Hey Roman, Everyone is selling in this world. So it’s fair enough to suggest your own app when someone is asking for alternatives. But one should not be pushy
I’m extremely disappointed with Shopify and the way that they’ve handled this transition from Stocky, basically not replacing the functionality like for like before removing it, other than recommending some apps that only get us part way to a solution.
If you’re not happy with how they’ve handled it, make sure that you let shopify support know that you’re not happy with the way that they’ve handled it and log it as a concern. They said that they’ve had a lot of negative feedback already, but I genuinely don’t think they will listen.
It is worrying the majority of my Shopify POS Pro clients about how they can manage their inventory and purchase orders etc moving forward, with Shopify recommending apps that are costing an additional $300+ per month just to get half the amount of features.
The documentation says that it will be brought into Shopify admin rather than stocky, but after talking to several differnt support agents no-one can confirm if what they have now is their “solution” or if there are further features to be released. If what they have now is the solution, they have massively failed to hit the mark of looking after POS customers and I will now begin to look elsewhere for POS platforms, which is a massive shame, as Shopify has been making incredible improvements over the last few years for their eCommerce offerings.
Has anyone had any solid information back about new functionality?
THIS. Exactly. We need a replacement for what Stocky already does well. Shopify’s system doesn’t even come close. Not only do we need this with these exact steps, it has to be within three months. Because if there is no exact replacement, I need three months to transition to Lightspeed or some other platform. Losing Stocky will effectively shut my store down. I will not allow Shopify to highjack my store like that.
It seems to me all of the “suggestions” the app developers are making (on their own behalf - including Shopify) aren’t realizing that physical brick & mortar stores need a solution for PLACING ORDERS WITH VENDORS.
Not a solution for tracking an order we already placed on a vendors online website. Or an AI replacement for placing orders. AI will tell me I need to order 500 products because I just sold 500 products for a special one time event. It can’t anticipate real world needs.
That means creation of a Purchase Order, sending said Purchase Order as an email attachments, receiving the merchandise, and accounting for the invoice on received merchandise.
Most stores aren’t simply buying existing product on amazon, then reselling that merchandise on Amazon. The whole point of having your own business is to sell your own product.
Therefore, we need all of the features that Stocky offered. Anything that does not operate in exactly the same way is NOT a solution or a substitute.
Yes. And on top of that, you have dozens and dozens of vendors to order from and each one has their own special ordering tiers to keep in mind when placing an order. You want free shipping on this order? You have to place an order of at least $750 to get that. You want N60 dating and a 5% discount? you need to place a $500 order to get it.
Check out monocleapp sounds like what you need Monocle AI inventory forecasts - AI driven inventory reordering suggestions. | Shopify App Store
$90/month is a bit pricey for purchase orders.
Fair point if you only need purchase orders …. but if you’re also trying to figure out what to order, when to order, and how much, the app pays for itself pretty quickly.
The what and when are pretty easy. You just need a basic report to see if you can meet the minimum for an order from the vendor for their products. All these products pushing AI ordering don’t really help with inventory management for Brick and Mortar stores. They are all based on replacing products as they are sold. Brick and Mortar stores essentially run their own mini warehouses aka stockrooms. We order large quantities because we have case pack minimums and order value minimums we must meet when placing an order from a vendor. We aren’t ordering onesie twosie from a supplier.
I think you’re mostly spot on with this, but stores that carry clothing in areas with seasons need to deal with forecasting that correspond to seasons and events. AI ordering could very well help with that. Having a report could too, but that would be based on past sales at specific times. 2018-2022 was very different than 2022-now and I can totally see how AI would help knowing current world situations (tariffs, economy statistics, etc.) that would also curb targets (i.e. lower cost items in a down market vs. higher cost items in an up market). Then again, I’m not speaking for that app maker so I have no idea what they’re doing when they advertise “AI blah blah blah”. Despite that, I still would say, “try it and see… uninstall if it doesn’t give you value”.
I’m not against AI, but I’ve yet to see an AI inventory management app that has a solid Purchasing and Receiving flow to back it up.
Not at all what everyone here is asking for. We need an option to create purchase orders and send them to vendors. Not an AI solution to tell us what to order.
What did you like the most about Stocky?
I most like the fact that it has a basic Purchasing and receiving workflow. You can run a sku/variant report to see what you need to order. you can then place your order with your vendor and either import the order csv into a PO in Stocky or create the PO directly from the sku/variant report. Once the PO has been created, you wait for the shipments to start coming in. When you get your first partial shipment, you receive the pieces you got and the rest remain in the PO(BO). Stocky doesn’t have proper receiving reports. It’s the one main failing of the app IMHO. You keep receiving shipments until the PO is fully received. It’s pretty basic sounding, but it’s a backbone workflow for Stores to keep their stockrooms full.
For anyone whose main Stocky concern is “how do I count my inventory now,” this video shows the full process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3I4V9e3ZZQ
If you are a small or medium sized store - I strongly recommend checking out our app - Sensible Inventory Forecasting.
We have built this with small team reordering flows in mind to keep the simplicity of user interface as easy as possible, but still keep it flexible enough to fit your needs.
Any feedback welcome - if you decide to test it out.
I looked at your product page. I cannot tell from that if your app actually supports PO creation and receiving. It appears to just be a reporting tool and nothing more.
Valid question - PO creation is still unavailable from Shopify side, as only Stocky had access to that API - so I do not think there will be an alternative for that on the market. We have implemented possibility to see incoming inventory from Shopify Purchase Orders in our forecasting table, but that is the technical limitation of how far you can go, unfortunately.
Only for those apps, that create their own POs not integrated in Shopify ecosystem - as soon as Shopify gives a possibility to integrate with Shopify PO - we will do it.
It’s true that currently, Shopify can’t generate purchase orders or provide purchase recommendations based on sales volume over a recent period like Stocky can. However, you can search for the keyword “Purchase Order” in the Shopify app store to find many inventory management software options. Examples include 4Seller ERP and Stockie Low Stock Alert.
There are too many product mentions in the replies. In short, others’ opinions aren’t the most accurate; you’ll only know after trying them yourself.
Agreed! Like you said, there are many to choose from and many do various things. The ONLY way to know is to try them.