I’m trying to better understand how merchants are handling inventory operations as Shopify moves away from Stocky.
I’m curious where people are seeing the most friction today in workflows like:
• Receiving inventory against purchase orders
• Updating supplier costs or landed costs
• Reorder points and replenishment planning
• Investigating inventory discrepancies
• Managing vendors across multiple products or variants
For those handling this today:
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Are you using Shopify-native tools, spreadsheets, another app, or a custom process?
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What parts of receiving or purchasing feel too manual?
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What do current tools not do well?
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If you could improve one thing in this workflow, what would it be?
I’m mainly trying to learn from real merchant experiences and understand common operational pain points.
If you don’t already know what the pain points are then how can you possibly understand how to address them? What I mean is, you need to experience the pain points of retail stores in order to properly come up with a solution to these problems.
That’s a fair point.
I’m not claiming to have all the answers yet. I’m trying to learn directly from merchants who deal with these workflows every day instead of assuming the problem from the outside.
My background is in operational software and support, so I’ve seen how messy business systems can get when inventory, purchasing, and reporting don’t line up. But retail inventory has its own day-to-day realities, and that’s exactly why I’m asking.
I’d rather hear from people actually managing receiving, vendors, costs, and stock issues before making assumptions about what a useful solution should be.
There are a lot of inventory applications out there that already address various functions of the retail world. You can look at our app specifically to see what kind of app addresses them head on and fully: FyreTrail.
Why do I say this? Because I’m a store owner as well. I have known not only brick and mortar retail, but also corporate retail as well (Nike, Inc.) and FyreTrail is a direct reflection of that. What frustrates me most of all is to see somebody come in, say, “Hey, what frustrates you with inventory and receiving?” and think they can just make a software solution to handle it. I don’t mean to offend, but that’s a very naive approach that you think you can solve the problems simply by asking the question.
No offense taken, I understand where you’re coming from.
I’m not thinking one forum question is enough to solve retail inventory. That would be naive. I’m asking because I’d rather start by listening instead of assuming I already know everything.
I respect that you built FyreTrail from real store experience. That’s exactly the kind of perspective I’m trying to understand better.
My background is more on the systems/support side, where I see how business software breaks down in real operations. But retail inventory has details you only really learn from people living it every day.
So I appreciate the pushback. I’ll take a look at FyreTrail too.
You might think I’m odd for telling you to go look at our app, but to be honest, if you end up copying features then I welcome that. By you doing so it helps us identify where shortcomings may be and makes the “solutions” stronger for our customers and potential customers overall. I wish you luck, but start by knowing first instead of asking.
I appreciate that, and honestly I respect that perspective.
You’re right that there’s a difference between asking about pain points and actually understanding them through experience. That’s part of why I’m here listening.
And I appreciate you being open about looking at FyreTrail. I’ll take a look. I’m not interested in copying for the sake of copying, but I do think studying what people have built from real operational experience is part of learning the space properly.
Your point about “start by knowing first” is fair, and I’ll take that seriously.
Thanks for the candid feedback.