Location strategy
Where inventory lives determines fulfilment cost, delivery speed and channel visibility. Every active variant carries an inventory row per active location; misconfiguring a virtual pool or a 3PL location is one of the fastest ways to hide stock from the channels that need it most.
Proactive alerts
Static thresholds fail your bestsellers: 20 units is dangerously low for a hero SKU and pointlessly early for a slow mover. Velocity-based alerts catch stockouts before they happen by comparing on-hand quantity to trailing sales rate.
Reconciliation
Shopify quantities drift from your source of truth over time — returns processed outside the admin, POS edits, 3PL adjustments. Schedule a monthly reconciliation using the Inventory export and treat any mismatch over 2% as a root-cause investigation, not a manual fix.