Shopify’s shutdown/replacement of Stocky has left some POS (point-of-sale) retailers without basic inventory workflows they relied on, including purchase order (PO) exports, stocktakes, invoice paid/unpaid status, invoice due dates, and weighted COGS (cost of goods sold) calculations.
Several participants argue these are core retail functions, not advanced features, and object to needing paid third-party apps to restore functionality that was previously included. Shopify’s native tools were described as incomplete for stock counting, PO management, and invoice tracking, with some “known limitations” and no clear timeline for fixes.
Alternatives suggested included Organizely, Auto Purchase Orders, FyreTrail, Logistified, SKUSavvy, Replenly, RestockSimple, and other inventory/warehouse tools. Some developers promoted apps or asked for workflow feedback, especially around supplier invoices, partial deliveries, backorders, landed costs, and Shopify product creation.
The original poster ultimately chose Logistified, citing low cost, strong support, and coverage of core needs, while acknowledging it is not perfect. The broader issue remains unresolved: Shopify’s native replacement still does not match Stocky’s functionality for many small retailers.
Here is what is lost from Shopify killing Stocky
Ability to export PO
Ability to do stock takes
Marking invoices paid or unpaid
Invoice due dates
These are basic functions that are now gone. What is the point of POS if inventory management is terrible.
Who thinks of this stuff
Hey there! I share your frustration. Have you evaluated other apps in this space? I’d recommend taking a look at migrating Stocky to Organizely, although it mostly only makes sense if you’d benefit from the other headline features:
If you strictly only need PO features, Auto Purchase Orders is the most popular app. Also, for what it’s worth, Shopify is working on improving their native PO functionality, but we don’t know the strict timeline for that yet.
Thank you very much my hope was to not spend as I moved to Shopify POS specifically for Stocky. This brought my website and pos to one platform. I should have just stayed with lightspeed. I spoke to Shopify yesterday and have been chatting with the bots. They have known gaps and no plan to correct.
StockTakes - nothing
Due Dates for PO - nothing
Paid/Unpaid - Nothing
These are basic functions in any system. To have to pay $40 per month is insulting. That is an extra $480 - per year to do just the most basic thing
Shopify is doing a terrible job here. As is the path now they are looking to only serve much larger companies and not the small businesses they claim to.
Were all of these things native with Lightspeed? Real question - I’ve not used that platform. If they were and you are so heavily dependent on inventory functionality, what was the driving reason you moved from Lightspeed to Shopify?
yes they were with Lightspeed AND Stocky - it is standard functionality. I moved to Shopify to combine my POS and Website. I had to have a different software to push between Shopify and LS so I moved to Shopify POS. Stocky was part of that and the most important piece. Shopify POS is just MEH but the upside is I only need one provider. They have made an all around weaker system.
Shopify now has a system with zero stock take ability, zero Purchase Order management. It is not good
Yes, it seems there are lots of solutions for inventory management out there, but if you moved to Shopify because of Stocky and don’t want to look at app solutions because of the extra cost then you are in a frustrating position.
Clearly frustrating. These are basic functions that were included in the price of POS and now the solution is a cost for a non native app? I’m not sure who would sign up for this. So I pay for website and pos but have clear gaps in basic functions and the solution is pay more.
Hi @RunninWildKids.co .
Actually, Shopify killed the Stocky and replaced it with less.
What other merchants are using instead?
Stocky alternatives, Inventory planner, Brightpearl, Cin7, but all cost money.
For POs, stock takes on a budget, et vend, or simple consignment.
Shopify keeps pushing merchants towards expensive third-party
apps for things that should be built in.
It’s a pattern, not an accident.
Agreed. The crazy thing about this in particular is these are the most basic audit trail things. These things are the foundation of any business small or large. They love the bells and whistles and useless improvements.
I’ve run around and round with them about this. I hate it so much. Stocky is the ONLY reason I switched to Shopify, if it hadn’t existed 2 yrs ago i wouldn’t have switched. I use Stocky literally all day long. Running inventory reports, using the reports to order inventory, receive inventory, input POs and backorders, etc. It is a huge detriment to my business to lose access to Stocky. I literally just used Sidekick AI in shopify to BUILD me an app to use for how I order inventory. No one has mentioned to me in all the convos I’ve had that this was a solution to one of my issues.. So may be worth looking into. As of right now its not telling me an additional cost, but I use PRO. Stocktakes is a big deal for me as well and I"ve sent them 2 pages of issues with Shopify POs that don’t work for our business - and probably others.
Right on point here. I always believed that you could recreate a lot of Stocky reporting/forecasting within Shopify. All the data comes from there anyway. Stocky just had it ready to go.
I was on Sidekick a ton yesterday. it did point to Shopify Flow to create a google sheet and can help to create some kind of useful metafields. Having said this the term “known limitations” came up multiple times.
They just don’t care. I’m not quite sure what I am paying for. Inventory management and PO management is the most basic and most important thing
All of the features (and so much more) that were available in Stocky are now available in FyreTrail. We migrated to this platform and it functions superbly. The developer has been very responsive with our requests and made many improvements since the announcement of Stocky ending.
This includes the invoice attachment, tracking options your mentioned.
It also features a calendar of incoming shipments and invoice due date right at the top of the screen.
I highly recommend you look at this option.
(NOTE: I am a retailer with no association with FyreTrail or any other app. I am not compensated for this recommendation.)
Look at Logistified. Although we shouldn’t have any additional payouts to produce a purchase order, here we are. I looked long and hard and they appear to have the best product for the money and are continuing to work on being as user friendly as Stocky. I installed Fyre Trail and, although I’m sure it works, I found it a not as user friendly.
Thank you Crhistine64 I will take a look
This form can be used to tell Shopify what is missing. Shopify Google Form for Stocky Sundowning. I’m not sure if the Shopify rep was just blowing me off but who knows
I was going to delete my post to @christine64 because it was no longer relevant, but instead I wanted to thank @BrianL43 for sharing his honest opinion of FyreTrail and how responsive and open I am to listening to store suggestions, opinions and even criticisms on where FyreTrail can be better than what it already is. Thank you to @BrianL43 and all of the other stores that have been a part of our amazing journey and to those that have yet to jump in and see what amazing things FyreTrail can do!
Were you thinking of creating your own version in Google Sheets or Excel? Would love to hear more of your thoughts on this.
Hope all is well on your end!
I agree with you. These are essential inventory management features, and hopefully bring them back in future updates.
One part I haven’t seen discussed much here is the actual supplier invoice when stock arrives.
For a lot of smaller retailers that PDF/email invoice is where the final quantities and actual costs are confirmed, and someone still has to manually match those lines back to Shopify products and update them.
We’re working on a small tool specifically for that step - upload the supplier invoice, match the lines to Shopify variants, review anything uncertain, then apply the approved quantity and cost changes.
It’s deliberately not trying to replace Stocky’s forecasting, POs or stocktakes. More about removing one repetitive admin job that sits between receiving stock and having Shopify correct.
Curious whether that’s part of your current Stocky workflow too, or are you entering everything from the PO and only using the supplier invoice for accounting?
Hi
Yes I am definitely a smaller retailer. I am a reseller or shoes an toys. We do not send orders to our suppliers, mostly use their b2b, Faire.com or go directly to a salesperson. Sometimes the salespeople have an off the shelf b2b called Markettime. None of these platforms would accept an order in the way that any tool would push out. Another factor with shoes is that we order months in advance which makes it difficult to get SKUs and UPCs. Nike does an ok job on this but other brands not so much.
Our process is this.
We order and wait for delivery. The invoice is either in the box, emailed to us or on the b2b site.
We create the products in Shopify admin obviously with SKU and Barcode
We create a PO and balance to the invoice from the supplier. The PO will include a place for shipping charges and any discounts for pre-order. The PO is also where we mark the PO paid or not and the date we are due to pay (if we have terms)
I then look at my unpaid PO (invoices) on a daily basis to see what needs to be paid.
Any back orders will have a separate delivery and invoice and will be treated as totally separate. Almost all suppliers to retail work in this way. If we prepay and the supplier does not send we chase them for either a credit or to get the product to us asap.
Stocky, Lightspeed and Logistified (which I use now) will push a weighted COGS to Admin so our profit & loss numbers are correct when pulling sales reports. This COGS will include the shipping and any discounts or credits.
Stocky did not make a difference between PO and Invoice. Lightspeed did allow you to enter a full purchase order and then create an invoice for what you have received. I am not sure how they work as I have not used Lightspeed in years. Logistified also does not do a PO → Invoice flow.
