6 Best Back In Stock Apps for Shopify in 2024: Efficient Product Restock Planning
Updated November 17, 2023.
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Have you ever placed a "sold out" banner with one of your products? Initially, it's pleasing to know that your product is so popular. But then customers start getting restless and frustrated. You get daily queries about when you'll have stock again. Do you have a plan?
A recent study found that 73% of retailers view inaccurate inventory forecasting as a major problem in the day-to-day running of their stores. To avoid this issue, you need a reliable product restock planning strategy in place.
But a successful restocking plan requires the right tools. Shopify has a wide range of apps that can help you monitor your inventory levels, set up automated notifications, and more. Here are six great apps to get you started.
Our Top Picks for Best Shopify Apps for Efficient Product Restock Planning
- Out-of-Stock Police - Best Overall
- Simple Purchase Orders - Best for Purchase Orders
- Inventory Planner - Best for Product Forecasting & Analysis
- ReplenishMe - Best for Small to Mid-Sized Businesses
- Thrive by Shopventory - Best for Multiple Stores
- Auto Purchase Orders - Best for Automated Restocking
1. Best Overall
KeepShoppers Score: 9.9
Key Features
- Easy configuration
- Automated notifications & reports
- SEO management
Out-of-Stock Police by Egnition automatically pushes your sold-out items to the bottom of collections or hides them completely until they're restocked, all the while ensuring that your out-of-stock products still get indexed for better SEO. Stay updated easily with your stock levels via notifications and reports the app sends by email.
Why We Liked It
What stood out the most about Out-of-Stock Police is that the app is big on saving you time and effort through automation, but you still maintain complete control. Its tagging feature and easy configuration let us create rules about when we want to receive notifications about specific products (low stock vs. out of stock), if products should be hidden or pushed down, and how long until a product is hidden because restocking is late. Apart from day-to-day use, we believe this will be particularly useful for seasonal promotions.
We're also especially impressed that the app takes things a step further by helping you improve your SEO and organic traffic by ensuring your sold-out items are still indexed.
Pros
- 7-day free trial
- Free plan
- Easy tagging feature to create rules
- Regular stock level updates
- Improved SEO & organic traffic
- 24/7 customer support
Cons
- Pricing could be clearer
» Read our review of Out-of-Stock Police for more details
2. Best for Purchase Orders
KeepShoppers Score: 9.7
Key Features
- Automatically generate purchase orders
- Import products & cost prices from suppliers
- Create templates
Simple Purchase Orders simplifies communication with your suppliers. Once you've imported their products and cost prices, you can send your purchase orders directly to them from the app. Either manually create purchase orders or generate them automatically from your customer orders. Finally, update your inventory directly once your new stock arrives.
Why We Liked It
Simple Purchase Orders definitely lives up to its name. We appreciate how the app manages the entire process between you and your supplier: from ordering your stock to receiving it and capturing it on your system. We also like that you can customize your purchase order forms and add that personal touch.
Pros
- 14-day free trial
- Free plan
- Automatically create & send purchase orders
- Customizable templates
Cons
- Not all features are available with all plans
3. Best for Product Forecasting & Analysis
KeepShoppers Score: 9.6
Key Features
- Product forecasting & analysis
- Sync sales history
- Intuitive inventory reporting
Inventory Planner helps you to make accurate product restocking decisions. By analyzing your sales history and how long your suppliers take to deliver, the app automatically gives you a forecast of your products. You can optimize your cash flow by no longer over- or underselling.
Why We Liked It
Data is our new best friend. Previously, keeping track of numbers (and analyzing them!) was a chore. We love how this app manages all of this for you, saving you time and effort. We won't be surprised if this automated way of analyzing and forecasting points out problem areas you never knew you had and now have the opportunity to address.
Pros
- 14-day free trial
- Integrates with other platforms
- Recommendations based on data
- Customizable reports
Cons
- Setup can be complicated
- Pricing structure isn't always clear
- Can be expensive
» Take your store's analytics one step further with these top analytics apps
4. Best for Small to Mid-Sized Businesses
KeepShoppers Score: 9.5
Key Features
- Easy-to-use dashboard
- Populate purchase orders automatically
- Predict future inventory needs
ReplenishMe is a fast-growing app that helps you make smarter decisions on which products to restock and when. Ideal for small to medium-sized businesses, ReplenishMe takes both your sales data and your plans for forthcoming promotions into consideration to make sure you'll have enough stock. The user-friendly dashboard makes it easy to get an overview of your stock status.
Why We Liked It
What we appreciate most about ReplenishMe is its ability to blend your historical sales data and your future campaigns to give you accurate forecasting. The app's algorithm can adjust to your sales structure, so small to medium-sized businesses can find this especially useful as they grow. We also think the price is more suited toward smaller businesses, while the generous 90-day free trial creates a great incentive to try the app before committing.
Pros
- 90-day free trial
- Factors in seasonal sales
- Automated purchase orders
- Overview of analytics on the dashboard
Cons
- Few reviews on Shopify
5. Best for Multiple Stores
KeepShoppers Score: 9.5
Key Features
- Connect multiple stores & locations
- Automated purchase orders
- Advanced reporting for each store
Thrive by Shopventory is a powerful restocking tool that centralizes the reporting, ordering, and inventory of all your sales channels, whether it's physical or online stores. This one-stop shop keeps real-time track of your products and catalogs and sends you detailed reports you can break down according to each sales channel.
Why We Liked It
Thrive by Shopventory does it all and removes the headache of keeping stock in several stores straight. The app goes the extra mile by not limiting you to online stores or a single platform. We appreciate this versatility and the app's goal of making your business better. Additional tools like a scanner, automated purchase orders, and per-channel reports make managing multi-location stock a breeze.
Pros
- 30-day free trial
- Integrate with different platforms
- Connect up to 20 stores
- Scanner to track stock movement
- Good customer service
Cons
- Can be expensive
6. Best for Automated Restocking
KeepShoppers Score: 9.4
Key Features
- Manage emails & stock directly in the app
- Automatic stock level updates
- Create split orders
Auto Purchase Orders by Magic Bits aims to make your ordering process as seamless as possible by removing many manual tasks. This includes automatically updating stock levels when you receive new products and automatically creating and sending purchase orders to your suppliers as orders come in. The app also has its own email functionality, so you can easily track correspondence.
Why We Liked It
Auto Purchase Orders is easy to set up and lets you hit the ground running—no developers or complicated installation. After that positive start, it's easy to become dependent on the app's automated features. We admire the efficiency behind automatically creating and sending purchase orders directly and keeping stock levels updated. We particularly enjoyed the email feature and its easy functionality.
Pros
- 14-day free trial
- Free plan
- Easy integration
- Automated ordering & stock capturing
- Reliable email functionality
- Good customer support
Cons
- Free trial restricted to Shopify Staff or Trial Plans
KeepShoppers Takeaway: What's the Best App for Efficient Product Restock Planning?
Managing your inventory better and making sure it stays up to date is essential for growing your business and keeping your customers happy. There's a lot that's happening in the backend of your e-commerce business, so it's important that you use a Shopify app that's best suited for your needs.
While we've rated Out-of-Stock Police as the best overall app because it helps with both frontend and backend product management, each app listed here holds great value. Thrive by Shopventory can be a game changer if you have multiple stores, and Inventory Planner and ReplenishMe make stock forecasting a breeze.
KeepShoppers Methodology
Here's how we compared the Shopify apps for efficient product restock planning.
We scored each of them based on the range of options, integration potential, customization options, integration support, user-friendliness, and customer service. We also took into account the time and resources required to make the best use of the app—more feature-rich solutions are usually more complex and require a greater time investment to learn.
Our team aimed to examine the scope of options that work for different users, as each company will have different needs and use cases.