow-moving inventory early is how you keep a slow seller from sliding into dead stock.
Use days of cover to separate urgency from noise
Days of cover is the bridge between a raw count and a real decision. Days of inventory remaining is an estimate of how long your inventory will last based on average sales rates, calculated as the ending quantity divided by the average quantity sold per day. Read against that estimate, a low count stops being one number and becomes two questions: how long will it last, and how fast is it leaving. An item with a short days-of-cover figure and steady sales is genuinely urgent, the low-stock case that may justify buying. An item with a long days-of-cover figure, or one the report cannot compute because there have been no recent sales, is the dead-stock case, where the right move is rarely to order more. That second pattern matters most: a product with no recent sales has nothing for the estimate to work from, and that absence is the signal, not a prompt to refill. Days of cover separates the items where timing is the problem from the items where movement is the problem, which is the whole point of the exercise.
Does the item belong on this week’s buy list?
Once you can tell a live shortage from a dead item, the buy list becomes a short, honest document instead of a refill of everything that looks low. A buy list is the review step between your numbers and a purchase order, where you decide what to buy and how much before any order is created. The items that earn a place are the ones that are selling and getting tight; the items that do not are the slow movers, which belong on a watch-or-clear note rather than an order. Building the list this way is covered in the buy list after Stocky guide, and running it on a fixed cadence is the idea behind the weekly reorder list. The dead-versus-low question is the filter that keeps both short: an item only belongs on the buy list if buying more is actually the right response, and a slow seller with a low count fails that test even though its number looks alarming.
Replenish, transfer, or hold: choosing the response
Separating the two risks gives you more than a yes or no on buying. It opens up the responses that are easy to miss when every low number triggers an order. Replenish when an item is selling and the cover is short, the clear low-stock case where a Shopify purchase order records the products, their costs, and the quantities ordered from a supplier. Transfer when the shortage is only in one place and another location holds a surplus, since moving stock you already own beats buying more of it, a line drawn in reorder versus transfer inventory after Stocky. Hold when an item is low but not selling, where the low count is a reason to stop ordering rather than to restock, and where adding stock would deepen the dead-stock problem instead of solving anything. Spotting the inventory cash tied up in stock before you act keeps that mistake off the buy list. A fourth response is simply to look closer, reconciling the count or checking for a counting error before acting. Choosing among these deliberately is what reorder planning after Stocky is built around, and it starts with knowing which risk you are looking at.
How supplier lead time changes the decision
Supplier lead time is the input that can flip a calm item into an urgent one, so it belongs in the decision before you commit. You have to order while the stock on hand still covers the days a supplier takes to deliver, so a short days-of-cover figure paired with a slow supplier is more urgent than the number alone suggests, while a quick supplier buys you room to wait. Lead time also shapes the dead-stock side: a long minimum order or a slow restock cycle can mean buying far more than the pace justifies, which is how a slow seller quietly becomes dead stock on the shelf. The order records that hold this history live in the admin, and suppliers are created in the Shopify admin when you create a purchase order, so the vendor and the order stay together. Grouping a buy list by supplier and pinning lead time and minimums to each row is what turns it into a supplier-ready buy list, and it keeps the dead-versus-low call honest by showing the real cost of ordering early or in bulk.
Dead stock vs low stock checklist
Before you turn any low number into an order, run each item through the same short review, in the same order, so the dead-versus-low call is deliberate. First, the current on-hand count, read from the admin export rather than memory. Second, recent sales, so you know whether the item is moving at all. Third, days of cover, to see whether a moving item is genuinely close to running out. Fourth, the sell-through and revenue picture, so a slow seller is flagged before you refill it. Fifth, the response, replenish, transfer, hold, or look closer, chosen from the item’s real situation rather than its count. Sixth, supplier lead time and any minimum, because both can move the timing and the amount. Seventh, a one-line reason, so the decision is defensible later. One timing note frames the habit: historical Stocky data, including old purchase orders and stocktakes, will not move into Shopify automatically after the shutdown, so export the counts and order history you plan from before the cutoff. The Stocky migration checklist covers that sequence, and what to use after Stocky frames the wider tooling choice.
Limitations
Separating dead stock from low stock is a review habit, not a Shopify feature, and this guide does not cover every workflow Stocky used to support. It does not create Shopify purchase orders; those stay native to the Shopify admin, and this check only feeds the decision behind them. None of this is demand forecasting, and the labels you put on each item are judgement calls a person reviews, not numbers to follow blindly. It does not promise that you avoid every stockout or clear every piece of dead stock. Shopify purchase orders, suppliers, inventory records, and inventory reports still need source-backed checks against your own store. For the one slice where supplier reliability is the heart of the decision, the existing kijun app is one option, scoped honestly: it builds 0-100 supplier scorecards from purchase orders recorded in kijun, on supported supplier and vendor records, and it does not forecast demand or reorder for you. See how supplier scorecards work after Stocky.
This article was drafted with AI assistance and checked against cited sources through kijun’s editorial workflow. Last updated: 2026-06-27.
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