How to Know What Products to Restock in Your Shop

Quick answer

Restock products based on **how fast they sell, how many units remain, how long suppliers take to deliver and how much cash you have available**. Do not simply reorder everything that looks low.

What is a reorder level?

A reorder level is the stock quantity at which you should buy more before the product completely runs out.

Suppose you sell about 5 units of a product every day and your supplier normally takes 4 days to deliver. You may need at least 20 units just to cover those four days, plus a safety quantity for unexpectedly high demand or delayed delivery.

Waiting until stock reaches zero means you lose sales while waiting for replacement stock.

Which products should get priority?

Prioritise products that are both important to customers and fast-moving.

A simple classification can be:

**Fast-moving:** sells frequently and needs regular replenishment. **Medium-moving:** sells consistently but less often. **Slow-moving:** stays on the shelf for a long time.

When cash is limited, buying too much slow-moving stock can make the business look well stocked but leave it unable to purchase the items customers request every day.

How do I know a product is fast-moving?

Look at actual sales over a period rather than relying only on memory.

For each item ask:

- How many units sold in the last 7 days? - How many sold in the last 30 days? - On how many days was it out of stock? - What is the average quantity sold per day? - Is demand increasing or reducing?

An item that appears to sell slowly may actually be out of stock too often. In that case, the low sales number is caused by lack of stock rather than lack of demand.

Should I buy more simply because the supplier gives a discount?

Not always.

A supplier might offer a good price for buying 10 cartons, but if it takes six months to sell those cartons, your cash stays trapped in that item. The discount may not be worth the cash-flow pressure.

Calculate how quickly the stock is likely to move and whether the saving is meaningful enough to justify tying up the money.

What if my stock levels are inaccurate?

Restocking decisions are only as good as your records.

If the system says you have 30 units while the shelf has 15, you might delay restocking and run out unexpectedly.

Regular stock counts help identify theft, breakage, incorrect sales quantities and receiving mistakes.

What products should I stop buying?

Look for items that repeatedly remain unsold, require frequent discounts, expire, get damaged or produce very little profit compared with the cash they consume.

Do not automatically remove every slow product. Some items may be important because customers expect the shop to carry them. But the quantity stocked can be reduced.

How can Bizinesiyo improve restocking?

A good stock system should answer questions such as:

- What is finishing? - What sold fastest this week? - Which products have not sold for 30 days? - Which products are repeatedly out of stock? - How much money is needed to refill selected items?

Bizinesiyo can use your own sales history to make these questions easier to answer instead of forcing you to inspect every shelf manually.

Frequently asked questions

**What is minimum stock?** It is the minimum quantity you prefer to keep available before the item is considered dangerously low.

**What is dead stock?** Dead stock is inventory that has remained unsold for a long period and is tying up business capital.

**Should I restock based on quantity or money?** Both. Quantity tells you what is running low, while available cash determines how much you can responsibly purchase.

**How often should I count stock?** Fast-moving or high-risk items should be checked more frequently. A full count can be scheduled weekly, monthly or at another interval appropriate to the business.

**Can software tell me what to reorder?** Yes. If sales and stock records are accurate, software can highlight low stock, sales velocity and suggested reorder quantities.

---