Inventory planning is mostly a handful of numbers and the judgement about when to trust them. These are the ones that come up. Every formula here is checked against the code that runs in Proviand, and every page has a section saying who should not buy it.
The long ones. How a piece of inventory work actually gets done, start to finish.
The seven inputs behind a reorder number, in plain language, and how to sanity-check a forecast you do not trust.
Draft, send, track as incoming, receive. Including the incoming-stock trap that makes people order the same thing twice.
What Shopify now does natively with purchase orders and receiving, who that is genuinely enough for, and exactly where it stops.
What to export before you lose access, and how to land your open purchase orders somewhere sensible.
One number per page, worked with real arithmetic, checked against the code that runs it.
Average daily sales times lead time, plus safety stock. The formula is the easy part; the two inputs are where the money goes.
A practical version you can compute today, the statistical one you were taught, and the assumption inside it that small stores usually break.
Turning a stock level into a date. Plus the only comparison that matters: cover against lead time.
Order-to-shelf, not what the supplier quoted. How to measure the real number, and why its variability matters more than its average.
Sorting the catalogue takes five minutes. What you do differently with each class is the part that saves money.
Telling dead from slow from seasonal, what it really costs you, and how to decide between discounting, bundling, returning and writing off.
Written to be useful if you end up choosing the other one.
Assisty is genuinely good and does far more than Proviand. That is the comparison, and for some stores it is the reason to pick them.
Inventory Planner is quote-only, so you cannot look up what it costs. What its pricing model actually is, what merchants say they paid, and my whole price list printed on the page.
Sensible works out the reorder list and then exports it. What that spreadsheet costs you on the Monday you actually order, and why a large catalogue is a reason to stay with them.
Prediko charges by how much you sell, Proviand by how much you carry. Which axis matches your store, what Prediko does that Proviand does not, and the six checks that say stay with them.
Fabrikatör earns the compliments Proviand is trying to earn, and starts at $99 a month plus $0.75 a backorder. The price floor, the two things it does that Proviand cannot, and when to pay it.
More on the way: comparisons against Prediko and Fabrikator. If there is a number you keep having to work out by hand, email [email protected] and I will write it up.
