How is 'Incoming' product inventory status determined in POS?

Retail & Point of Sale
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Topic summary

A user is trying to understand how the ‘Incoming’ inventory status works in Shopify POS. They expected that creating an open purchase order would automatically mark products as ‘Incoming’ (similar to an ‘On Order’ status in previous software), allowing staff to inform customers about upcoming stock. However, the ‘Incoming’ field remains at zero despite creating purchase orders through Stocky, a Shopify-based app.

Key Setup Details:

  • Two physical locations with separate Shopify location settings
  • Inventory received only at the primary store, then transferred to the second location
  • Using Stocky for purchase order management

Desired Outcome:
Both locations should be able to view confirmed purchase order quantities as ‘Incoming’ inventory.

Status: The issue remains unresolved, with multiple users expressing the same frustration and seeking clarification on how the ‘Incoming’ status is actually determined in Shopify POS.

Summarized with AI on October 31. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
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In Shopify POS when looking at a product or a variant in Inventory, there is the “Incoming” status. I had thought this would work similar to my last software; as soon as I created an open purchase order, that product would be marked as “On Order”. That way, if we were out or low on stock of an item, my staff could easily look and see that we would be getting more and inform interested customers.

Am I misunderstanding the purpose of “Incoming” for Shopify? No matter what I do, “Incoming” never changes from zero. We are using Stocky to create and send purchase orders, which as far as I understand is a Shopify-based app.

One last note:

We have two shops on the same physical site (in two separate buildings), and we only receive inventory at the primary store. Each has their own Shopify location, so we transfer inventory between the two. Would this affect what the second store can see as Incoming?

The overall goal would be for both locations to view anything on a confirmed purchase order as Incoming.

1 Like
2

Looking for the same answer!

3

also really annoid with that