Inventory Management for Perishables - How Are You Handling It?

Shopify Discussion
, , ,

Topic summary

Focus: Methods Shopify merchants use to manage perishable inventory (food, beverages, supplements, cosmetics) with expiration dates.

Key questions posed:

  • Batch/lot tracking: How merchants record which lot each product unit came from (traceability per purchase/receipt).
  • Expiration management: How expiry dates are tracked across inventory and used in operations (e.g., picking/rotation like FEFO—first-expired, first-out).
  • Waste/costs: Whether products expire before sale and the typical monthly cost impact.
  • Recall traceability: Ability to identify which customers received items from a recalled batch.

Tools and constraints:

  • Notes that Stocky reportedly does not support batch/lot tracking; asks for alternatives or workarounds (suspects spreadsheets are common).

Status:

  • Open request for real-world practices and solutions; no responses or decisions yet.
Summarized with AI on December 10. AI used: gpt-5.
1

Hey everyone,

I’m researching how Shopify merchants handle inventory for products with expiration dates (food, beverages, supplements, cosmetics, etc.).

Specifically:

1. How do you currently track which batch/lot products came from?

2. How do you manage expiration dates across your inventory?

3. Have you ever had products expire before selling? How much does that cost you monthly?

4. If a supplier recalled a batch, could you identify which customers received it?

I’ve heard Stocky doesn’t handle batch tracking - curious what solutions people have found (or if you’re just using spreadsheets like I suspect :sweat_smile:). Would love to hear your experiences!