Everything you need to install, set up, and get the most out of skubird.
After installation, skubird walks you through a quick onboarding flow:
skubird pulls your historical orders and current inventory from Shopify. This usually takes 2–5 minutes depending on your store size. You'll see a progress indicator while it runs.
Enter how many days it typically takes to receive inventory from your supplier after placing an order. This is the single most important setting — it determineswhen skubird tells you to reorder.
1421You can set different lead times per product later on each product's detail page.
Choose whether to receive a weekly reorder digest email and where to send it. You can also enable immediate alerts for critical items — these fire as soon as a product's urgency escalates to critical, rather than waiting for the weekly send.
Once sync completes, click View Dashboard to see your first recommendations. Products with fewer than 30 days of sales history will show "Gathering data" until enough history accumulates.
The dashboard is your home screen inside Shopify admin. It shows three things:
At the top, three colored cards give you an at-a-glance count of how many products fall into each urgency level:
Below the summary cards, every product with a recommendation is listed in a table, sorted by urgency (critical first). Each row tells you what to do for that product. See the Column Reference for details on each field.
Click Refresh Forecasts in the top right to re-sync your sales data and generate fresh recommendations. This typically takes 30–60 seconds. Forecasts also update automatically when your weekly email digest is generated.
Here's what each column in the recommendations table means:
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Product | The product name and SKU code. Click a product to open its detail page with full forecast data and sales history. |
| Urgency | How urgently you need to act. See Urgency Levels for the full breakdown of what each level means. |
| Stock | Your current inventory count for this product, as reported by Shopify. This updates each time you refresh forecasts. |
| Order Qty | The number of units to order. This is the core recommendation. It's calculated using the upper end of the confidence range to ensure you're covered even if demand is higher than average. It accounts for your current stock and lead time. |
| Order By | The date by which you should place the order with your supplier, so inventory arrives before you run out. Shows "Today", "Tomorrow", a calendar date, or how many days overdue if the date has passed (e.g., "3d overdue"). Watch items with no reorder need show "–". |
| Expected Demand | The 90% confidence range of expected unit sales over the reorder window (your lead time + 7-day safety buffer). Displayed as a range with a time suffix, e.g., 53–126 / 21d means "between 53 and 126 units over the next 21 days." The Order Qty is based on the upper end of this range minus your current stock. |
| Revenue Impact | The estimated dollar impact of not reordering. Two possible values:
|
| Level | What it means | When it triggers |
|---|---|---|
| Critical | You're past the reorder point. Your current stock will run out before new inventory can arrive, even if you order today. Every day you wait increases the stockout gap. | Days of stock left < supplier lead time |
| Order Soon | You still have time, but the window is closing. Place the order within the next few days to avoid a gap. If the Order By date passes by more than 3 days, this auto-escalates to Critical. | Days of stock left < lead time + 7-day buffer |
| Watching | You're well-stocked. No action needed right now. skubird is monitoring this product and will move it to a higher urgency when the time comes. | Days of stock left > 1.5× the reorder trigger |
Click any product name in the dashboard to open its detail page. Here you'll find:
A colored banner at the top shows the recommendation for this product: the quantity to order, the order-by date, and the estimated revenue impact.
Current stock, price, unit cost, vendor, and lead time. If you've set a product-specific lead time, it shows here instead of the default.
A summary of the last 90 days: total units sold, average daily sales rate, and the number of days of data available.
Set a product-specific lead time that overrides your default. Useful when different products come from different suppliers with different shipping speeds.
Access Settings from the navigation menu inside the app.
The default number of days between placing an order with your supplier and receiving the inventory. This applies to all products unless you override it on a product's detail page. Accepts values from 1 to 365 days.
Controls how conservative the reorder quantities are. The slider goes from 80% to 99%, defaulting to 90%.
The weekly email digest is the core deliverable. It arrives every Monday at 8:00 AM (or daily, if you've changed the frequency in Settings) and contains your ranked reorder recommendations.
Emails are sent at 8:00 AM in your store's timezone. skubird detects your timezone automatically from your Shopify store settings (e.g., "America/New_York", "Europe/London"). You can see which timezone is being used on the Settings page next to the frequency dropdown.
If you change your store timezone in Shopify admin, skubird will pick up the change on the next forecast refresh.
Each recommendation includes the product name, SKU, specific quantity, specific date, current stock, daily sales rate, confidence range, and dollar impact.
When items need reordering: skubird: 3 items need reordering this week
When everything is stocked: skubird: All stocked up — no action needed this week
skubird offers four plans. All paid plans include a 30-day free trial.
| Plan | Price | SKU Limit | Features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 25 SKUs | In-app recommendations, 90% confidence |
| Starter | $49/mo | 100 SKUs | Email digest (daily/weekly/monthly), 90% confidence |
| Growth | $99/mo | 500 SKUs | Everything in Starter + critical alerts, per-product lead times, adjustable confidence |
| Pro | $179/mo | 2,000 SKUs | Everything in Growth + priority email support |
Billing is handled entirely through Shopify — charges appear on your Shopify invoice, not as a separate subscription. You can upgrade or downgrade at any time from the Upgrade page inside the app.
It means 9 out of 10 times, actual demand will fall within the range shown. skubird uses the upper end of this range for reorder quantities, so you're covered even if sales run higher than average. This isn't a guess — it's a statistical guarantee backed by your actual sales data.
skubird projects demand over your supplier lead time plus a 7-day safety buffer, using the upper end of the 90% confidence range. It then subtracts your current stock to get the number of units you need to order. The result is a quantity that covers you against most demand scenarios without massively overstocking.
skubird needs at least 30 days of sales history to generate reliable forecasts. Products with less history will show this status. Keep selling — recommendations appear automatically once enough data accumulates.
Recommendations update when you click "Refresh Forecasts" on the dashboard, and automatically each day at 4:00 AM UTC. Your sales data syncs in real time via Shopify webhooks (new orders and inventory changes). Email digests are sent at 8:00 AM in your store's timezone.
skubird automatically classifies each product's demand pattern — smooth, intermittent, or lumpy — and picks the best forecasting method for each one. The confidence ranges adapt accordingly: products with spiky demand get wider ranges to keep you covered.
Yes. The default lead time in Settings applies to all products, but you can override it for any individual product on its detail page. This is useful when different suppliers have different shipping speeds.
skubird reads your products, order history, and inventory levels. It does not modify any of your store data, and it does not access customer personal information. See the Privacy Policy for full details.
Email [email protected] and we'll get back to you within 24 hours. Pro plan customers get priority support.