What is Dual sourcing?

For a small Shopify store, dual sourcing protects you when one supplier runs late, raises prices, or goes out of stock. If your candle wax supplier has a factory issue, you can shift orders to the second supplier instead of going out of stock on your best sellers.

Use dual sourcing for your highest-revenue SKUs first, not everything. Splitting every item across two suppliers adds admin work and can mean smaller order quantities that miss case pack discounts, so it only pays off where the risk of a stockout is costly.

Example

A candle store sells 400 units a month of its best-selling scent. Instead of ordering all 400 from one supplier, the owner orders 300 from Supplier A and 100 from Supplier B. When Supplier A has a two-week delay, the store still has Supplier B's stock to cover sales while waiting.

Common mistakes

• Splitting orders so small that neither supplier gives good pricing or meets minimum order quantities.
• Assuming both suppliers have the same lead time and quality when they often differ.
• Dual sourcing low-value SKUs while leaving critical hero products on a single supplier.

Dual sourcing and SteadyShelf

SteadyShelf lets you set a different lead time and supplier per SKU, so you can track reorder dates separately for each supplier when you dual source a product.

SteadyShelf is launching on the Shopify App Store. Join early access to get the install link first.

Related terms

Single sourcing · Supplier lead time variability · Supplier scorecard · Lead time · Minimum order quantity

Full inventory glossary

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