New product, no sales history: how the reorder report treats it
A new product has no sales velocity, so the reorder report stays quiet. What the row shows, why early sales read low, and how to set the first reorder.
The first purchase order for a new product is a guess. You pick a quantity from a hunch, a supplier minimum, or what the launch budget allows, and the units arrive. The second order is the one that is supposed to be easier, because now there are sales to go on. For the first few weeks after launch it is not easier, and a reorder report built on a trailing average is exactly the wrong tool for the job if you take it at face value.
This post walks through what Restock Ops shows for a product that has just started selling: an empty velocity, then a diluted one, then a usable one. It explains why the report says nothing until you give it a reorder point, why the early sales rate reads too low, and which of the controls on the row are the right ones to use while the product finds its level.
Week zero: a row with nothing to say
Add the new variant to the report through the Add products search and the row appears with its on-hand and incoming quantities from Shopify. The Sales/day column shows 0.00 with 0 sold, and the days of cover column shows a dash rather than a number. That dash is deliberate. Days of cover is position divided by velocity, and dividing by zero would give infinity, which the report declines to print as if it meant something.
The suggestion column is empty too. The report has two routes to a suggestion, and both are closed. The cover route needs a positive velocity to compute a target, and there is none. The reorder-point route needs a reorder point on the rule, and a freshly added rule has none. So the row sits there, enabled, with stock, saying nothing, and it will keep saying nothing until one of two things changes: the product sells, or you type a reorder point.
This is the correct behaviour, not a gap. A report that invented a suggestion for a product with no history would be guessing on your behalf, and its guess would be no better than yours. The what counts as a sale post covers which orders feed the velocity once there are any.
Weeks one to four: the diluted rate
Now the product sells. Say it launched on the 1st, and by the 6th it has sold 30 units: a genuine 6 a day. The report does not see 6 a day. It takes the units sold inside the velocity window, 30 days by default, and divides by the length of the window, not by the number of days the product has existed. 30 units over 30 days is 1.00 a day. The true rate is six times higher than the one on the screen.
The dilution shrinks every day the product is on sale, because the days it did not exist fall out of the numerator and denominator together only once they leave the window. On day 15 at the same rate, 90 units over 30 days reads 3.00 a day, half the truth. On day 30 the window and the product's life coincide and the number is honest for the first time. Until then every figure that depends on velocity inherits the error: days of cover reads too high, the cover target reads too low, and the suggestion, if there is one, is too small.
The stockout post describes the same arithmetic from the other side, where days with no stock drag the average down. A launch is a stockout that happened before the product was born, and the fixes are related.
| Days since launch | Units sold | Sales/day shown | True rate | Shown as a share of true |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 30 | 1.00 | 6.00 | 17% |
| 10 | 60 | 2.00 | 6.00 | 33% |
| 15 | 90 | 3.00 | 6.00 | 50% |
| 20 | 120 | 4.00 | 6.00 | 67% |
| 30 | 180 | 6.00 | 6.00 | 100% |
The reorder point is the right tool for a launch
Every row has a Reorder point field, and for a new product it is the control to reach for first. A reorder point is a quantity, not a rate: when on hand plus incoming falls to that number or below, the report flags the row and suggests topping back up. It needs no history at all, which is precisely the property a launch lacks.
With no velocity, the suggestion from a reorder point is small and literal. The report's target is the reorder point plus one, so a rule with a reorder point of 20 and 18 on hand suggests 3 units, rounded up to the supplier's case size or minimum if one is on file. That is a signal, not a quantity to order. Read it as the report saying this product has crossed the line you drew, and decide the quantity yourself from the first weeks of sales. Once a velocity exists the target becomes whichever is larger, the reorder point plus one or the velocity times lead time plus cover days, and the suggestion starts to carry real quantities.
Where to draw the line: roughly the units you expect to sell during the supplier's lead time, with a margin. If the first order was 100, the supplier takes three weeks, and you hope for 2 a day, a reorder point around 50 flags the row with time to reorder before it runs dry. Set it high rather than low for the first cycle. A false alarm costs a glance; a missed one costs the launch momentum. The per-item rules post explains how the reorder point and days of cover interact once both are in play.
Three things that help, and one that does not
- Shorten the velocity window while the product is young. Settings accepts any window from 7 to 365 days. A 14-day window on day 14 of a launch gives the true rate immediately instead of on day 30. The window is shop-wide, so this also shortens it for every established product, where a short window is noisier; the compromise is to shorten it for the launch month and lengthen it again.
- Trust the units sold figure before the rate. The Sales/day cell shows the raw count in brackets, like 1.00 (30 sold). During a launch the bracketed number is the honest one, and dividing it by the days since launch yourself gives the real rate in a second.
- Put the supplier on the rule early. Lead time comes from the supplier record, and the cover target multiplies velocity by lead time plus cover days. A rule without a supplier uses a lead time of zero and will under-order the moment a velocity exists. Pick the supplier when you add the row, not when the first suggestion appears.
- Do not pause the row. Unticking Enabled moves it to the bottom and takes it out of draft purchase orders, which is the treatment for a product you are winding down, as in the discontinued product post. A launch is the opposite situation. Leave it enabled so the reorder point can fire.
Stores without order access
If Shopify has not granted the app access to orders, the report shows a warning banner and the Sales/day column becomes a field you type into for each row. For a new product that is in some ways simpler: there is no diluted figure to misread, and the number you enter is whatever you believe the rate to be. Enter your launch estimate, and revise it from Shopify's own sales reports as the real figure emerges. The override stays until you change it, so a forgotten launch estimate will keep driving suggestions long after the product has settled.
Day 30 and after
Once the product has been selling for the full length of the window, the velocity is a trailing average like any other and the row behaves like the rest of the report. The reorder point you set for the launch can stay as a floor, or you can clear it and let days of cover do the work, which the per-item rules post weighs up. The one thing to watch is a launch spike. A product that sold heavily in its first fortnight on the back of an announcement, then settled, carries that spike in its 30-day average for the rest of the month, and the report will suggest ordering for the spike. That is the stockout problem in reverse, and the same remedy applies: look at the bracketed units, think about which fortnight they came from, and order for the rate you believe in.
FAQ
Why does the reorder report show no suggestion for my new product?
Because it has no sales velocity yet and the rule has no reorder point. The report suggests either from a positive velocity or from a reorder point you set, and a newly added product has neither. Type a reorder point on the row and the report will flag it when stock falls to that level.
Why is the sales rate for a product launched last week so low?
The velocity divides units sold by the full window, 30 days by default, not by the days since launch. A product that sold 30 units in its first five days shows 1.00 a day, not 6.00. The figure becomes accurate once the product has been on sale for the whole window, or sooner if you shorten the window in Settings.
What reorder point should I set for a new product?
Roughly the units you expect to sell during the supplier's lead time, with a margin, erring high for the first cycle. If you ordered 100, the supplier takes three weeks and you expect two a day, something near 50 gives you time to reorder before stock runs out. Lower it once real sales show the rate.
Should I change the velocity window for one product?
The window is a single shop-wide setting, so you cannot shorten it for one item. Shortening it during a launch month gives the new product an accurate rate sooner at the cost of noisier figures for established products, and many stores accept that trade for a few weeks and then set it back.
Try it on your store. Restock Ops adds purchase orders with partial receiving, supplier notes, cost history, barcode labels, scanner stocktakes and a reorder report on top of Shopify inventory. From $19/month, 14-day free trial.