At a glance
Per-SKU current stock level compared against 30-day sales velocity, expressed as “days of stock remaining”. The card the buying team should refresh weekly; SKUs with <14 days of stock are urgent reorders, SKUs with >180 days are dead inventory candidates. The single most actionable inventory-management card in BigCommerce.
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your BigCommerce data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
A US homewares brand on BigCommerce Pro, 30-day window 14 Apr 26 to 14 May 26.
What’s interesting:
- The Linen duvet King at 3.8 days remaining with a 45-day lead time is a five-alarm event. It’s mathematically already going OOS for 41 days; the question is when, not if. Action sequence: (1) emergency air freight from supplier if available; (2) raise price 15-20% to slow velocity (extends days remaining); (3) prepare back-in-stock email list using BC’s native back-in-stock notify; (4) consider a “preorder, ships 30 May” button if supplier confirms a date. Doing nothing forfeits 6+ weeks of revenue on a hero SKU.
- The towel set at 13 days is the next-priority reorder. Lead time of 21 days for towels means it’ll go OOS for 8 days; tolerable but not ideal. Confirm reorder is in flight; if not, place today.
- The ceramic lamp at 19 days is the routine planning case. Reorder within 2 weeks; healthy operational rhythm.
- The wool throw at 75 days is the buy-team’s “do nothing” pile. Healthy stock-velocity ratio; the SKU is doing its job.
- The cream mug set at 180 days is starting to slow. Velocity has dropped; if it persists, this SKU will move to overstock band. Monitor for 4 weeks; if velocity hasn’t recovered, plan a markdown or reduce next-cycle reorder.
- The decorative plate at 750 days of stock is dead inventory. 1,200 units selling 48/month means 25 months to clear at current velocity. Cost to the business: storage + working capital + opportunity cost of the cash. Action: 30-50% markdown to clear in next 90 days, or write off and donate. Holding dead stock is more expensive than selling at a loss.
- Linen duvet emergency reorder today, in parallel: raise price, prepare back-in-stock notify, evaluate preorder button.
- Towel set and ceramic lamp reorders this week.
- Cream mug velocity monitoring start a 4-week trend watch.
- Decorative plate markdown plan decide on 30%, 40%, or 50% off; project clear-time at each price; communicate the markdown plan to merchandising.
- Weekly reorder cadence institutionalise this card as the buy-team’s Monday-morning ritual; every red SKU gets a decision.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in BigCommerce Control Panel: Products → View shows currentinventoryLevel per product. Reports → Inventory Snapshot on Pro / Enterprise plans gives a daily inventory level snapshot but does NOT calculate days-of-stock; you’d combine it with the Sales Reports manually. There’s no native days-of-stock view in BC, this card is one of the highest-value adds.
For warehouse-side truth, your ERP / 3PL system is the source-of-truth for physical inventory; BC’s inventoryLevel should match the ERP within sync-lag tolerance.
Why our number may legitimately differ from BC catalogue:
Cross-connector reconciliation (when ERP / 3PL integrations are available):
The stock-vs-sales velocity calculation is BC-aligned with similar cards on Shopify (no native Shopify days-of-stock either) and Adobe Commerce; the velocity formula is identical across platforms.
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
My new SKU has 3 days of stock and 2 units sold, real urgency or noise? Almost certainly noise. Velocity calculations on SKUs with <50 lifetime units sold are unreliable; one good day distorts the 30-day average. Configure a min-lifetime-units filter (set to 30-50) to suppress new-SKU false positives. Or look at the absolute stock level: if 3 days = 6 units, that’s not necessarily an emergency. Why does the days-remaining shift week-over-week even when stock is stable? Because velocity is rolling 30-day. A high-sales day rolling out of the window or a low-sales day rolling in changes the denominator. Smaller week-over-week shifts (±15%) are normal; larger shifts (>30%) signal real velocity change. Should I reorder when days remaining hits lead time, or before? Before, with safety stock buffer. A SKU with 21-day lead time should be reordered when days-remaining hits ~30 days, giving 9 days buffer for delivery delays, customs, supplier issues. Critical hero SKUs deserve 14-day buffer (reorder at 35 days remaining). Tail SKUs can run to lead-time exact. My MLI store, do I see per-location days-of-stock? Yes, toggle the per-location view. Per-location matters because a SKU with 30 days at Warehouse A and 0 days at Warehouse B is OOS for customers routed to B. Multi-location stores often have larger total stock than single-location but worse practical availability. Why are some SKUs showing >1000 days of stock? Either (a) the SKU’s velocity is essentially zero (deprecated, seasonal-off-season, niche); (b) a recent inventory adjustment reset stock to a high number without selling many. Both are valid; the action is markdown / cut for (a), routine for (b). Should I cut all overstock automatically? No. Some overstock is strategic: pre-Black-Friday build, seasonal pre-stock for summer, B2B-volume products with long sell-through. Apply judgement: if the SKU has a clear seasonal sell-through coming, hold; if it’s drifted into overstock with no plan, mark down or cut. My subscription SKUs show low days remaining but I auto-reorder, do I need to act? No, if your subscription auto-renewal triggers a supplier auto-reorder. Tag subscription SKUs withauto_reorder = true in BC; configure the card to suppress alerts on tagged SKUs. The card is for human-decision SKUs; subscription auto-loops should be silent here.
What happens to the days-remaining when I’m OOS?
Zero stock means days = 0 by definition. The card surfaces OOS at the top of the red band; the action is restock urgently or hide the listing. Cross-reference BC Channel OOS per Channel.
Why does my variant view show different urgency than product view?
Variants have independent stock and velocity. The product view averages; one urgent variant (King size duvet at 3 days) gets diluted by healthy variants (Queen size at 60 days). Always reorder at variant level for accuracy; use product view only for merchandising / category planning.
A high-velocity SKU dropped to 0 velocity overnight, what happened?
Either (a) the SKU went OOS and orders stopped (cross-check inventory level); (b) the SKU was hidden / disabled (check availability field); (c) a competitor pricing move (cross-check pricing); (d) marketplace listing issue (cross-check Channel Manager). Run the diagnostic; this card surfaces the symptom, not the root cause.
Can I export this card to share with my buyer / supplier?
Yes, the card supports CSV export. Common workflow: export weekly, share the red-band SKUs with the buying team’s reorder spreadsheet, share the blue-band overstock with merchandising for markdown planning.
My B2B portal sells in case quantities, does the velocity reflect cases or units?
BC stores units regardless of sale unit; velocity here is in units. If your case = 12 units and you sold 5 cases, velocity = 60 units. Adjust mental math accordingly when planning reorders in case quantities.