What to reorder when you cannot afford to reorder everything
Limited cash forces a choice. A simple way for ecommerce operators to rank restocks using weeks of cover, margin and return on the cash you put in.
Every product in your store has a case for being restocked, and the cash runs out long before the list does.
Most buying decisions then fall back on a feeling: reorder whatever sold well last month, or whatever a supplier has just offered at a discount. A short calculation does better, and you can do it with three numbers per product.
Three numbers for each product
- Sales per week: use the last four to eight weeks, and leave out any weeks when the product was out of stock.
- Weeks of cover: units on hand divided by sales per week.
- Weekly return on cash: the margin earned in a week, divided by the cost of a week's stock.
Here are three illustrative products competing for a budget of $2,000.
A and B are nearly out. C has enough to last more than three months.
| Product A | Product B | Product C | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unit cost | $40 | $110 | $25 |
| Margin per unit | $18 | $55 | $20 |
| Sales per week | 12 | 3 | 1 |
| On hand | 6 | 2 | 14 |
| Weeks of cover | 0.5 | 0.7 | 14 |
| Weekly return on cash | 45% | 50% | 80% |
Product C has the highest return on cash and also the clearest answer: do not buy it. You already hold 14 weeks of stock. A good ratio only matters when you actually need more units.
Product A feels like the obvious priority because it sells the most, but B makes better use of each dollar and is nearly as close to running out.
Spend the budget in order
Suppose you want four weeks of cover on each product you restock.
B gets its full four weeks of cover. A gets about 2.3 weeks. C gets nothing.
| Product | Units needed | Cost | Decision |
|---|---|---|---|
| B | 10 | $1,100 | Buy in full. Best return, nearly out. |
| A | 42 for full cover | $1,680 | Budget allows 22 units for $880, or about 2.3 weeks of cover. |
| C | 0 | $0 | Skip. Plenty on hand. |
The total is $1,980 of your $2,000. Now you know exactly what the budget could not cover: A will run short after about 2.3 weeks. That is a far better position than discovering it when A goes out of stock.
Corrections worth making
A product that sold zero while unavailable has not lost its demand. If you count those weeks, you will under-buy your best products.
Sales during a big campaign do not tell you what next month looks like. Use a normal-week rate unless the promotion is repeating.
A product that sells quickly returns your money sooner, which lets you buy again. Payment terms matter too, since stock you pay for in 30 days costs you less cash today.
In resale, you are not restocking the same unit. Group by model, brand or source, and ask which type of item is worth buying again at the price you can get it for.
Write down why you bought
Keep a short note against each buying decision: what you bought, why, and what you expected. Compare it against actual sales a month later. Buying improves fastest when you can see where your own expectations were wrong.
How StackKnack helps
StackKnack Pulse builds the comparison for you, so that buying starts from evidence rather than from an export.
- It compares your stock with Shopify sales and flags fast sellers running low.
- Each recommendation appears in a daily brief with the cost, age and sales facts behind it.
- You approve or skip the proposed action. Nothing happens without your approval.
- The recommendation, approval and later results stay on record, which gives you that buying history automatically.
Pulse reads your stock and cost data from Console and your online orders from Shopify, so it is designed for teams using both.
Have a buying decision your team rebuilds in a spreadsheet each week? Bring it to us, and we will show how Pulse handles it.