Can Shopify Notify You When Inventory Is Low? What’s Built In, and What Isn’t

Yes, through Shopify Flow, Shopify’s free automation app. There’s no low-stock setting in the admin itself, so no email arrives when a product runs low until you set one up. In Flow, you build a workflow, or install a ready-made template, that emails you when a variant’s stock drops to a level you choose.

Flow isn’t the only tool Shopify gives you, and each one covers a different part of the job. Here’s what each does about low stock, where each one stops, and when a single daily summary is the better fit.

Shopify’s built-in options at a glance

Shopify Flow: alerts you build yourself

Shopify Flow is free on the Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus plans. You install it from the Shopify App Store, then open it from Apps > Flow.

Two of its templates deal with low stock directly:

• Get notified by email when product variant inventory is low emails you when a variant’s stock gets low.
• Initiate reorder with vendor when inventory gets low emails your supplier to start a reorder.

Both start from the same trigger, Product variant inventory quantity changed. It runs every time one variant’s stock changes, whether the change comes from an order, a manual edit or an app. A condition compares the new quantity with your level, and a Send internal email action sends the message.

That design shapes what you get:

• One email per variant, per change. Each variant is checked on its own. If five variants go low on a busy afternoon, that’s five emails.
• One level you type in. The template compares stock with a single number, such as 5 units, whether the product sells one a month or ten a day.
• Fixed addresses. Flow can’t fill in the recipient from a variable, so every address, including each supplier’s, is typed into the workflow.
• A count, not a forecast. The template looks at how many are left, not how fast they’re selling or how long your supplier takes. “5 left” means the same thing for every product.

Flow can also run on a schedule instead of on every change. Templates such as Send weekly email summary with list of low stock variants and Send daily email summary with out of stock products send one list instead of one email per variant. Setting one up is covered in how to get one daily low-stock email from Shopify.

Inventory reports: days left, when you look

Shopify’s inventory reports are under Analytics > Reports, with the Category filter set to Inventory. The closest one to a low-stock warning is Inventory remaining per product (how its math works).

It estimates how many days of stock each variant has left: the stock remaining, divided by the average number sold per day over the last 28 days. Because it’s a flat average, a product that picked up speed last week only moves the number a little. It also doesn’t take your supplier’s lead time into account, so “12 days left” reads the same whether the supplier needs 5 days or 30. Variants with no sales in that period show N/A.

A few other inventory reports help with reorder decisions:

• ABC product analysis grades each variant by its share of revenue over the last 28 days, so you can see which products you can’t afford to run out of.
• Products by sell-through rate and Products by percentage sold show what share of your stock sold in a period, so slow sellers sort to the bottom.

These are reports you open, not alerts. There’s no built-in report subscription, so none of them arrives in your inbox on its own. You can export a report as a CSV file.

Sidekick: ask what to reorder

Sidekick, the AI assistant in your Shopify admin, comes at the question from another angle. Ask it “What should I reorder?” and it recommends items based on your sales data, and it can draft the purchase order for you.

Shopify doesn’t publish how Sidekick works out those amounts, or whether it uses your supplier’s lead time. That’s fine for a quick check. It’s harder to rely on if you want to see the math behind an amount before you send money to a supplier.

What isn’t built in

• A low-stock setting. There’s no low-stock switch in the admin. Alerts come from a Flow workflow you set up and maintain.
• A summary by default. No report reaches your inbox unless you build a scheduled workflow to send it.
• Supplier lead time. Shopify has no lead-time field for suppliers. Its own inventory guide suggests storing lead times in custom metafields.
• Reorder amounts with the math shown. Sidekick suggests amounts, but the method isn’t published. If you want to check an amount yourself, how much to reorder walks through a simple formula.

Purchase orders, suppliers, transfers and stock counts are all in the admin. What you still put together yourself is a daily answer to two questions: what’s about to run out, and how many to order.

Alerts or one daily summary: which fits your store

A per-change alert works well when:

• only a handful of products really matter, and
• someone can act the same day, such as placing a reorder or moving stock between locations.

A daily summary works better when:

• you have hundreds of variants, so per-change alerts would become a steady stream of email;
• you place orders in batches, so one list is easier to work through than a dozen separate messages;
• you want to know when each product will run out and how many to order, not just that it crossed a number.

You can also use both: an alert for a few best-sellers, and a summary for everything else.

StockDigest takes the daily-summary route. Each morning, at 7 AM store time unless you pick another hour, it emails one digest: which products will run out, when, and how many to reorder, worked out from each product’s own sales speed, your lead time and cover days, minus stock already in transit to you. On days with nothing to report, no email is sent, and that day’s digest is still in the app. If you’d rather build alerts yourself, start with our guide to Shopify Flow low-stock alerts.