When stock checks are someone else's job
If your Shopify inventory checks are someone else's task, a VA, an ops coordinator, a part-time studio manager, this page is about the handover. Restoc is built to send the person doing the checking a specific alert when a SKU crosses its reorder point, and a weekly reorder report with suggested order quantities they can export as CSV.
The stock check that is already on someone else's task list
You are looking for a way to let a virtual assistant run your Shopify inventory checks. That is the job Restoc is built around: the person doing the checking gets a named list of SKUs that crossed their reorder point, instead of opening the admin every Monday and reading four hundred rows.
What the task usually looks like
The recurring task says something like "check stock, flag anything low". So the VA opens Shopify admin, sorts by inventory, copies numbers into a shared sheet, and highlights whatever looks thin. It takes an hour. It produces a sheet that is accurate for about a day. And the judgement it needs, which of these actually matters, how long the supplier takes, how fast this one sells in October, lives in the owner's head, not in the sheet.
So two things go wrong. The VA flags a slow mover with eleven units because eleven looks low, and the owner ignores the flag. And the hero SKU that sells thirty a week slides past the point where reordering still arrives in time, because nobody was watching the rate, only the number. The familiar version of that is the owner saying, after the fact, that they sold out of their best seller and did not notice.
The decision in front of you
You can keep paying for the hour, keep the sheet, and accept that a manual check catches what has already happened. Or you can move the judgement out of the owner's head and into settings: a sales velocity window, a lead time, a safety stock percentage for the items that sell in bursts rather than evenly. Then the alert fires on its own, and the VA's job stops being "go and look" and becomes "here is what crossed, act on it". That is a smaller, clearer brief, and it is one you can actually hold someone to.
Restoc is for the second option. It is not an ERP and does not try to be. If what you want is to know when to reorder and roughly how much, that is the whole scope.
The handover, step by step
- Connect the store once
Restoc installs through Shopify's OAuth flow and pulls inventory levels and sales data through webhooks plus a scheduled sync job. The owner does this once. The VA never needs to touch the connection again.
- Set lead times by supplier, not SKU by SKU
Each SKU carries the vendor from its Shopify product, and a vendor lead times screen in settings lists every distinct vendor so you can enter one wait time per supplier. That lead time fills any SKU without its own, so nobody types a number into hundreds of rows before the first reorder point is right.
- Put the rest of the owner's judgement into settings
Pick the sales velocity window, 7, 14 or 30 days, and a store-wide safety stock percentage on top of lead-time demand. Those inputs, with lead time, are what turn a stock number into a reorder point, and they are the part the VA cannot guess.
- Point the alerts at whoever acts on them
Reorder alerts go to the email address you set in Settings, Alerts, which starts as your account email and can be changed. Make it the VA's inbox, or a shared ops address, so the alert lands with the person whose task it is.
- Or put them in the channel where the work happens
On Growth and above, alerts also post to a Slack incoming webhook you configure. An ops channel means the alert is visible to the VA and the owner at the same time, with no forwarding.
- Work the weekly reorder report
Once a week, Restoc produces a report listing every SKU below its reorder point with a suggested order quantity, its vendor, and the safety stock units behind the number, viewable in the app. That is the VA's agenda for the ordering session.
- Export it and send it on
The weekly report exports as CSV, with the same suggested quantities and safety stock units shown in the app. The VA can drop it into a supplier email, a purchase-order template, or the shared sheet you already keep, without retyping anything.
- Check status rather than counting
The dashboard shows current stock, days of inventory remaining and reorder status per active SKU, sortable and defaulting to soonest-to-stockout first. When the owner asks "are we covered", that is one screen rather than a rebuilt spreadsheet.
Why this fits delegated ops
The brief gets specific
"Check stock" is a vague task that produces vague output. "Order everything on this week's report" is a task you can hand over, review and hold to a deadline.
The threshold is the owner's, not the VA's
Lead time, velocity window and safety stock are set once by whoever knows the suppliers. After that the reorder point is calculated per SKU, so nobody has to decide whether eleven units is low.
Lead times arrive by supplier
One number per vendor covers every SKU that vendor supplies, so setup is a short list of suppliers rather than a data-entry job you would have to pay someone to sit through.
Burst sellers get a buffer
A store-wide safety stock percentage sits on top of lead-time demand, for the items that sell in bursts rather than evenly, and the report shows those units so the VA can see where the quantity came from.
One message per crossing
A SKU crossing its reorder point produces one alert, never a repeat. Re-running the alert job does not send the same thing twice, so your VA does not learn to ignore a channel that pings.
What the ordering session leaves behind
The weekly report and its CSV record which SKUs were below reorder point that week and what quantity was suggested, which is the record to keep if the owner asks later why a purchase order looked the way it did. The dashboard's alert list shows only the most recent alerts, and there is no way to page back through every alert fired across the trial yet.
No seat count to manage
Restoc is priced on tracked SKUs, not on people. Starter covers 200 SKUs at $29 a month, Growth 1,000 at $59, Pro 2,000 at $99, each with a 60-day free trial.
Billed on the Shopify invoice
Subscription charges go on your Shopify invoice rather than a separate card payment, so a delegated ops hire never needs access to a payment method to keep the tool running.
Who holds which part
| Moment | Owner | VA or ops hire |
|---|---|---|
| Setup | Installs the app, sets velocity window, safety stock and vendor lead times | Nothing to do |
| A new supplier is added | Adds one lead time on the vendor screen | Nothing to chase row by row |
| A SKU crosses its reorder point | Sees the Slack message if alerts are routed to a channel | Receives the alert and places or drafts the order |
| Weekly | Reviews the report before anything is sent to a supplier | Opens the weekly report, exports the CSV, works the list |
| Someone asks "are we covered" | Reads days of inventory remaining on the dashboard | Does not rebuild a spreadsheet to answer it |
What Restoc will not do for your VA
We would rather you know this before you hand anything over.
- There are no separate logins or roles. Sign-in is email and password, one account. There is no single sign-on and no two-factor authentication today. If a VA needs access to the app itself rather than just the alerts, that means sharing a login, and you should treat that the way you treat any shared credential. If you would rather they never sign in, route alerts to their inbox and have them work from the emails and the CSV.
- It does not place orders. Restoc tells you which SKUs are below their reorder point and suggests a quantity. A human still sends the purchase order to the supplier.
- Safety stock is one store-wide percentage. It is not a per-SKU buffer, and it is not demand forecasting. Pro adds a per-SKU override on the velocity window, which is the closest thing to a per-item rule.
- Vendor lead times depend on your Shopify vendor field. The vendor comes from the product in Shopify, so products with no vendor set fall back to their own lead time.
- Alert history on the dashboard is short. It shows the most recent alerts only. For a longer record of what needed ordering, keep the weekly reports and their CSV exports.
- It is a web app only. There is no mobile app and no browser extension, so a VA checking from a phone is using the browser.
- One location per plan. Reorder points are calculated per SKU across a single location, not split per warehouse.
If your catalogue is large enough that the weekly report runs to hundreds of rows, the page on stores with 1,000 to 2,000 SKUs covers how the caps work. If the VA is currently the spreadsheet, the spreadsheet page covers what changes when the alert arrives instead.
Questions
Can the alerts go to my VA instead of me?
Yes. The email address reorder alerts go to is a setting in Settings, Alerts. It starts as your account email and you can change it to your assistant's address or a shared ops inbox. On Growth and above you can also post alerts to a Slack incoming webhook, so the alert sits in the channel you both read.
Does my assistant have to type a lead time for every SKU?
No. Each SKU carries its vendor from Shopify, and a vendor lead times screen in settings lists every distinct vendor so you set one wait time per supplier. That number fills any SKU without a lead time of its own, so a few supplier entries cover the catalogue. Whoever knows the suppliers, usually the owner, should set them, because that judgement is rarely in the assistant's head.
Does my assistant need their own login?
Not to receive alerts or work from the exported CSV. To open the dashboard or the in-app weekly report they would need to sign in, and Restoc has one account per store with email and password sign-in. There are no separate seats or roles, and no single sign-on or two-factor authentication today.
Can they export the reorder list for a purchase order?
Yes. The weekly reorder report lists the SKUs below their reorder point with a suggested order quantity, the vendor and the safety stock units, and exports as CSV. That is the file to paste into a supplier email or a purchase-order template.
How does safety stock change what my VA orders?
A store-wide safety stock percentage is added on top of lead-time demand inside the reorder point calculation, which raises the trigger point for items that sell in bursts. The dashboard, the weekly report and the CSV show the safety stock in units, so the assistant can see how the suggested quantity was built rather than guessing at it.
Which plan do I need for Slack alerts in an ops channel?
Growth, at $59 a month, which covers up to 1,000 tracked SKUs and adds Slack alerts through an incoming webhook alongside email. Starter, at $29 a month for up to 200 SKUs, sends email alerts. Pro is $99 a month for up to 2,000 SKUs and adds a per-SKU velocity window override. Every plan has a 60-day free trial, and paying yearly is ten months' price for twelve.
Will Restoc order stock automatically?
No. It alerts when a SKU crosses its reorder point and lists suggested order quantities in the weekly report. Placing the order stays with a person, which is usually the point of having a VA on the task.
Can I use it today?
Not yet. Restoc is on a waitlist while the app is finished. Join it and we will write to you when installs open, with the trial terms and the first-charge date spelled out.