How often will I get low stock alerts?
Restoc has no alert frequency setting. It sends one alert when a tracked SKU crosses its reorder point, so the number you get in a week is the number of SKUs that reached that line.
The short answer: one alert per SKU, per crossing
Alerts fire on an event, not a clock. One tracked SKU drops through its reorder point, one alert goes out: by email on every plan, and by Slack incoming webhook on Growth and Pro.
So nobody can promise you a number in advance. The reorder point behind each crossing comes from your sales velocity over a 7, 14 or 30 day window, the lead time held for that SKU, and the store-wide safety stock percentage you set on top. Our page on setting a reorder point in Shopify works through that calculation. This page is about what comes out the other end: how many alerts land in a week, and what to do if that is too many or too few.
What a week of alerts actually looks like
Volume tracks demand, not catalogue size. In most stores a minority of lines do the selling, and only those lines get anywhere near their reorder point.
A quiet week
Nothing crossed, so nothing arrives. A quiet week is silence, not a digest with nothing in it. If silence makes you uneasy, the dashboard is the place to confirm it, with current stock, days of inventory remaining and reorder status for every tracked SKU.
A normal week
A few movers run down on separate days, so you get a few separate alerts. Each names one SKU, because the thing you act on is one line and one supplier.
A bad week
Alerts cluster. A sold-out weekend, a promotion, or a supplier who slipped pushes several SKUs through their reorder points inside a day or two, and you hear about all of them. The cluster is the information: it is telling you a purchase order is overdue.
Turning the volume up or down
Widen the velocity window
The window is store-wide: 7, 14 or 30 days. Longer windows smooth a single busy week out and move reorder points less, which means fewer alerts raised off one spike. Pro adds a per-SKU override where one line behaves nothing like the rest of the store.
Set safety stock deliberately
A store-wide safety stock percentage adds a buffer on top of lead-time demand, for items that sell in bursts rather than evenly. It lifts every reorder point, so alerts arrive earlier and you get more of them. The safety stock units show on the dashboard, the weekly report and the CSV export, so you can see what the buffer holds in stock.
Keep lead times honest
Lead time is your supplier wait. Set it per SKU, or set it once per vendor: each SKU carries the vendor from your Shopify product, and a vendor lead time fills in every SKU without one of its own. Shorter lead times lower reorder points and push alerts later, which is fewer emails bought with less warning.
Use the weekly report for a fixed cadence
If you want one predictable arrival instead of event-driven ones, the weekly reorder report lists every SKU below its reorder point with a suggested order quantity, in the app and exportable as CSV. Alerts then stay for the urgent ones.
Choose where they land
Email alerts go to your account email until you change the address in Settings and Alerts, where you can also switch them off. From Growth at $59 a month you can add a Slack incoming webhook so alerts arrive in a channel alongside email.
Questions
Will the same SKU alert me every day until I reorder?
No. Delivery runs through a background job built to be idempotent, so one crossing produces one alert and a re-run does not send it again. If the SKU is restocked, climbs back above its reorder point and later drops through it again, that is a new crossing and a new alert.
Is it one alert per SKU, or one email with everything in it?
One per SKU, because the thing you act on is a specific line and a specific supplier. If you would rather read one list, that is what the weekly reorder report is for: every SKU below its reorder point, with a suggested order quantity, in the app and as a CSV.
How soon after the sale that triggers it does an alert arrive?
On the background job's next pass, not in the same second the order is placed. That is the design: the reorder point already sits days of cover above zero, set by your lead time and your safety stock percentage. The alert is a reorder prompt, not a stockout siren.
I track 2,000 SKUs on Pro. Will my inbox be flooded?
Volume follows crossings, not catalogue size. Slow lines sit well above a reorder point calculated from their own velocity and never trigger anything. The 2,000 figure is the Pro tracking cap, not a forecast of how many alerts a week you will read.
Does raising safety stock mean more alerts?
Yes, and earlier ones. Safety stock is a store-wide percentage added on top of lead-time demand, so every reorder point moves up and SKUs cross it sooner. Raise it for lines that sell in bursts and you will hear from us before the burst empties the shelf; raise it everywhere and you will hold more cash in stock. The safety stock units are shown per SKU on the dashboard and the weekly report so you can judge the trade.
Do I have to type a lead time into every SKU?
No. Each SKU carries the vendor from its Shopify product, and the vendor lead times screen in settings lists every distinct vendor so you can set the wait once. That figure fills in any SKU that has no lead time of its own, and a per-SKU lead time still wins where one line is different.
Can I change where alerts go, or switch them off?
Yes, in Settings and Alerts: change the email address or turn email alerts off. On Growth and Pro you can add a Slack incoming webhook so the same alert lands in a channel alongside email.
A week went by with no alerts. Is something broken?
Usually it means no SKU crossed its reorder point. The dashboard is the check: current stock, days of inventory remaining and reorder status per SKU will show whether the store is genuinely healthy. If the numbers there look stale, start with the four checks on our page about an alert that did not arrive.