Shopify Low Stock Alerts and Reorder Points: A Setup Guide for Every Location

Short answer: Shopify does not send low stock alerts on its own. To get them, set a reorder point for each variant at each location in an inventory app such as Alius, connect Slack, Telegram, Discord or email, and choose daily or real-time alerts. Each alert tells you what runs out, where, how many units to order and from which supplier — with an Add to PO button to start the purchase order right from the message.

Why Shopify's built-in inventory is not enough

Shopify tracks how many units you have, but it does not warn you when they run low. Most merchants find out the hard way: a best-seller shows "Sold out" for a week before anyone notices. You can build a basic alert with Shopify Flow, but it only compares one number with a threshold. It does not know how fast an item sells, which location is short, or how much to reorder.

A useful low stock alert answers four questions at once:

• What is running low — down to the variant (size, color)?
• Where — which warehouse or store location?
• When will it run out at the current sales pace?
• How many units should you order, and from whom?

What is a reorder point?

A reorder point is the stock level at which you place a new order. When on-hand units fall to this number or below, it is time to reorder. Set it high enough to cover the days your supplier needs to deliver.

A simple way to pick one:

Reorder point = units sold per day × supplier lead time (days) + safety stock

Example: a mug sells 6 units a day at your Brooklyn warehouse, and the supplier needs 7 days to deliver. 6 × 7 = 42 units. Add a safety stock of 10 for busy days, and your reorder point is 52.

How to set up low stock alerts in Alius

1. Install Alius from the Shopify App Store. It reads your locations and on-hand quantities automatically.
2. Open Stock. The table shows each variant per location: on hand, units sold per day, days until it runs out, and a suggested reorder quantity.
3. Set reorder points. Tick the rows you care about and click Set reorder point. Do this on day one — reorder point alerts work right away, with no sales history needed.
4. Optional: tune lead time and coverage per variant and location. Lead time is how long a delivery takes (default 7 days). Coverage is how many days of sales the next order should cover (default 14 days).
5. Add your suppliers and assign them to products, so each alert names who to order from.
6. Open Alerts, choose Daily or Real-time, and pick where they go: Slack, Email, Telegram, Discord or an HTTP webhook.

Daily vs real-time reorder alerts

	Daily	Real-time
When it sends	Once a day, one message per location	About a minute after a variant crosses into risk
Best for	A morning restock list for the buyer	Fast sellers and flash sales
Plans	Free, Pro and Max	Pro and Max

Either way, Alius will not spam you. A variant is alerted at most once a day per location, and then stays quiet until it recovers — or gets worse, for example from "below reorder point" to "out of stock".

How Alius calculates how much to reorder

Alius looks at how fast each variant sells at each location over the last 30 days. The suggested reorder quantity covers the lead time plus the coverage period at that pace, minus what you already have and what is already on order. So if 40 units are on a purchase order that has not arrived yet, Alius will not ask you to order them again.

Per-location sales history starts the day you switch stock tracking on, because Shopify cannot say which location an old order came from. For the first days, Alius compares stock with your reorder points; the "runs out in" forecast fills in as orders come in.

From alert to purchase order in one tap

This is where Alius differs from a plain alert. In Slack, Telegram and the Alius Discord bot, every alert row with a supplier carries two buttons:

• Add to PO — adds the variant to a draft purchase order for that supplier and location, and replies with a link to review and send it.
• Alert supplier — emails the supplier a reorder request for that variant.

When you send the purchase order, Shopify shows the units as incoming. Your supplier gets a private link to confirm the order, set a delivery date and add tracking — no login needed — and you see each update in your chat. When the goods arrive, tap Received all and the units move into available stock at that location.

Tips for fewer stockouts

• Start with your top 20 sellers. They cause most lost sales when they run out.
• Set reorder points per location, not one number for the whole store. A shop location and a warehouse sell at very different speeds.
• Send alerts to a dedicated channel such as #purchasing, so they don't get lost between order notifications.
• Check the weekly movement digest. It flags dead stock and suggests moving units from a location with too much to one that runs short.

Want order alerts too? See how to get Shopify order notifications in Slack and the top Shopify order alerts to set up.