Preparing Shopify inventory before the Stocky sunset means getting your products, variants, SKUs, locations, and quantities in order, and reviewing the files and records you have exported, before you import anything, rebuild a workflow, or start a buy list or purchase order. The goal is to reduce confusion at the cutover, not to assume every Stocky workflow drops cleanly into Shopify. Stocky will not be available after August 31, 2026, and the records you want to keep have to be exported manually using Stocky’s built-in reports before then, so the work splits into two halves: get the Shopify side ready to receive data, and check the exported data before it goes anywhere. Doing both in order is what keeps a migration from turning into a cleanup project after the fact. Here is what to check first.
What to prepare before the Stocky sunset
Preparation is a readiness review, not a conversion step. The two systems do not line up automatically: Shopify has stated that some Stocky-specific features might work differently or might not yet be available in Shopify, so plan to make decisions field by field rather than expect a clean swap. A useful way to frame the work is three questions in sequence: is the Shopify side set up to hold this data, do I have a clean copy of what I am bringing over, and have I checked it before I import or rebuild. Treat the time before the cutover as the window to answer all three calmly, while Stocky is still running and you can still compare. For the exact dates and what changes when, the Stocky shutdown timeline lays out the calendar this preparation works against. Running those three questions in order across every prep task is what a Stocky migration setup checklist organizes.
Start with products, variants, SKUs, and locations
The Shopify side has to be ready before any quantity arrives, so start with the structure that holds your catalog. Product details live in the Shopify product CSV, which can import products into a store and export them from it: titles, handles, vendors, SKUs, variant options, prices, and costs. Confirm that the products and variants you sell exist in Shopify with the SKUs you expect, because quantities attach to those variants, not to a free-floating list. Locations matter just as much: the inventory CSV uses the Handle, Location, and Option1 Value columns, plus Option2 and Option3 Value for products with more than one option, to identify the product variant and the location a quantity belongs to, so every location you count stock at needs to exist in Shopify with the exact name you will reference later. Getting products, variants, SKUs, and locations settled first means the quantity step has somewhere correct to land. For the field-by-field mapping between a Stocky export and these Shopify columns, the Stocky CSV migration guide walks the structure in detail. For those same products, variants, SKUs, and locations checked from the Shopify side once you are live, see Shopify inventory setup after Stocky.
Back up records you still need to reference
With the Shopify side taking shape, secure the data you cannot recreate. Records you want to keep must be exported manually using Stocky’s built-in reports while the app is still running, and historical Stocky data, including old purchase orders and stocktakes, won’t automatically move into Shopify. Anything you might need later for audits, supplier conversations, or trend reference is safest exported while Stocky is still running, since it will not move into Shopify on its own. Treat the sunset as a deadline to work back from and finish your exports with time to spare, rather than racing the cutoff. Save the exports somewhere durable, keep the originals untouched, and work only on copies when you start editing. The companion guide on exporting Stocky data before the sunset covers what to pull and what will not transfer; this preparation assumes those backups are in hand and focuses on getting them ready to use.
Review inventory quantities before importing or rebuilding
Quantities are where a rushed migration does real damage, so review them before anything goes in. Shopify inventory CSV files can export current inventory quantities and update quantities for products in each location, and the On hand (new) column sets or updates the units physically present at a location. How you handle counts depends on store size: the Inventory quantity column in the product CSV applies only to stores that have a single location, and stores with multiple locations use the inventory CSV to manage quantities instead. Beyond raw counts, this is a good moment to decide what is even worth carrying forward: 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 a slow seller you were about to migrate might be one to review rather than refill. Once you are live, the running version of this is the inventory replenishment workflow after Stocky. Reviewing those same records once you are in Shopify is a Shopify inventory audit after Stocky.
Clean CSV files before using them in Shopify workflows
The files you import deserve a careful pass, because the inventory CSV writes against live counts. A few checks prevent most accidents. The All states export includes separate rows for each location with columns for all inventory states and protects against accidental overwrites on import, while the Available export is a simpler format that does not provide the same overwrite protection, so prefer the All states file for a migration. In the inventory CSV the location name is case sensitive and must match the Shopify location name exactly, so copy it from a recent export rather than typing it. And when the inventory CSV includes both the On hand (current) and On hand (new) columns, Shopify runs a safety validation that prevents accidental overwrites if the current value in your file does not match what is actually in Shopify, so leave both columns in place. This section is the short version; the full file-by-file review, including how to split product fields from quantity fields and spot mismatched SKUs, is the subject of the Stocky CSV cleanup guide.
Do not assume supplier records or PO history will import cleanly
Two parts of Stocky do not move the way product and quantity data does, and planning around them now avoids a surprise later. The first is suppliers: suppliers can’t be exported from Stocky, so there is no supplier file to import. You rebuild the list by hand, and Shopify suppliers are created in the admin when you create a purchase order rather than uploaded in bulk, so a clean spreadsheet of your active suppliers is reference material for re-entry, not an import. The second is purchase-order history: it won’t automatically move into Shopify, and there is no path to import that history as a file. New purchase orders are created natively going forward, where a Shopify purchase order records the products, their costs, and the quantities ordered from a supplier and each one can be downloaded as a PDF from the admin for your records. The working-file versus order-of-record distinction is covered in CSV versus PDF purchase orders, and what native Shopify purchase orders do and do not cover is set out in purchase orders after Stocky.
Connect preparation to buy lists and purchase-order review
Preparation pays off because every decision after the cutover reads from the records you are getting ready now. A buy list only points at the right products when the SKUs and on-hand figures behind it are accurate, which is why a buy list after Stocky is more reliable on clean data. A dead-stock pass works the same way: reviewing dead stock after Stocky before you reorder only helps when the quantities it reads are correct. And deciding what to reorder, when, and how much, the work of reorder planning after Stocky, inherits whatever state your records are in. Preparing the data well is the quiet step that keeps all of those later reviews honest, instead of carrying a migration error forward into every buy decision.
Shopify inventory prep checklist before Stocky ends
Run this short review before the cutover so preparation stays deliberate rather than a last-week scramble. Confirm the products, variants, and SKUs you sell exist in Shopify, and that every location you count stock at is set up with the exact name you will use. Export and back up the records you want to keep, keeping originals untouched and working on copies. Review your current quantities and decide which products are worth carrying forward. Clean the CSV files you plan to import, preferring the All states inventory export and keeping the On hand columns so the safety validation runs. Plan to rebuild suppliers and recreate active purchase orders by hand, since neither imports as a file. One deadline frames the whole job: Stocky will not be available after August 31, 2026, so finish preparation with time to validate. The Stocky migration checklist sequences the full move, and what to use after Stocky frames the wider tooling choice once your inventory is ready.
Limitations
Preparing your inventory before the sunset 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, it does not import Stocky purchase orders, and it does not create a Stocky supplier CSV, because suppliers cannot be exported from Stocky at all. None of it is demand forecasting, and the choices you make about each record are judgement calls a person reviews, not steps to run blindly. It is not accounting, tax, legal, or financial advice. It does not replace your own review of each record, and Shopify’s inventory records, purchase orders, suppliers, and reports still need source-backed checks against your own store. For the one slice where supplier reliability is the heart of the work, 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: 2026-06-30.
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