This AMA focused on Shopify inventory management challenges ahead of Black Friday/Cyber Monday (BFCM). The Shopify Product and Marketing team answered merchant questions during a live two-hour text session.
Most Pressing Issue:
Multiple merchants raised the 90-day inventory adjustment history limit as a critical problem. Users emphasized this restriction prevents proper historical tracking, auditing, and analysisâparticularly problematic for established businesses needing long-term data. The team acknowledged receiving this feedback but provided no timeline for extending the limit.
Key Topics Discussed:
Reporting Gaps:
Merchants requested ABC analysis beyond 28 days, product-level (vs. variant-level) views, and zero-movement reports.
The session revealed significant gaps between merchant needs and current platform capabilities, particularly around historical data access and advanced inventory features.
Is there a way to have a report to show sales by TAGS?
For example if we have products tagged as colors, orange, blue green etc across socks and tshirts, a report to show sales based on the tags will give us better insight of what colors or tags sell better.
Also, is there a way to import purchase order in csv format into the shopify to track cost and average landed cost?
Hi Jackson thanks for your questions! As @SinzsNathan mentioned, with Shopify Flow you can create a custom workflow that automatically notifies you when the inventory level of a product or variant falls below your specified minimum quantity. This way, you can stay on top of your stock levels without needing additional workarounds or apps.
Thereâs already an easy-to-use template that you can use called âGet notified by email when product variant inventory is lowâ. You can learn more about Shopify Flowâs inventory-specific workflows here.
Hi @JoshM23 ,
What is your objective? If youâd like to track inventory separately between your online location and your POS location, you can simply create a second inventory location in your store.
Or do you need inventory that is sold in your POS inventory location to be reflected in your online inventory location?
Eric
It would be very helpful if @Shopify_77 @mariaacle @Jacqui could acknowledge this issue even in the slightest bit.
Amen! âThe data is there, itâs just a matter of displaying it.â I really wish inside developers would jump in and work retail as a business owner or buyer for one day to see limitations. Iâm in the same boat as you, omni channel retailer since 1984, est 1962⌠made switch from ancient FoxPro database IMS/POS that was very powerful but archaic and buggy. Migration was difficult but now Shopify has been a huge help; however there are limitations and I donât want to bring in third party solutions to build and depend on a tech stack for things that really should be part of the Shopify platform. Please listen and help Shopify! It will benefit all and only make the product / platform more robust and competitive.
THIS!!! 100% THIS!!!
Also donât get why shopifyâs permission is so weird⌠They also donât track changes made to inventory so if a staff goes and changes the inventory to lower to âstealâ it, thereâs no way to get alerted of this change or see it pass the 90 days window that they made the changeâŚ
Why canât shopify just let us load more than 90 days if we want to if itâs a bandwidth problem?
Hey @mscmith11 !
Thanks for joining us today for this AMA!
Our team is currently working through all the questions and plans to reply as soon as possible. Youâll get a notification that you have been replied to once the team has made it to your question.
Iâm new to Shopify and have had quite a time figuring out inventory analytics to make reordering easier. Is there a way to bring up a report that shows low inventory within a collection instead of specific variants? And if so, is there a way to set up a notification to let us know when weâve hit a specific threshold within the collection so we can reorder?
I agree with your first question, why not allow a specific date??
The second one. I need inventory that is sold in the POS inventory location to be reflected in the online inventory location. Is this even possible?
Many questions, makes you wonder why so many gaps in information delivery and functionality
Please respond to the bundles question about inventory for individual products sold in bundles. It will help a lot of us out.
Hey @FishHead-Greg , iâm using stocky now with the PO method. How is that different from thrive and whatâs better with thrive? Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
how did you get a feature on the admin page to filter out metafields? are you able to share a pic?
Fantastic! Please be sure to reach out with any questions. If you let us know what your requirements are, we will be able to come up with a tailored solution for you 
Eric
Great comments, followingâŚ
Yes, this is a basic basic basic function of any ecommerce platform. I know that Lightspeed has excellent historical data options. And in excellent I mean, they donât hide your own numbers/data from you.
2nd that
Is there a way to post a mix and match bundle that takes inventory from the items within it? For example, 3 different scents of a body butter, scrub and oil to make 27 total options
Def not a bandwidth issue. And yes, that is on the list of horrendous things that could occur.
There is no stopping an employee from going in and adjusting/removing inventory quantities as they choose. MAJOR PROBLEM.
Does Shopify not see the importance of this?