Inventory how-to

How to plan inventory for print on demand plus stocked items

Split your catalog into two lists: print on demand (POD) items that never run out, and stocked items that need real inventory planning.

Short answer: Split your catalog into two lists: print on demand (POD) items that never run out, and stocked items that need real inventory planning. Only the stocked items need forecasting, reorder points, and purchase orders. Treat POD as infinite supply and leave it out of your reorder workflow entirely.

Why you need to separate them

POD items are made and shipped per order, so there is no stock to count, no lead time to track for restocking, and no reorder point to calculate. Stocked items are the opposite: you hold physical units, they can sell out, and a late reorder means lost sales. Mixing the two in one planning process causes confusion, because POD SKUs will always show as "in stock" or "not applicable" while stocked SKUs need active monitoring.

The cleanest approach is to tag or categorize your products by fulfillment type as soon as they're set up in your store admin. This lets you filter reports and dashboards to show only the stocked items when you're deciding what to reorder.

Planning for stocked items

For stocked items, use the standard approach: track daily sales velocity, know each supplier's lead time, add safety days for delays, and calculate a reorder point per SKU. Order before you hit that point, in quantities that cover your lead time plus a buffer, rounded to whatever case pack or minimum order quantity your supplier requires.

If a stocked item is new and has little sales history, start with a conservative manual estimate based on similar products, then let the forecast take over once you have a few weeks of real sales data.

Planning for POD items

POD items don't need inventory planning in the traditional sense, but they still need attention elsewhere: check your print provider's production times so your shipping estimates stay accurate, and watch for discontinued blanks or substrate changes on the provider's side. None of this is a stock level question, it's a supply reliability question with your provider.

Handling SKUs that are a mix

Some stores sell the same design both as POD and as a stocked item, for example a popular design kept in bulk for faster shipping while rarer sizes stay POD. If you do this, treat them as two separate SKUs internally even if the customer sees one product. The stocked version goes through normal reorder planning. The POD version is excluded. Do not average their sales together when forecasting, or your reorder quantities for the stocked version will be distorted by demand that never touches your shelf.

Step by step

  1. List every SKU and mark each one as POD or stocked.
  2. Exclude POD SKUs from any reorder point or forecast calculation.
  3. For stocked SKUs, confirm each supplier's lead time and set a safety day buffer.
  4. Calculate reorder point per stocked SKU: daily sales x (lead time + safety days).
  5. Set up alerts or a weekly check only for stocked SKUs approaching their reorder point.
  6. If a design exists as both POD and stocked, split them into separate SKUs before forecasting.
  7. Review the split quarterly, since items sometimes move from POD to stocked as demand grows.

Worked example

Say you sell a t-shirt design as POD in all sizes except a bulk-stocked run of size M, which sells 6 units a day. Your blank supplier for the M run has a 10-day lead time and you keep 4 safety days. Reorder point = 6 x (10 + 4) = 84 units. You currently hold 100 units and have none on order, so you're above the reorder point and don't need to act yet. The other sizes, being POD, have no reorder point at all since they're made per order.

How SteadyShelf helps

SteadyShelf forecasts and reorders only make sense for items you actually stock, so point it at your stocked SKUs and ignore POD items in the app entirely, there's nothing for it to do there. If a SKU is sometimes POD and sometimes stocked under one listing, you'll need to track that split manually since SteadyShelf forecasts per variant based on sales history, not fulfillment method.

$29/month flat, unlimited products and suppliers, 30-day free trial. Run the numbers now with the free reorder point calculator.

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FAQ

Should I still monitor POD items at all if they never run out of stock?

Yes, but differently. Instead of stock levels, watch production and shipping times from your print provider, and keep an eye on whether any blanks or materials get discontinued. This is a supplier reliability check, not an inventory count.

What if I'm not sure yet whether a new product should be POD or stocked?

Start it as POD to avoid tying up cash in inventory for an unproven product. Once you have a few weeks of consistent sales and can justify the upfront cost and lead time of a bulk order, switch it to stocked and begin forecasting from there.

Let SteadyShelf do this math for every SKU

Order-by dates per supplier, seasonal forecasts and draft POs for your Shopify store. $29/month after a 30-day free trial.

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