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Stocky Migration Guide: What to Do Before August 31, 2026

Shopify says Stocky will not be available after Aug 31, 2026. This guide covers export planning, Shopify inventory migration, living POs, supplier replies, and closed-loop procurement.

Line Now LLC/Published /Updated /10 min read

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Shopify says Stocky will no longer be available after August 31, 2026. If you've been using Stocky for inventory tracking, purchase orders, or stocktakes, you need a transition plan before that date.

This guide covers the deprecation, the realistic options, and a step-by-step migration path. The honest version: Stocky handled important inventory and PO tasks inside Shopify, but the transition is also a chance to fix what happens after the PO leaves: supplier replies, substitutions, receiving variance, and accounting handoff. A closed-loop procurement platform keeps that buying workflow connected from placing the order to reading the supplier's reply to updating inventory to deciding what to order next.

What's happening to Stocky

Shopify's help docs say Stocky — the inventory app included with Shopify POS Pro — will no longer be available after August 31, 2026. Customers using Stocky for any of the following should plan the transition before then:

  • Purchase order generation and PDF emailing to suppliers
  • Inventory level tracking with reorder suggestions
  • Stocktakes and physical inventory counts
  • Multi-location stock transfers
  • Supplier and product cost tracking
  • ABC analysis and stock classification

Shopify says that after August 31, 2026, Stocky will not be available for managing inventory, Stocky APIs will stop working, and historical Stocky data will not automatically move into Shopify. Shopify also says merchants will have read-only access for a period of time and should export any Stocky records they want to keep.

Your options

There are roughly three categories of Stocky replacement on the market, and they're not equivalent.

Category 1: Other Shopify inventory apps (Sumtracker, Inflow, Sortly, Cin7)

These are closer to the Stocky-shaped problem: inventory records, reorder support, and PO creation. They can be enough when the supplier workflow is small and stable. The evaluation question is whether they also absorb supplier replies, receiving variance, and accounting handoff, or whether those still happen manually.

Category 2: Forecasting-only tools (Prediko, Inventory Planner, Forthcast)

Better forecasting, but still verify the supplier side. These tools can generate PO recommendations, but the buyer should check whether they close the loop after the PO is sent: supplier replies, multi-channel supplier updates, receiving, and accounting handoff. See the LineNow vs Forthcast comparison for the full breakdown of where AI demand forecasting ends and closed-loop procurement begins.

Category 3: Closed-loop procurement platforms (LineNow)

The architectural standard to evaluate when Stocky was part of a broader buying workflow. These platforms connect the procurement loop, not just a slice of it: AI parses supplier replies into reviewable order updates; multi-channel supplier comms (email, WhatsApp, EDI, supplier portal); team collaboration on supplier email threads brought into the system; statistical replenishment with published methodology; recipe / BOM costing; multi-vertical support; embedded payments; capital forecasting.

This is what Stocky users should evaluate if the pain is supplier execution and upstream reconciliation, not just inventory counts.

Why LineNow is a strong Stocky replacement to evaluate

LineNow is a strong candidate when the Stocky replacement needs to include supplier replies, living POs, receiving variance, and accounting handoff.

What you get back from Stocky:

  • Channel-aware POS and sales-channel sync (Shopify, plus Square, Toast, Faire, Clover where supported)
  • Inventory tracking with statistical PAR, decay-aware safety stock, and days-of-stock projections
  • Reorder recommendations based on actual consumption, not sell-through heuristics
  • Stocktake / receiving workflow with substitution handling
  • Multi-location support under flat pricing
  • Supplier and item cost history
  • ABC-equivalent prioritization (actionability ranking)

What you gain over Stocky:

  • Closed-loop control. Item → order → send → reply parsed → received → inventory → next recommendation. Buyer touches the key control moments: approve cart, click send, review supplier changes, confirm receipt.
  • Layer 1 AI — agentic supplier-reply monitoring across email, WhatsApp Business, EDI, and web portals. Creates reviewable updates for status, line items, prices, ETAs, substitutions, invoice IDs, and shipping info in a procurement workflow.
  • Layer 2 AI — conversational insights chatbot, custom report templates, AI order builder.
  • Team collaboration on supplier email threads. Every supplier email is brought into the system, attached to the relevant PO, visible to the whole team. Multiple people can reply to the same thread without sharing an inbox.
  • Multi-channel supplier comms — email, WhatsApp Business, EDI (X12 4010/5010 + EDIFACT D24A), supplier portal, web-portal scrape.
  • Statistical replenishment — SBA forecasting for non-smooth demand, SBC framework for demand-pattern classification, and decay-aware PAR for perishables.
  • Recipe / BOM costing with substitution and dynamic margin recomputation.
  • Multi-vertical — retail + dropship + restaurant + manufacturer in one account.
  • QuickBooks/Xero handoff with configured account mapping.
  • Embedded PO payments via Stripe Connect.
  • Capital forecasting — 10 months rolling cash flow.

For more on the Stocky vs LineNow comparison, see the dedicated page.

Migration steps

The migration can often be run as a one-week pilot, with hands-on time depending on item quality, supplier count, accounting setup, and how much historical Stocky data you need to export.

Week 1, Day 1: Set up LineNow

  1. Sign up for LineNow at linenow.co. 90-day free trial, no credit card.
  2. Connect your Shopify store. The product catalog can start importing and mapping.
  3. Connect your email (Gmail or Microsoft 365 where supported). Layer 1 AI can start staging supplier replies for review.
  4. Connect QuickBooks or Xero (optional, but high value for AP automation).

Week 1, Day 2–3: Bring suppliers and items

  1. Import your supplier list. You can bring them in from Shopify vendors, from QuickBooks if connected, from a CSV, or add them manually.
  2. Map your items to suppliers. Shopify-vendor mapping can help; clean up missing suppliers, pack sizes, and edge cases.
  3. Set lead times, MOQs, and pack sizes for the items you order most often. Top 50 SKUs is enough to get useful recommendations; the long tail can come later.

Week 1, Day 4–5: Run a parallel order

  1. Run one order through LineNow alongside your existing Stocky workflow. Generate the recommendation, review it, send the PO via email.
  2. When the supplier replies, watch the system parse it. Status, line items, prices — all structured for review with less manual re-entry.
  3. Receive the goods. Receiving writes the inventory adjustment through the supported workflow.

Week 2: Cutover

  1. Stop generating new POs in Stocky. All new procurement runs through LineNow.
  2. Keep Stocky open in a tab for historical reference until Aug 31, 2026.
  3. Cancel Shopify POS Pro if Stocky was your only reason for it (LineNow doesn't require POS Pro).

The migration is straightforward because the entities map cleanly: Shopify products → LineNow items, Shopify vendors → LineNow suppliers, Shopify locations → LineNow business units. The places where LineNow goes deeper than Stocky (recipes, capital forecasting, AI on supplier replies, multi-vertical) are pure additions.

What Stocky users should evaluate first

For Stocky migration, three gains are worth testing in the first real supplier cycle:

  1. Supplier replies that become reviewable updates. No more Wednesday-morning catch-up reading three days of supplier confirmations and retyping them into the system.
  2. The team can finally see the whole order conversation. Stocky never showed supplier replies. LineNow ingests them. New hires can be useful on day one because they can see the full thread per PO.
  3. The recommendations are more explainable. SBA forecasting plus decay-aware PAR replaces "order a bit more than last time" with a recommendation the buyer can inspect and override.

When to start

Start before the migration window gets compressed. LineNow's 90-day free trial gives you an overlap window to run in parallel before any subscription cost and prove supplier reply, receiving, and accounting handoff before Stocky becomes unavailable.

The Stocky deprecation is the moment to decide whether your replacement is only inventory management or the full buying loop. The closed loop should not be a premium tier reserved for complex operations; it should be the operating standard for any team whose supplier replies change the order.

LineNow is the closed-loop procurement platform to evaluate for the next workflow after Stocky: Shopify-aware, statistically rigorous, with two layers of AI inside the loop, native multi-channel supplier comms, team collaboration on supplier email threads, and bill push to QuickBooks/Xero.

Sources checked

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