E-commerce
Daily Shopify Inventory Check SOP
Overselling an out-of-stock product is one of the fastest ways to generate a bad review and a customer support ticket on the same day. A daily inventory check prevents it — but only if the check is consistent. When this process lives in someone's memory rather than a documented SOP, the check gets skipped on busy days, delegated inconsistently, and done differently by every person who runs it.
This SOP covers the daily Shopify inventory review from login to final snapshot export. It runs in under 10 minutes and is designed to be the same whether the founder runs it or a VA does.
Time to complete
~8 minutes
Owner
Ops / Inventory
Frequency
Daily (morning)
What You'll Need
- Shopify admin login (staff account with Products and Orders read access)
- Agreed low-stock threshold (e.g., 5 units triggers a reorder flag)
- Reorder contact or supplier form for flagged SKUs
- Shared inventory log (Google Sheets, Notion table, or similar)
The SOP
Open Shopify admin → Products → Inventory
Log in to your Shopify admin. Navigate to Products → Inventory. This view shows all product variants and their current stock levels across all locations. If you manage multiple locations, confirm you're reviewing the correct location filter at the top.
Filter by stock status to find low-inventory SKUs
Use the filter options to show items below your low-stock threshold. Shopify doesn't have a built-in "low stock" filter by default, so either sort by quantity ascending (lowest first) or use a saved Inventory Report if you've configured one. Anything at or below your threshold (e.g., ≤5 units) goes on the reorder list.
Cross-reference low-stock items against pending orders
Go to Orders → filter by Unfulfilled. Check whether any pending orders contain the low-stock SKUs you just flagged. If a SKU has 3 units but 4 pending orders, it's already oversold — escalate immediately to customer service and the supplier before the fulfillment queue catches it.
Update quantities for any manually received stock
If your warehouse received a shipment since the last check, update the inventory quantities in Shopify now (Products → Inventory → Adjust quantities). Use the "Add" adjustment reason so there's an audit trail. Never edit quantities without logging the reason — unexplained inventory jumps cause reconciliation headaches.
Flag out-of-stock SKUs for reorder
For every SKU at zero or below threshold, add it to your reorder tracker (Google Sheets, Notion, Airtable) with today's date, current stock count, and the supplier contact to notify. Send any reorder emails or purchase orders now while you have the data in front of you — don't rely on memory.
Export inventory snapshot for records
Export a CSV snapshot from the Inventory view (Export button → Current inventory). Save to your daily inventory log folder with a date-stamped filename (e.g., inventory_2026-04-03.csv). This historical record is invaluable for spotting shrinkage patterns and reconciling discrepancies later.
Pro Tips
- Run this at the same time every morning — before order fulfillment begins for the day. An afternoon check misses overnight orders that have already committed to stock you may not have.
- Set Shopify low-stock alerts in Settings → Notifications if you're on a plan that supports it. The SOP catches what the alert misses, not the other way around.
- Don't skip the export step on busy days. The days when you don't have time for the snapshot are the days when something has gone wrong — the log exists for exactly those moments.
Record this SOP with Claudia
Follow these steps once in your Shopify admin while Claudia records. You get a structured SOP that any team member — or a VA — can run consistently every morning.
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