Leaving Stocky behind is a starting point, not an end state. If you are a Shopify merchant, an operations manager, or a founder who ran replenishment in Stocky and is now working directly in the Shopify admin, two everyday actions can blur together: reordering from a supplier and transferring inventory. They are related but separate. A purchase order is the record of what you ordered from a supplier. A transfer moves and tracks inventory, between your store locations or to and from external locations such as suppliers. This article keeps those two workflows distinct, explains when each fits, and shows where they touch without overlapping. For broader context on planning, see the replenishment overview.
What a reorder is
A reorder is the act of ordering more stock from a supplier. In the Shopify admin, you document that order with a purchase order. A Shopify purchase order lets you record and manage what you order from a supplier, including the products, quantities, prices, payment terms, and an estimated arrival date, all of which you enter manually. The purchase order is your written record of what you asked the supplier to send and on what terms.
A reorder usually starts with a supplier purchase order. The decision to reorder lives with you and your planning. The purchase order is the artifact that captures that decision so you, your team, and the supplier are aligned on what is coming, how much, and when it is expected.
Because Stocky will not be available after August 31, 2026, and was removed from the Shopify App Store on February 2, 2026, recording purchase orders now happens in the Shopify admin. The transitioning from Stocky guide covers that move. For a more detailed walkthrough of the ordering process itself, see the purchase order workflow guide.
What a transfer is
A transfer is how Shopify records inventory movement. An inventory transfer in Shopify lets you move and track inventory between your store locations, or to and from external locations such as suppliers. That second part is important. Transfers are not limited to internal moves. They also cover situations where stock is coming in from an outside party, including a new shipment arriving from a supplier.
A transfer tracks inventory movement or receipt. In practice, that can mean a box of product moving from a warehouse to a retail location, a top-up sent from one store to another, or an incoming shipment you are bringing in from a supplier and want recorded as it lands. The common thread is movement: where stock is going, where it came from, and the act of receiving it.
A transfer does not, by itself, decide what you should order or how much you need. It documents the physical or logistical movement of inventory you already have on the way or in hand.
How reorders and transfers differ
This is the distinction worth pinning down. A purchase order is the record of what you ordered from a supplier. A transfer tracks where inventory moves or when it is received. They sit next to each other in your operations, but they are not the same thing.
A reorder usually starts with a supplier purchase order. A transfer tracks inventory movement or receipt. They can meet when inventory is received from a supplier, but they are not the same workflow.
To be explicit:
- A purchase order is not a transfer. It does not move stock between locations. It records what was ordered and on what terms.
- A transfer is not a purchase order. It does not capture the commercial agreement with a supplier (the prices, payment terms, or the order itself). It captures movement or receipt.
- A purchase order can exist without a transfer (for example, if you do not track the incoming shipment as a transfer in your process).
- A transfer can exist without a purchase order (for example, moving stock between two of your own locations).
Treating them as two separate records, even when they describe the same shipment, keeps your supplier-facing paperwork clean and your location-level inventory accurate. For more on how each is handled in the admin compared with Stocky, see the Stocky vs Shopify admin comparison.
When to reorder from a supplier
Reorder when the answer to “where is this stock” is “we do not have any to move.” Typical triggers include:
- You are low on stock at the location or across the business and need replenishment from your supplier.
- Demand has consumed what you had, and what is on hand will not carry you to your next planned arrival.
- You need new or replacement product that you do not already hold somewhere, such as a new variant, a returning seasonal item, or a substitute SKU.
- You want to lock in a supplier commitment with agreed quantities, prices, payment terms, and an estimated arrival date.
In all of these cases, the action is ordering more from a supplier, and the record of that action is a purchase order. Use a purchase order to document what you ordered. Keep this workflow focused on the supplier relationship: what you asked for, how much, on what terms, and when you expect it. It is not about moving existing stock around, and it is not where you record receiving the goods at a location. It is the order itself.
If you are still mapping your old Stocky-based ordering habits to the admin, the migration checklist is a useful reference for what to carry over.
When to transfer inventory
Transfer when stock already exists somewhere and needs to be moved or received. Typical situations include:
- You have inventory at a warehouse and need to send it to a retail location.
- One location is low and another has surplus you can rebalance toward it.
- A shipment is arriving from a supplier and you want to track its movement and receipt as inventory comes in.
- You are returning stock to a supplier or sending it to an external location, and you want a record of that movement.
Use a transfer to track where inventory moves or when inventory is received, depending on the workflow. The key is movement and receipt, not the commercial order. Transfers in Shopify are not limited to your own locations. They cover internal moves between your stores and external moves to or from suppliers and other outside locations. That makes them useful both for rebalancing stock you already own and for recording incoming shipments tied to an outside party.
A transfer does not decide what to reorder or how much you need. It tracks what is moving and what has been received.
How they work together after Stocky
A purchase order and a transfer can connect at one specific point: when goods you ordered from a supplier arrive, and you want a record of that receipt. This is the only place the two workflows naturally overlap, and even there they remain distinct.
A simple combined flow looks like this:
- You decide, based on your own planning, that you need to reorder.
- You document the order with a supplier purchase order, capturing the products, quantities, prices, payment terms, and the estimated arrival date.
- When the shipment is on its way or arrives, you track its movement or receipt with a transfer, where that fits your process.
The purchase order keeps a clean record of the supplier commitment. The transfer keeps a clean record of the physical movement and the receipt at a location. Together they give you “what was ordered” and “what actually moved or arrived” as two separate but related views of the same shipment.
Two things are worth repeating. First, they remain distinct workflows even when they describe the same goods. A purchase order is not converted into a transfer, and a transfer is not a substitute for a purchase order. Second, neither one decides what to reorder for you. Shopify will not tell you the quantity to order or predict demand on your behalf. Replenishment planning still lives with you and your team. The purchase order records what you decided to order. The transfer records what moved or was received. Your planning sits in front of both. For how to make that upstream call — what to reorder, when, and how much — see reorder planning after Stocky.
After Stocky, this is the rhythm to settle into: planning by you, ordering documented with purchase orders, and movement and receipt tracked with transfers, each tool used for what it is built to do.
Where supplier performance fits before reordering
Before placing a reorder, it helps to look at how the supplier has performed for you in the past. The goal is to put context around the order, not to mechanize the decision. Your purchase order history in Shopify gives you something to look back on: what you have ordered from this supplier, how often, in what quantities, and when those orders were expected.
Keep the comparison qualitative. Useful questions to ask before sending a new purchase order include:
- Has this supplier been reliable on past orders, in a general sense?
- How has delivery gone in practice when you have ordered from them before?
- Are there other suppliers for the same or similar product whose past orders you can compare against, in plain terms?
- Is there a reason, based on recent experience, to adjust quantities or timing on this order?
You do not need to assign numeric scores or weights to suppliers to make a sensible reorder decision. A short qualitative read on reliability and delivery, based on your own order history, is enough to inform whether to reorder from the same supplier, change the quantity, shift the timing, or split the order. The purchase order then captures whatever you decide, and any transfer you create later captures what actually moves or arrives.
Limitations
Kijun is not a full Stocky replacement. It does not forecast demand, recommend reorder quantities, provide low-stock alerts, manage inventory transfers, or replace Shopify’s native inventory reports and workflows.
Use kijun to review supplier performance before your next reorder, based on supported supplier and vendor records and purchase orders recorded in kijun. Review suppliers before your next reorder.
This article was drafted with AI assistance and checked against cited sources through kijun’s editorial workflow. Last updated: 2026-05-27.
Stocky and Shopify are trademarks of Shopify Inc. kijun is not affiliated with or endorsed by Shopify.