How to Track Low Stock in Shopify (and What to Do When It Runs Out)

“I didn’t even realize that was sold out!” If that’s ever come out of your mouth, you’re not alone. For small product-based businesses, staying on top of inventory is genuinely one of the trickier parts of running a shop. Especially when you’re also making the products yourself.

Running low (or fully out) of stock means missed sales, disappointed customers, and a scramble to restock under pressure. The good news: it is avoidable. You just need a system that catches problems before customers do.

Here’s how to track low and out-of-stock items in Shopify, how to calculate a sensible reorder point, and how Craftybase takes it a step further if you’re making your own products.

Last updated: June 2026

Why Low Stock Tracking Matters

The cost of running out of stock is real. NielsenIQ estimates 7.4% of retail sales are lost due to out-of-stock items, adding up to roughly $82 billion per year across the industry. For a small maker that translates directly to cancelled orders, refunds, and customers who find another supplier.

But there’s a secondary cost that gets less attention: the reactive scramble. When you don’t have a threshold set, you find out you’ve sold out because a customer tells you, not because your system warned you. Then you’re rushing a restock, possibly paying rush shipping on supplies, and definitely losing production time to a crisis that was avoidable.

Proactive tracking changes all of that. You plan restocks before they’re urgent. You keep bestsellers available consistently. And if you’re making products yourself, you can plan production batches in advance rather than scrambling after orders start bouncing.

Want to see what stockouts are actually costing your business? Try our stockout cost calculator.

What Does “Low Stock” Mean in Shopify?

Low stock is the point at which you still have product to sell, but you need to act now: reorder, start production, or both.

“Out of stock” is different. That’s when quantity hits zero and Shopify stops accepting orders (by default). Low stock is the warning before that happens.

Shopify tracks available quantity, but it won’t automatically flag anything as “low” in your dashboard. No built-in threshold system. The system knows you have 3 units left. It just doesn’t care, unless you set up something to make it care.

In practice, you need two numbers:

• Low stock threshold: the point where you trigger production or reordering
• Out of stock trigger: your backstop if the first alert got missed

Most sellers focus only on the second one. The first is where the real planning happens.

How to Track Low Stock in Shopify

Shopify gives you a few options, from manual filtering to automated workflows. Here’s how each one works.

1. Check Inventory Filters in Your Shopify Admin

The manual approach: go to Products > Inventory, filter by stock level, sort ascending. You’ll see “Available” and “Committed” columns and can spot what’s getting thin.

It works. But it only works if you remember to check. Manual review is fine when you have 10 products; it breaks down at 50.

2. How Do I Set Up Low Inventory Alerts in Shopify?

The most reliable way to get automatic low-stock notifications is Shopify Flow. It’s available on Shopify, Shopify Advanced, and Shopify Plus, and it lets you build automated triggers based on inventory events.

Here’s the setup:

Step 1 — Open Shopify Flow In your admin, go to Apps > Flow (or install it from the App Store).

Step 2 — Create a new workflow Click “Create workflow” and choose the trigger: Inventory quantity changed.

Step 3 — Add your condition Set it to: Inventory quantity is less than or equal to [your threshold]. We’ll look at how to calculate the right threshold below. For now, 10 units is a reasonable starting estimate for most small sellers.

Step 4 — Choose your action Options here include sending yourself an email, tagging the product as “low-stock” in your catalog, or creating a task in your project management tool.

Step 5 — Save and activate Once it’s on, Shopify watches for that condition automatically.

Flow is only available on select Shopify plans. Sellers on the Basic plan will need a third-party app to get automated alerts.

Want more from Shopify Flow? Our guide to Shopify Flow inventory automations covers 5 step-by-step workflows, including supplier notifications and pausing ads when you sell out.

3. Third-Party Inventory Apps

There are plenty of apps in the Shopify App Store that send restock alerts or offer more detailed inventory dashboards. Most work well for retailers buying finished goods.

If you’re making your own products from raw materials, though, these apps hit a ceiling pretty fast. They track finished product counts, not the wax, fragrance oil, or gemstones that go into them. That’s where the real shortage risk lives.

How to Calculate Your Reorder Point

A threshold of “5 units” is a guess. A calculated reorder point is a decision.

The formula:

Reorder Point = (Average Daily Sales × Lead Time) + Safety Stock

What those numbers mean:

• Average daily sales: how many units you sell per day on average. Pull your Shopify analytics for the last 30 to 90 days.
• Lead time: how long restocking actually takes. For makers, this is materials sourcing time plus production time (not just the shipping estimate from your supplier).
• Safety stock: your buffer for demand spikes and delays. A rough rule: 20 to 50% of your average daily demand over lead time.

A few concrete examples:

Candle maker, 8oz soy candles: Sells 3 units/day on average. Fragrance oil takes 5 days to arrive, production takes 2 days. Safety stock = 5 units. Reorder Point = (3 × 7) + 5 = 26 units

Soap maker, lavender bars: Sells 2 units/day. Materials take 4 days to arrive, 1 day for prep. Safety stock = 4 units. Reorder Point = (2 × 5) + 4 = 14 units

Jewelry maker, sterling silver earrings: Sells 5 pairs/day. Silver findings ship in 3 days. Safety stock = 8 units. Reorder Point = (5 × 3) + 8 = 23 units

That’s the number you put into Shopify Flow or your Craftybase alert. It’s not perfect (nothing is), but it’s a real number based on your actual situation, not a guess.

For a full picture of your product profitability, don’t forget to account for Shopify’s transaction costs. Use our Shopify fee calculator to see exactly how much each sale nets before you calculate margins.

How to Avoid Running Out of Stock on Shopify

Getting a low-stock alert is the easy part. Having a plan ready to act on it is harder.

For makers who manufacture their own products, avoiding stockouts comes down to three things: knowing your reorder point, knowing what raw materials you actually have, and having production capacity ready to go.

Factor in your production lead time, not just your supplier’s. Most inventory guides assume you’re buying finished goods from a warehouse. If you make your products, you also need to account for production time: cure time for soap (4 to 6 weeks for cold process), setting time for candles (1 to 2 weeks for soy), drying time for ceramics. That’s part of your lead time too.

Set two thresholds, not one. A “start production” number and a “stop selling” number are different. If your candles take 48 hours to fully set, your low-stock alert needs to fire several batches before you’d be dangerously low. Not when you have 2 units left.

Keep raw materials in the picture. Shopify can’t do this. It only tracks what’s in your finished product list. More on that below.

For a deeper look, our stockout prevention guide covers reorder points, safety stock, and production planning.

Beyond Shopify — Why Makers Need Raw Material Tracking

Here’s the gap Shopify doesn’t cover: it only sees finished products. It has no idea what goes into making them.

If you sell handmade candles, Shopify knows you have 12 candles left. It doesn’t know you have enough wax and fragrance oil to make another 40. It also doesn’t know you’re almost out of wicks, which means that batch of 40 isn’t going anywhere without a reorder.

That’s where most makers get surprised. The “looks fine” green light in Shopify while you’re actually one missing material away from a production halt.

This is why raw material tracking matters separately from product tracking. For more on building that layer alongside Shopify, see our guide on tracking material inventory alongside Shopify.

Craftybase — Inventory Tracking Built for Makers

Craftybase is inventory and manufacturing software built for small-batch makers. It tracks raw materials and finished products, connects to Shopify, and keeps everything in sync as you produce.

Here’s what it adds beyond what Shopify offers:

Low Stock Alerts for Materials and Products

Set custom thresholds for finished products and raw materials. When soy wax drops below 5kg, or amber jars are running low, you get notified before the next batch is halfway through. Not after.

Raw Material Tracking

Every ingredient, supply, and component is tracked in real time. Craftybase deducts usage from materials when you record a production run, so your on-hand figures stay accurate without manual updates.

Batch Production Records

Each production run records what went in, how many units came out, and what it cost. Your inventory stays accurate whether you’re making 12 units or 120, and you have a full trail of what was used in each batch.

Two-Way Shopify Sync

Craftybase imports Shopify orders and adjusts inventory levels automatically. With Stock Push, it also syncs finished product counts back to Shopify, so your listings reflect what you actually have without manual updates after every production run.

True Cost of Goods

With materials tracked, Craftybase calculates your real COGS automatically: ingredient by ingredient, batch by batch. You’ll know what each product costs to make, which makes pricing decisions and tax time both easier. If you want to dig into how COGS works on Shopify specifically, our guide to tracking COGS in Shopify is a good next step.

Frequently Asked Questions

Stop Letting Stockouts Catch You Off Guard

Keeping bestsellers in stock shouldn’t feel like a game of whack-a-mole. Whether you’re using Shopify Flow for basic alerts or Craftybase to track every material down to the last gram, the goal is the same: knowing what you have before you run out of it.

For a complete strategy, check out our stockout prevention guide on reorder points, safety stock, and production planning.

Want a full picture of everything Shopify’s inventory tools cover (and where you’ll need extra help as a maker)? See our Shopify inventory management guide for handmade businesses. When you’re ready to connect raw material tracking and low-stock alerts to your Shopify store, see the Shopify inventory management integration for details.

Or if you’re ready to track materials, production, and Shopify inventory all in one place, give Craftybase a try.

Start your free 14-day trial (no credit card required).