Low-Stock Alerts: Set the Right Threshold

A low-stock alert has one job: to tell your team that a product is running out while there is still time to do something about it.

The alert is only as good as the number behind it. Too low and the warning arrives after the sale is gone. Too high and your team stops reading alerts. Here is how the number works, and how to pick the right one.

Why the alert fires

Storix watches each variant, not each product. The red shirt in size L has its own count and its own alert.

The alert fires when the variant's total across all warehouses, minus the units sitting in active carts, drops to its threshold or below. The threshold is decided in three steps:

1. The variant's Alert threshold, if you set one.
2. If not, the highest Reorder point among that variant's rows.
3. If neither exists, the number 5.

Most stores never set either field, so most alerts fire at 5 units whatever the product is. Five units is two days for a bestseller and two months for a slow item.

Check your plan first

Low-stock alerts are included on every Storix plan — Starter, Growth and Pro. The customer-facing "back in stock" email, sent to shoppers who asked to be told, is on Growth and Pro only.

Set a threshold that fires at the right time

A good threshold gives you enough days to restock:

Threshold = daily sales × the days your supplier needs, plus a small cushion

Sell 4 a day with a supplier who needs 10 days? Set it near 50. Sell one a week with a supplier down the street? Set it at 3.

Open Products → Inventory, click Edit on the row, and type the number in Alert threshold. It applies to that variant in every warehouse. Leave it empty, or type 0, to fall back to the default chain above.

Do your top sellers first. Twenty variants set well beat four hundred set carelessly.

From the alert to the exact variant

1. Open Products → Inventory.
2. Click the On hand column header to sort. The emptiest rows come to the top.
3. Read the row. On hand is what is in that warehouse. Next to it, the red Low badge and Alert: 10 or Alert: default show the threshold in use.
4. Check Reserved on the same row. Those units are held, not free to sell.
5. Click History to see additions, transfers, returns and paid sales, newest first.

When low rows are on the page, a red banner shows the count, such as 1 variant(s) below reorder point — consider restocking. Click View low stock to filter to them.

One catch: the Low badge subtracts units in active carts, but the Low stock filter does not. A row can show Low and still be missing from the filtered list. Trust the badge, and sort by On hand when you want the full picture.

Do not expect stock to come back by itself

A refused parcel does not restock itself when it reaches your warehouse.

• A cancelled or returned order releases the stock that was reserved for it.
• Items in a returned parcel go back on the shelf only when someone records the receipt as Resellable on Shipping → Returns. Anything marked Rejected (damaged or wrong item) stays out.
• Pre-order items never return to stock, even when you mark them resellable.

So treat "returns will cover it" as a guess, not a plan. Order against the alert.

Make the alert land where someone reads it

The low-stock event is a proper notification, so route it like any other. Send it to the person who places the purchase orders, not to a shared inbox nobody opens.

Then agree on one rule: an alert is closed only when stock is ordered or the variant is switched off. An alert nobody acts on trains everyone to ignore the next one.

Set an Alert threshold per variant under Products → Inventory and Storix tells your team before a bestseller hits zero. Available from the Starter plan up — compare plans.

Related lessons

• Inventory forecasting and reorder points
• Returns and refunds SOP
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