How to set low stock alerts and choose the right threshold
Then know what to do when one fires.
Low stock alerts work well when each product has a reorder point set from sales and supplier lead time, and the alert fires once as stock crosses it. Shopify sets them up with Flow, WooCommerce with a threshold setting, and GoatLabels, on the Pro plan, with a reorder point per product.
Get told when a count runs low
On the Pro plan, set a reorder point on a product and get an alert when a warehouse's count reaches it, by email, in the dashboard or on Telegram.
Counts move with your label purchases
Buy a label with a matched SKU and the shipped quantity comes off that warehouse's count. Void the label and those units go back.
How do you set up low stock alerts that help?
Give each product a reorder point, tell your tool to alert you when stock reaches it, and make the alert fire once as stock crosses the point instead of on every sale after. Every tool below does some of that. They differ in where the threshold lives, who gets the message, and whether the alert understands more than one location.
Platform facts, checked
- Shopify Flow is a free app, "available on the Basic, Grow, Advanced, and Plus plans" (Shopify Help Center, Shopify Flow).
- The trigger "Product variant inventory quantity changed" starts a workflow when inventory changes for a variant, whether from an order, a manual adjustment or an app. It gives you the product, the variant and the prior quantity, and the location sits under the variant's inventory levels (Shopify Help Center, trigger reference).
- Shopify's template "Get notified when product inventory is low" says the condition needs to check both the amounts before and after the change, so the workflow runs only the first time your conditions are met. In its example, a store with 7 T-shirts sends a reorder email when an order takes it to 5, and none when the next order takes it to 4 (Shopify Help Center, workflow examples).
- The Send internal email action takes fixed addresses, separated by commas, and no variables (Shopify Help Center, Send internal email).
- WooCommerce has a checkbox to enable low stock notifications, a Notification recipient(s) field and a Low Stock Threshold under the Products tab, Inventory section (WooCommerce documentation, Products settings). A product's own Low stock threshold field overrides the store-wide level, and it appears once stock management is checked on that product (WooCommerce documentation, product editor).
Platforms change their settings, so check the linked pages before you rely on a label or a plan.
Checked
| Tool | Where you set it | Who is told | When it fires | Limits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shopify Flow | A workflow: the inventory quantity trigger, a condition, then the Send internal email action. | The addresses you type into the email action. Shopify says they cannot be set with variables. | Whenever the condition matches. Check the quantity before and after the change so it fires once. | Flow is a free app on Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus. Outside Flow, the only low stock email we found in the Help Center is a daily report in the Stocky app, which Shopify says ends after August 31, 2026. For several locations, test the condition against each one. |
| WooCommerce | Settings, then Products, then Inventory: the low stock notifications checkbox and the Low Stock Threshold. Override it on a product or variation. | The recipient addresses in the same settings block, separated by commas. | When stock of a product falls to the low stock threshold. | The pages we read describe one threshold for the store or for a product, with no setting per location. |
| GoatLabels, Pro plan | A reorder point on each product in the Operations hub. | You choose: email, the dashboard, or Telegram once a chat is linked. | Once per dip, when a warehouse's count reaches the point, after a stock movement. | Needs the Pro plan and matched SKUs. No SMS or Slack. Limits below. |
Checked 2026-11-05: Shopify Flow, trigger reference, workflow examples, Send internal email, Stocky low stock report, WooCommerce Products settings and product editor.
How do you choose a low stock threshold?
Set the threshold at the stock you expect to sell while a reorder is on its way, plus a safety margin. That is the reorder point: average units sold a day, times supplier lead time in days, plus safety stock. When the count reaches it, an order placed that day should arrive with about the safety stock still on the shelf.
Example, with invented numbers: a product sells 6 units a day, the supplier takes 9 days from order to shelf, and you want 3 days of sales in reserve.
| Example line | Value |
|---|---|
| Average units sold a day (example) | 6 units |
| Supplier lead time, order to shelf (example) | 9 days |
| Sales during the lead time | 6 x 9 = 54 units |
| Safety stock, 3 days of sales (example) | 6 x 3 = 18 units |
| Reorder point | 54 + 18 = 72 units |
Illustration only: the daily sales, lead time and safety days are invented. Use your own order history and your supplier's real lead time.
Three habits keep the number honest. Take daily sales from the last month or two of orders, slow weeks included. Use the lead time your supplier actually delivered last time. And revisit the number before a season, because a threshold that suits a slow month will fire too late in a busy one.
The reorder point assumes you order the day the alert fires. If placing an order takes you a few days of approvals, raise the number by those days of sales so the warning arrives early enough to be useful.
Should a low stock alert look at each location or the total?
If each location fills its own orders, test each location, because a total can look healthy while one shelf is about to run dry. If every order draws from one shared pool, the total is enough. The deciding question is simple: can the stock in location B ship an order that location A is going to get?
Example: a reorder point of 15, with 5 units at one warehouse and 500 at another. Against the total, nothing is wrong. Against the first warehouse, which ships its own orders, you are about to miss sales.
Shopify's Flow trigger exposes inventory levels by location, so a workflow can look at one, but build the condition deliberately and test it with a real adjustment at each location before you trust it. WooCommerce's settings pages describe stock per product or variation and no per-location setting. GoatLabels, on the Pro plan, tests a product's reorder point against each warehouse's count, not the total. One caveat on that: the reorder suggestions list, which turns low items into a draft purchase order, looks at the total across warehouses, so the two views can disagree.
What should you do when a low stock alert fires?
Confirm the count, check what is already on order, then reorder or change what you sell.
- Check the count against the shelf. If the system and the shelf disagree, fix the count first and note why, because a wrong count means every later alert is wrong too.
- Check what is already on order. An alert for a product with a delivery due tomorrow needs no new order. On the Pro plan, the GoatLabels alert says what is already on order.
- Order enough to cover the next lead time and the cycle after it, using your supplier's minimums. Write down the date you ordered.
- If the delivery will arrive after the stock runs out, decide now: slow the product's ads, mark it as backordered, or hide the listing until it lands.
- When the delivery arrives, record the real lead time. If it was longer than your number, raise the reorder point.
Keep the alert recipients short, and name one owner per product group.
How do low stock alerts work in GoatLabels?
On the Pro plan, you set a reorder point on a product, and GoatLabels alerts you when a warehouse's count reaches it, by email, in the dashboard or on Telegram, once per dip. The Operations hub is included on the Pro plan, which is $40 a month (prices checked 2026-11-05), with no separate add-on fee. Free accounts see an upgrade card, not the hub.
- Add your products with SKUs, by hand, from a spreadsheet or through the API. Store catalogs do not import into Products on their own.
- Flag the ship-from addresses where you hold stock as warehouses, and load starting counts. A CSV stock import can set on-hand, unit cost and reorder point per SKU in one file.
- Set a reorder point on each product you want watched. A product with none set sends no alert.
- Choose your channels in notification settings: email, the dashboard, or Telegram. Telegram needs a linked chat, and quiet hours apply.
The alert fires once when a count reaches the reorder point, then stays quiet until stock rises back above the point and dips again. It also reports what is already on order. Accounts with the hub can also receive the event as a low stock webhook.
What are the limits of GoatLabels low stock alerts?
The alert is only as current as the last stock movement, and a few kinds of sale do not move stock at all. Read these before you rely on it.
- The check runs only after a stock movement. If you set a reorder point on a product that is already below it, nothing is sent until the next movement.
- A store sale does not lower the count until a label is bought. Between the order and the label, the GoatLabels count is higher than what you can really sell, so the alert can arrive late.
- Stock moves only when a label line carries a SKU that matches a tracked product. Bulk CSV import and Wix orders do not move stock. Only a void puts units back, and returns and refunds do not.
- No SMS or Slack alerts. The channels are email, the dashboard and Telegram.
- It is not forecasting. The reorder suggestion uses a fixed rule, restocking to twice the reorder point, with no sales history behind it.
- Counts begin when you do. Labels bought before you had access, or before a product existed, are not counted, so the starting counts you load matter.
What GoatLabels does and does not do. On the Pro plan, GoatLabels tracks counts per product and warehouse next to label buying, with a ledger of every change, and alerts you when a warehouse's count reaches a product's reorder point. It does not store your goods, it is not a warehouse management system, and it does not forecast demand. If your orders arrive without clean SKUs, or mostly through bulk CSV import or Wix, stock will not move and the alerts will not help, so the Shopify Flow or WooCommerce route above may suit you better.
Low stock alerts: FAQ
- Does Shopify have a built-in low stock alert?
- Shopify documents Shopify Flow templates for it, including one called Get notified when product inventory is low. Outside Flow, the only low stock email we found in the Help Center on November 5, 2026 is a daily report in the Stocky app, which Shopify says is no longer available after August 31, 2026. Flow is a free app on the Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus plans, and its email action sends to fixed addresses that you type in.
- How do I turn on the WooCommerce low stock notification?
- Go to Settings, then Products, then Inventory. Turn on stock management, tick the low stock notifications checkbox, enter one or more recipient emails separated by commas, and set the Low Stock Threshold. A product can override the store-wide number in its Inventory tab, once stock management is checked on that product.
- What number should I use for the threshold?
- Use the sales you expect while a reorder is on its way, plus a safety margin. Multiply average daily units by supplier lead time in days, then add some days of sales as safety stock. Review the number when your sales rate or your supplier's lead time changes.
- Should a low stock alert look at each location or the total?
- If each location fills its own orders, test each location, because a total can look healthy while one location is about to oversell. If every order draws from one shared pool, the total is enough. GoatLabels, on the Pro plan, tests a product's reorder point against each warehouse's count.
- Can GoatLabels send low stock alerts by SMS or Slack?
- No. On the Pro plan the alert goes by email, in the dashboard or on Telegram, and each channel is your choice. Telegram needs a linked chat. Free accounts do not have the Operations hub.
Related reading: the Operations hub, how to calculate a reorder point, how to sync stock to Shopify and WooCommerce, how to make a pick list, how to set up scan to pack, how to run purchase orders for an online store, how to calculate landed cost per order, shipping labels for Shopify, shipping labels for WooCommerce, GoatLabels plans and pricing.
Get told when
a count runs low.
On the Pro plan, GoatLabels tracks counts per product and warehouse next to your label purchases and alerts you by email, in the dashboard or on Telegram when a count reaches its reorder point.
The Operations hub is included on the Pro plan, with no separate add-on fee.