What is dead stock?
Dead stock is inventory that has stopped selling and is unlikely to sell at full price: last season's jackets, the color nobody picked. You clear it with a markdown, a bundle or a better spot in your collections.
How long before stock counts as dead?
No rule sets the line. Kladana's inventory guide says it is usually more than 180 days without a sale, and as little as 60 to 90 for goods with a short shelf life. Doss puts it at six to twelve months in most industries. Pick one window, such as 90 days, and stick to it. Stock that still sells, just slowly, is slow-moving. Dead stock has stopped.
What does dead stock cost you?
Dead stock costs more than what you paid for it. Say 40 jackets you bought at $30 each stop selling: $1,200 sits in a box. You pay to store it, and the longer it waits, the deeper the markdown it needs. That $1,200 could have restocked a product that sells.
How do you find dead stock in Shopify?
Go to Analytics, then Reports, pick Inventory in the Category filter and open "Products by sell-through rate". Set the dates to your window: a sell-through rate of 0% means nothing sold. The report leaves out products whose stock Shopify does not track, so check those by hand against your list in Products.
How do you get rid of dead stock?
Start with what keeps the most margin. Mark it down, then move it up the collection from page three. Pair it with a product that sells, as a bundle or a free gift once the cart passes a set spend. What still will not move can go to a marketplace, a liquidation buyer or a charity. Ask a tax adviser before you count a donation. Then buy less next time: your inventory turnover ratio shows how fast stock sells through.
What does dead stock mean in shoes?
In sneaker resale, deadstock, often one word, means a pair that is brand new, unworn and still in its original box. To a resale buyer, that is a selling point, not a problem.
Dead stock with Sledge
Growth Intelligence turns on when you pick a paid plan. It can flag when products in your catalog had no sale in your last 90 days of orders. The flag comes with a "Set up merchandising" button that opens a new rule in Sledge merchandising, where you choose the products to boost in collections or search. Growth Intelligence adds up what its fixes could earn in one dollar total, labeled "Est. potential". Save a fix and it compares sales through Sledge before and after.
