Stock Control System
Stock Control System for Ecommerce
Canopy replaces your inventory spreadsheets with a real stock control system — live stock levels, weeks cover forecasting, purchase order management and a profit dashboard, all built for Shopify brands.
What is a stock control system?
A stock control system tracks every unit of inventory across your business — from supplier purchase orders through to warehouse stock and customer sales. Canopy goes further than counting units: it tells you how many weeks of stock you have at your current sales rate, when to reorder before you run out, and what each product actually costs you after freight and duty. All connected to Shopify in real time.
What does a stock control system actually do?
At its core, stock control answers three questions:
- What do I have? Accurate on-hand stock levels per SKU, per location, right now.
- When will I run out? Weeks cover forecasting based on real sales velocity, not guesswork.
- When do I need to order more? Reorder alerts triggered by lead time and minimum stock thresholds — before it's too late.
A modern ecommerce stock control system also manages the supplier relationship — purchase orders, supplier packing lists, goods-in workflows and landed cost calculation — so your stock numbers reflect what you actually hold and what it actually cost you.
Why spreadsheets fail as stock control systems
They go stale the moment a sale happens
Every Shopify order means a manual update. With 50 orders a day, your spreadsheet is out of date before you've opened it.
They can't calculate weeks cover accurately
A static formula using average sales doesn't account for seasonality, promotions or SKU-level variation. Canopy uses rolling velocity per SKU.
They have no supplier workflow
Emailing spreadsheets to your factory, reconciling packing lists manually and updating stock on arrival is hours of admin per shipment.
They hide your real margin
A spreadsheet that shows revenue minus product cost ignores freight, duty, packaging and ad spend. You think you're profitable — then you check landed costs.
They break at scale
At 50 SKUs a spreadsheet is workable. At 500 it's fragile. At 2,845 SKUs — like Bailey & Coco — it's impossible.
They don't prevent overselling
If your spreadsheet says you have 40 units but Shopify has sold 55 since your last update, you're already overselling.
Features of a good stock control system
Not all stock control systems are equal. Here is what a strong ecommerce stock control system needs to do — and what Canopy delivers on each point:
- Real-time stock level sync with your sales platform (Shopify)
- Weeks cover forecasting per SKU based on actual sales velocity
- Purchase order creation and supplier management
- Goods-in workflow with barcode scanning to receive stock accurately
- Landed cost calculation to allocate freight and duty to individual SKUs
- Multi-location support for brands with multiple warehouses or 3PLs
- Stocktake workflow with variance reporting
- AI-driven reorder intelligence accounting for lead times and seasonal demand
- Supplier portal to eliminate email-and-spreadsheet packing list workflows
- P&L dashboard showing true margin per SKU
Replace your spreadsheets with a real stock control system
Canopy gives you live stock levels, weeks cover forecasting and purchase order management — all connected to Shopify. From £59/month, no setup fees.
How Canopy works as your stock control system
Canopy connects to Shopify in under 5 minutes via the official Shopify API. From that point, every order placed on Shopify automatically decrements stock in Canopy. No manual updates, no reconciliation jobs.
When you need to reorder, Canopy shows you exactly which SKUs are running low based on their weeks cover — not just a static minimum quantity. You raise a purchase order in Canopy, share it with your supplier via the supplier portal, and track the shipment from factory to warehouse. When the goods arrive, scan them in with your smartphone. Canopy updates your Shopify stock automatically.
Enter your freight, duty and handling costs and Canopy allocates them to each SKU by weight, volume or value. Your P&L dashboard then shows the true margin on every product — the number that tells you what is actually worth reordering.
Real results: Bailey & Coco and 2,845 SKUs
2,845
SKUs tracked in real time
190
Days combined lead time from China
152
Patterns managed across all variants
Bailey & Coco is a UK dog accessories brand managing a catalogue of 2,845 SKUs across 152 patterns, all sourced from China. With a 70-day production lead time and 120-day sea freight journey, they need to know today which SKUs will be out of stock in five months. Canopy gives them weeks cover per SKU updated daily, purchase orders sent directly to their factory via the supplier portal, and a landed cost calculator that shows their true margin after freight and duty. Stock levels on their Shopify store are always accurate — no manual updates, no overselling.
Stock control system — frequently asked questions
A stock control system is software that tracks the quantity, location and movement of your inventory — from purchase orders and supplier shipments through to sales and returns. A modern stock control system does more than count units: it forecasts how long your stock will last, triggers reorder alerts before you run out, and shows you the true cost and margin of every product you hold.
Spreadsheets fail stock control for three reasons: they don't update in real time when orders are placed (so your stock numbers are always stale), they require manual data entry that introduces errors at scale, and they can't calculate meaningful forecasts like weeks cover from your actual sales data. A brand with 200 SKUs and 50 new orders a day cannot manually maintain accurate spreadsheet stock levels. The moment your data is wrong, every decision built on it is wrong.
Weeks cover in Canopy is calculated per SKU using your rolling sales velocity — the average units sold per week over a configurable window (7, 14, 30 or 90 days). Canopy divides your current on-hand stock (plus optional in-transit stock) by that weekly velocity to give you a weeks cover number. For a brand like Bailey & Coco with 70-day production lead times from China, knowing a SKU has 6 weeks of cover versus 22 weeks is the difference between placing an urgent order today or waiting three months.
For Shopify merchants, yes — integration is essential. If your stock control system and your Shopify store are not connected, every sale creates a manual reconciliation job. Canopy integrates directly with Shopify via the official API: sales deduct stock automatically, and when you receive goods in Canopy, Shopify inventory updates in real time. There is no manual syncing.
The terms are used interchangeably in practice. Historically, "stock control" referred to the physical counting and tracking of inventory, while "inventory management" included the broader purchasing, forecasting and financial analysis layer. Modern systems like Canopy do both: real-time stock level control plus purchase order management, weeks cover forecasting and P&L analysis in a single platform.
Cost varies widely. Enterprise systems like OrderWise start at £1,250/month with £5,000–£25,000 setup fees. Mid-market tools like Linnworks start at £360/month. Canopy starts at £59/month (Seed plan, up to 500 SKUs) with no setup fees. Most growing Shopify brands find the Grow plan at £129/month covers everything they need, including supplier portal, landed cost calculation and a P&L dashboard.
Related pages
How Canopy works as a native Shopify inventory management system.
Why UK brands need purpose-built inventory software with landed costs and HMRC compliance.
The complete feature set — every tool in the Canopy stock control system.
Get a real stock control system for your ecommerce brand
Canopy replaces spreadsheets with live stock levels, weeks cover forecasting and purchase order management. Get early access.