The Stocky Sunset: Our Free Migration Plan for Shopify Retailers
Shopify retailers are concerned about Stocky disappearing. That didn't sit well with us, so we built a solution and decided to give it away for free!
Retail ORBIT for Shopify is offering free migration of the historical purchase orders living in your Stocky account, plus advanced reporting to track it all. No more racing the deadline, and no risk of your data going dark.
Stocky is being discontinued on August 31, 2026. After that date, you lose the ability to create new purchase orders, access supplier records, and pull your historical PO data. For retailers who rely on Stocky to manage inventory and purchasing, that is a real problem.
WHAT THIS WEBINAR OFFERSEverything you need to protect your data before the deadline.
Free migration of your historical purchase orders out of Stocky, before they disappear forever.
Advanced PO reporting inside RetailORBIT® so you can track purchasing history going forward.
A clear, step-by-step transition plan so you're not scrambling in August.
Live Q&A : retailers brought questions and got answers specific to their store.
2 Simple Steps to get Started
That’s it! Our support team will be in touch to secure a migration date.
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The Stocky Sunset: Protecting Your Shopify Purchase Orders Before August 31 — Webinar Transcript
Dane Cohen: Welcome, welcome, welcome back to Indie Insights Live, and… This one is a very, very timely conversation that we're going to be having today. Let's do a little bit of housekeeping first, though. We, of course, we always get this question, we of course, will be sending out this recording, so you can rely on us to have this in your inbox the moment we are finished. And we have a Q&A, so please, we love interaction. This one's gonna be a heavily… interactive, webinar today, so please get in the chat, get in the Q&A section. Not only will we be answering questions, but we have our support team live answering questions as well. So we'd love for you to participate. I'm gonna introduce my guest in just one moment, but first, I'm gonna tell you the topic of today. You guys signed up, obviously, for the Stocky Sunset, so… We're going to be talking about this very pressing issue, what's the latest, what's happening, and what is Management One doing for our clients, and for for the rest of the retail community, right? Not just our clients specifically. So, we're bringing in two experts on the topic. We have Mike Baranov, who is overseeing all of our Shopify operations here at Management One. Mike, thank you for joining us.
Mike Baranov: Happy to be here. Excited to talk Stocky.
Dane Cohen: Stock, it's the… it's the…
Melanie Melton: You know more.
Dane Cohen: everyone's lips these days. And then we have… Melanie Melton. Melanie, is one of our retail experts here at Management One, and is now, overseeing our coaching and education, and Melanie works with a lot of, our Shopify clients. I did see somewhere, I just saw our first, write-in. Let me just make sure I address this. Susan says everything is echoing. Do you guys mind in the chat, is everyone hearing an echo? Just want to check in on that before I continue. I don't want to go through the whole thing if there's an echo happening, so just want to see if that's on Susan's end, or if everyone is hearing. No echo, no echo, all good. Okay, Susan. Get your computer fixed, go to the Geek Squad. Thank you guys, we appreciate you guys interacting. Okay, well, it seems that everyone's here, so that's, good to see. Alright, let's jump in. August 31st, the day that we have been talking about for quite some time, and yet, still, we are getting a ton of questions. Melanie and I were just at the Whizbang Retail Success Summit. It was a hot topic there. Again, we are continuing to get, questions about this, so Mike, why don't you set the stage for anyone out there who maybe doesn't know what's happening. And is attending this webinar. Set the stage for us. What's going on with the Stocky Sunset?
Mike Baranov: Yes, so just to start, I guess, at a super high level, Stocky is an app that Shopify themselves owns and is getting rid of, but it helps people manage their orders, their purchase orders, and their physical stock counts. And… Shopify has made the decision, they announced earlier this year, they're going to get rid of Stocky, and instead push everybody into their native purchase order module, built in within the Shopify admin. And that's, the last day to use Stocky is August 31st, and… going away is the, your access to Stocky and everything with it, so it's… it's important that people, get familiar with the new system and understand how to move their data over, and how to manage their POs and their stock counts, and that's what we're here to talk about today.
Dane Cohen: Alright, and can we just get in the chat? If everyone… who's using Stocky here, just so we can, do a little sound off of who's actually actively using Stocky now? So… Right, Melanie, this is the big… the big, you know, kind of conundrum, right?
Melanie Melton: Stocky's good.
Dane Cohen: You won't even be able to access it, right? They canceled any new downloads, so that's been for quite some times. Okay, we got Stocky, we got Stocky, we got Stocky. So we got a bunch of, Stocky users here. They canceled new downloads, but now it's actually… you're gonna have no access to it. Alright?
Melanie Melton: Yep.
Dane Cohen: Talk to me. I'm a retailer right now, I have all my open purchase orders in Stocky, that's what I've been using what the heck am I gonna do?
Melanie Melton: Yeah, so that's the biggest question I've been getting. You know, a lot of retailers book their orders pretty far out, so you guys have orders in Stocky through the end of the year, maybe now we're into Q1 of next year. So that's a big, big concern. And good news is, we have developed a solution to, transition all of your open POs in Stocky into Shopify for you. So, anything that you have open, through the end of the year and on August 31st, all of that disappears. Well, prior to that date, we are going to transition everything that's open over to Shopify for you, so you do not have to do any double entering of orders. So, very good news.
Dane Cohen: That is very good news. And listen, I do want to be.
Melanie Melton: direct.
Dane Cohen: As we're kind of talking through this, is, you know, we know that there's a lot of people talking about this, we've worked really hard to come up with solutions. So what we're hoping to really get across in this conversation is what we've developed, how we can help you execute on it, and the main priority here, right, whether You're a client, whether you're on our app. The main priority for us is retailers don't deserve to lose their data. Right? This is the lifeblood of what you do, your purchase orders, the information that you run your business off of. We do not want to see a single, you know, cell of that get deleted, and we also don't want you to have to do crazy double work. So, Mike, talk to us a little bit about, you know, you're a Management One client. Okay, great, we'll be supporting our Management One clients through that, but I'm not a Management One client, right? Maybe you're on this, call, maybe you're watching on our YouTube. I'm not a client. Am I… screwed?
Mike Baranov: No, no. We can still help you, too. So, yeah, anybody can download our Retail Orbit Shopify app. We have a process for helping people migrate their Stocky, purchase orders over into our system and into Shopify. So, We have a process that we'll get into a little later in the webinar with a link, so you can register for a spot so we can help you with that migration. Free of charge.
Dane Cohen: Okay, and I think Sarah may have just put that in the chat. Okay, so let me just… I just want to double check here. Yeah. Okay? If you're a, Management One client, you're gonna register for, migration, we're gonna get that checked off for you, but if you are… using Retail Orbit, the free Shopify app, we will also, if you opt in, be providing that service of transferring over your open purchase orders.
Mike Baranov: Correct. Into Shopify for you.
Dane Cohen: That's pretty powerful. And that is a free service that we're offering?
Mike Baranov: That is a free service that we're offering.
Dane Cohen: Okay. Melanie.
Melanie Melton: Yes.
Dane Cohen: I'm using Stocky to enter my purchase orders currently. should I be now, like, what's my go-forward gonna be, right? I'm gonna be entering in, you know, again, there's a lot of different solutions that I'm sure people are hearing about. What's your recommendation on how people should be entering their purchase orders moving forward?
Melanie Melton: Yep. So moving forward, you know, we still have a little bit of time until Stocky goes away, and we're gonna transition everything over for you for free prior to that date. So once you fill out that authorization form, and we get you set up for one of our batch dates to get that the transfer happening, you'll… you'll be advised into when you should begin putting orders into Shopify directly. For now, we're recommending you still keep putting POs. If you go out tomorrow and you buy a bunch of stuff for holiday, we recommend you put those POs in Stocky right now. Put those in just as usual, because it's all going to get transitioned over to Shopify seamlessly. So. It'll be just fine, you'll still have your orders. Once Stocky is sunset, and once we are now in Shopify POs, the PO process really doesn't look a whole lot different in terms of actually entering a purchase order. So that's another question I'm getting a lot is, you know, are we going to get some guidance or training on this? And yes, absolutely, we will put that material out there. But we've been doing a lot of training internally on it, and I can just tell you, the actual creating… the creating of a PO, there's not a whole lot of additional learning that's going to need to be done on your part in order to do that. It's still very similar in that you have… the SKU has to be created in Shopify first. you add it to the PO, you tell it how many units are coming, so the process of creating the order is very similar.
Dane Cohen: Okay, so the… just to recap that, if… if you are currently using Stocky, we're actually saying, don't stop right now. Continue entering your purchase orders into Stocky.
Melanie Melton: Yep.
Dane Cohen: Once we migrate your data over, we're gonna put the times in, we're gonna be having two migration rounds. once we migrate your data over, that is when we are encouraging to switch to the Shopify native Purchase order entry.
Melanie Melton: Yep, yeah, so after that point, when everything's moved over. We're… we're… you're done with Stocky. You're moving on… moving forward with Shopify.
Dane Cohen: Okay, and like you said, like, the entering purchase orders into Shopify is very similar to the experience entering purchase orders into Stocky.
Melanie Melton: It is, yeah. Okay.
Mike Baranov: And we're gonna have two batches of dates that people can sign up for, one in July, one in August, and we will work with you to get the data migrated over, and we will tell you, okay, as of this date. stop using Stocky and start using Shopify. That's the… there'll be a hard cutoff so people know when to… Stop using one and start using the other. Yep.
Dane Cohen: Okay, so… oh, Amy, I think we answered that. When will the new system be available to use? Do you have a date? So, do we have those migration dates? There's a July and an August date?
Mike Baranov: We have a July 6th date, and an August to be determined date.
Melanie Melton: First week in August, Sarah just put in the chat, so early, early in the month. So plenty of time ahead of the sunset.
Dane Cohen: Okay, so we'll have time to… that, that is fantastic. Alright, now… I want to talk a little more big picture here. Melanie, I'm gonna ask you to take this one, because I think this is something that you speak very beautifully to. Give me the… like, what is the… why do I need to have my purchase orders entered Ahead of time, right? We often think, like, you need purchase orders, right? You need to receive, we need to receive goods, but Management One does things a little bit differently, and if you're a client, you know we're encouraging always to put your purchase orders in from the time of purchase. how do you work with your clients? Like, what is the impetus of you moving your clients over to that thought process?
Melanie Melton: Yeah, I mean, it needs to be as seamless as possible. We don't want to lose, tracking time in what you've ordered. We need to know you need to know as a retailer how much you have booked to come, how much you have committed to spend each month from your vendors. It helps you plan your cash flow. For us, it helps us plan your inventory and your purchasing. And if we give you a buying budget and we don't have a clear picture on how much you've already purchased. Well, then, it's kind of hard to give you a remaining budget, After the fact. So, it's super, super important. It's also really important for your internal receiving processes and making sure that you hold vendors accountable, too. So, you know, we should have a ship date, a cancel date on every single PO you place with your vendors, and that allows you to hold them accountable and make sure that they're shipping to you on time, and you're not receiving goods you wanted in April, in June. So, yep.
Dane Cohen: We… we love our vendors, but we… I… in my day, I have seen vendors try to completely change an order from what I placed, and if you don't have that initial… record on file, they could ship you whatever they want, and whenever they want, and, you know, I'm not saying that anyone does this, but it happens. It happens, so we gotta… we gotta watch out. I have some questions coming in, but first, Mike, I want to ask you. there's a lot of people out there now saying, we're a Stocky replacement, we're gonna be the, you know, enter your purchase orders here, we're gonna do X, Y, and Z. Why are we recommending enter… using the native Shopify purchase order entry?
Mike Baranov: Yeah, there are a lot of solutions, there's a lot of solutions popping up, there's a lot of chaos in the space right now, because this all happened… you know, relatively quickly with the deprecation of Stocky, and not a… you know, fully baked replacement, as far as Shopify's concerned. Really, there's a lot of options out there, and… it's hard to know what's the right one to go with, and it's hard to know if they're gonna be there tomorrow. You know, we know Shopify's gonna be there, we know that… it's definitely safer to be working with Shopify. We know, through our partnership with Shopify, they've alluded to a more robust system coming soon. We don't know all the details yet on it, but, It's probably gonna be, you know, a little bit of a learning curve at the beginning, and a little… might feel like it's missing a couple features here and there, but stock… sorry, Shopify's own PO system is going to get better and better, and… It'll be hard to move around if you're working with other third parties that don't keep up with the changes, or… just… go away.
Dane Cohen: Yeah. That's a rea… Melanie, go ahead.
Melanie Melton: No, I was just gonna piggyback on that and just say, we realize no PO tracking system is perfect. And we also realize that there are gaps, but, you know, Shopify is always evolving and, bringing out new capabilities, and I'm confident that will happen here. I definitely agree. I would just tread lightly with third-party apps. It's just so hard to know what's gonna be there next month, or if they're gonna change their pricing or capabilities. Shopify's more controlled, it's, you know, built into their native point-of-sale system, and it's just more reliable.
Mike Baranov: Right, there's no extra cost if you… if you can get a, you know, if you can get away without it.
Dane Cohen: Yeah, and listen, we have seen, and not just in this specific instance, but other apps that are tied to Shopify, where people have a lot of data, a lot of money tied into these apps, and then Shopify decides. we're sunsetting it, we're done, we don't want to be partners with you anymore, and all of a sudden, you know, huge investment that retailers have made just kind of gets thrown into chaos, so… That's a… that's a great point of why using that native Shopify purchase order entry is going to be a long-term solution for… for a lot of people. I do see a lot of questions coming in, so I want to get to some of the questions. I know that Sarah and our support team are answering in the chat. And taking some of those on, so hopefully a lot of those get answered, but we'll turn to that in just a moment. I do want to take a second to say, Faves is one of our big partners, you know, in inventory management, and Faves does have a a purchase order entry feature to their programming, so we understand that people are using different inventory management apps. As of right now, Faves is our only official partner. So, you know, if Faves is something that you're using, I saw that Liz asked, can M1 clients still choose another inventory management app? And our, I think, position, and Mike, Melanie, tell me if you, disagree in any capacity, but right now, Faves is our only official partner, and we can't be… You know, we're not recommending any other third-party apps right now, is that correct?
Melanie Melton: Correct, yeah, the integration would be with Faves or Shopify's native PO system, like we're talking about today.
Mike Baranov: Okay, great. And if you're using a third-party PO system, if they're able to get your purchase order data into Shopify, then we can still read it.
Dane Cohen: Okay, so as long as it's being… the end… the end, like, the end place of storage is Shopify purchase orders.
Mike Baranov: Yes.
Dane Cohen: Okay, gotcha.
Melanie Melton: Yeah, there's a lot of apps out there that can help you manage incoming orders and restocks and things like that, and you can absolutely use third-party apps for whatever those extra needs are, but, you know, as long as the purchase order itself is in Shopify, we'll read it.
Dane Cohen: Okay, great. And I do wanna, you know, Nico just put here in the chat, and I think that this is important. You know, why… we have a lot of clients on here, they know why they can trust us, but why trust Management One? Why trust Retail Orbit? aren't we just another app out there? What makes our solution different?
Mike Baranov: I mean, our solution is just… a piggyback to combine with Shopify. We're not… A separate tool that's… that's there to… to be a standalone third-party app. We're there to kind of bridge the gap and fill in some of the pieces that are missing and be a good complement to Shopify. We've also been around 40 years, we've got tons of data, we've got tons of experience working with retailers and all the different systems and the ins and outs. We're not, We're not new to this, so… lots of experience here.
Dane Cohen: Mike, I think you're being a little humble, because I just do want to point out that we've spent a lot of time building a official relationship with Shopify.
Mike Baranov: Yes.
Dane Cohen: And I think that's very important as an official partner, so could you… what's the distinction there? Could you…
Mike Baranov: Yeah, I mean, Shopify came to Management One and asked us to be their partner for open-to-buy planning. So, we have a nice partnership with Shopify. We were able to, get in early on some of these changes that were coming, and… Be able to use that knowledge and that access to really build out this solution to get the POs out of Stocky and into Shopify. And so, you know, as things evolve and we're able to find out more information, we'll pass it on and build accordingly and You know, make sure everyone's up to date on what's coming.
Dane Cohen: Okay, great. So, I see a lot of questions coming in fast and furiously. we're going to be answering in the chat. I also want to try to hit a few, so that we don't get too behind, and we'll, of course, save time at the end. So we're gonna, scroll up a little bit. And we're just gonna see what everyone's saying. It seems that Sarah is answering a bunch of these.
Melanie Melton: Yeah, Sarah's pretty on it. Dale, I did see your question about, do you need to delete POs you've already put in the Shopify PO module? That kind of depends, and our support team can walk you through that, and can look at it, but basically, you would only need to delete if you have that same order also showing in Stocky. And therefore, when we migrate all of your Stocky orders over, that PO would be showing twice. The PO you entered into Shopify, and the PO that was in Stocky. So if there is a… if it's a duplicate. Yes, but if it's new POs you've put in Shopify that are not in Stocky, I wouldn't delete them right now. Okay, and…
Dane Cohen: And then…
Melanie Melton: Yep.
Dane Cohen: And then I have Reanne, who said, however. I don't currently use that feature. Okay, so I just want to make sure that, someone has responded to Reanne. Liz asked if M1 clients can choose another inventory management app. I think we spoke to that. Thank you for getting Dale's question. Okay, what would be the huge difference between Shopify POs and Faves?
Melanie Melton: So, here's how I explain it to my clients. It kind of depends on the type of buyer that you are. I have clients that use both. I have clients on Faves, I have clients that use Shopify. If you are a more visual buyer, I think that Faves is a really great option. Like, you can scroll through your deliveries and see photos, and kind of curate collections, and just really have a handle on… visually on what you've purchased at market. So it kind of just depends on your own preferences in terms of how you're… how you're buying. Faves is an app on your phone, you can go through and input your budgets. There's a lot of great, great pros and cons, so we definitely encourage you to explore both options and pick the one that fits your buying style and your PO tracking style the best. We can get the data we need from either one, so for us, it's more about making sure that you have a tool that works best for you.
Dane Cohen: And, like I said, Faves is an official partner of ours, so if that is something that you are using, would like to use, we recommend and love Faves with a very, we could recommend them with a very full throat.
Melanie Melton: And they will do a demo for you, too, and show you all their capabilities, and… so you can make a decision.
Dane Cohen: Yes, Ulla would be happy to do a demo with you.
Melanie Melton: Ulla is lovely.
Dane Cohen: Yes, very good friend of, as the kids say, a friend of the pod. Okay. We're concerned, Melanie, I think that you could address this one, we're concerned about not being able to perform stock takes. Yes. So, the next questions that we're going to get into is some of the functionality around what people were using for reporting from Stocky. what they'll be able to use moving forward. So let's first, you know, focus in on stock takes. Can you talk a little bit about what the solution is there?
Melanie Melton: Yeah, so that's a big, hot question right now, too. So, a lot of clients using Stocky, they performed their yearly, physical inventory counts using stock takes through Stocky. So that is going away. Shopify has a replacement. I believe Sarah popped the link in the chat. It's called Quick Count. So that is going to be your solution, and you should be able to scan all of your products. I believe there is a SKU count limit of about 1,000 SKUs per batch. It doesn't mean that if your store's bigger and you have more than 1,000 SKUs, you can't perform an inventory with Quick Count, it just means you have to start a new batch once you hit the 1,000 SKU limit. But yes, Quick Count is the replacement, for stock takes.
Mike Baranov: And that's a Shopify product that's built in.
Melanie Melton: up to a product.
Dane Cohen: And that's built into Shopify?
Mike Baranov: built in, it's not another third-party app, it's a Shopify product.
Melanie Melton: And you do have to be on, POS Pro, but I believe that that was the same thing with Stocky. So if you used Stocky before and you had access to Stocky, you should also have access to Quick Count.
Dane Cohen: Okay, fantastic. All right, okay, I think we answered some of those questions. Keep the questions coming. Either we will get to you in the live conversation, or Sarah, one of our support team, will answer as well. We know that there's a lot of information out there, so we want to be able to answer all your questions. Okay, let's move on to… Mike, maybe you can hit this for us first. There's… so, like stock takes, there's a lot of functionality that I'm getting from Stocky that sits outside of just purchase order entry, right? What's happening to all of that functionality? And I think for a lot of our customers, they're worried about the really rich reporting they were getting on their purchase orders from Stocky. Yes. What's happening there? Because I know, and we love our friends at Shopify, they are wonderful partners, but we do know that their purchase order reporting is not where it needs to be, and admittedly so, right? They are working to improve that, but am I going to lose all my functionality of reporting that I've been used to working with Stocky?
Mike Baranov: Yes, you're not, because we're building a purchase order dashboard for you that will be live by the time we migrate over the first batch of customers. And, we can show you a little snapshot of that right now. I do want to just comment in, on the chat in there. If people do have suggestions and feedback, we're happy to pass that on to Shopify. And they love that kind of feedback, so definitely… Send that our way anytime you have it, and we will be sure to pass it on to them. Okay, let's…
Dane Cohen: So, Mike, you're gonna be showing us right now some of the purchase order reporting and the functionality that you will get from Retail Orbit.
Mike Baranov: This is correct. This is a purchase order report dashboard that we are adding into our Retail Orbit Shopify app. And that will be free to use and included in the free app.
Dane Cohen: Yeah, let's get the link to our free Shopify app. Again, this is the… I just want to say something real quick, before, Mike, you go into this.
Mike Baranov: Yep.
Dane Cohen: what we are offering with this migration is a free service, right? And so. You know, listen, I don't want to be on here and thinking that we're just trying to sell you something. This is a free service that we're offering to retailers, you know, using our app, or if you want to download the app, it is free to download, and the migration that we are doing of your open purchase orders is free. And again, I just want to reiterate that this is because we do not want to see independent retailers have to lose precious purchase order information and the time that it took to enter all this in and have to rekey everything. So, this is a free service. Take advantage of it if this is the direction that you want to go in. Nico just put in the app, Right there, in the chat, so… please check it out. We'd love for you to just see the app. We've put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into… Mike will tell ya. Okay, Mike, let's see some purchase order reporting.
Mike Baranov: Alright. Can you see it?
Dane Cohen: We can see it.
Melanie Melton: I can see it.
Mike Baranov: Awesome. Okay, so this is, inside of our Retail Orbit Shopify app. We will have a new purchases section. And this is, where you can see all of your purchase order data that lives inside of Shopify. So, it's pulling it all in right from Shopify. You can see summaries, what's open at cost, and at retail. You can see how many POs you have open, you can see how many units, you can see… by product type, By supplier. You can filter by location. You can come in here, you can search for a product name or a PO number, you're gonna be able to look by, you know, tags on the POs, by product type, by… all different things. You're gonna have a, a date range window, you'll be able to look in the past, you'll be able to look in the future, and then here, you'll have all of your POs, with all the data. What's received, what cost is here. You'll be able to click on any row in the sheet. It'll open up in a little sidebar with the details of the PO, including the products that are on the PO. If you want to see details of the products, you just click into it, and you'll be able to see… all of the, you know, size, width, color, whatever your attributes are, variant IDs, SKUs, and you'll be able to see that holistically. So, giving you really a very detailed way to kind of slice and dice your POs and look at them that you just can't see in Shopify as it stands right now. So this should help bridge the gap, for what you had in Stocky in… What'll be missing when it goes away.
Dane Cohen: Okay, I'm not being fresh here, I promise.
Mike Baranov: Yep.
Dane Cohen: I knew we had purchase order reporting, I really did not know we were going to style level like this with… I mean, this is…
Melanie Melton: It's awesome. Yeah.
Mike Baranov: You have to be able to see the details on your own.
Melanie Melton: Yeah, and this was a huge… I mean, this is kind of what's missing, right? With Stocky going away, like, you've got your POs in Shopify, but there's no really good way to filter and group them, you know, to answer specific questions you have, and this… Solves that, and it's…
Mike Baranov: You'll be able to go in and say, just show me for a certain brand, or show me POs that have just a certain product type on them, and then you can export that as well into a CSV. So, if you need to manipulate it differently in Excel, you'll be able to do that.
Dane Cohen: Okay, and this purchase order reporting, though, this is only available to Management One clients?
Mike Baranov: No, this is available to anyone who's installed our… Retail Orbit Shopify app.
Melanie Melton: Free Shopify app.
Dane Cohen: Okay, this is another one, and I'm not being fresh, I really did not… this is available to everyone.
Mike Baranov: To everyone. Yeah, you just need to have your POs in Shopify after the cut, you know, after the switchover from Stocky, and you need to have the app installed.
Dane Cohen: Okay, let, let… I, I… I mean, listen, as the resident sales guy at the company, this is the easiest sale I'll ever make. So, that's really odd.
Mike Baranov: Yeah.
Dane Cohen: Okay, we have some questions coming. Are we going to… are we going to add… be able to add tags to purchase orders?
Mike Baranov: Yes, Shopify supports having tags in purchase orders.
Dane Cohen: Fantastic.
Melanie Melton: You can add tags, and you can also attach an item to a purchase order, so you can actually attach the PDF of the original order with the vendor to the PO in Shopify, if you ever need to click into it and reference it.
Dane Cohen: Okay, and that's in Shopify, the native Shopify. Gotcha.
Mike Baranov: Yeah.
Dane Cohen: Okay, you can see, everyone, that I am not the technical one on the team here, so this is a really good learning experience for me, so I hope that you can learn vicariously. Through me. Gord Peters has a question, but Gord, you could reach out to your Management One representative, and we'll get that answered for you. Gord, of course, is one of our, retail coaches. Okay, oh, and the answer, Gord asked, will there still be a way to capture sales at… compare at price by product type so that I can accurately capture my markdowns. This is one of the features that he uses on Stocky, and Gord, yes, we can do a capture sales price and compare at price, so that will help you, track your markdowns. Alright, Melanie, one of the things that we are hearing a lot. is there's some lingo that Shopify is changing up. So, back in my day, which I don't even want to I'm embarrassed to say how long ago it has been since I've been working on the store floor. A transfer was when I used to send something from store 2 to store 5. what is Shopify calling for? Like, give me some.
Melanie Melton: Yeah, this is a… this is a confusing one, and I was gonna bring it up, Mike, when you had your screen shared, because on our PO report, there's a column foods first. So yeah, super important for everyone to understand. Shopify is calling your incoming inventory from the vendor a transfer. So it's a transfer in to your inventory from the vendor. So instead of using the word receivings, which maybe one day will be adopted in this process, but right now, when you receive an purchase order, that is going to be found in the transfer section under your products. So, we are going to go in, we'll do a demo and a training on all of this, so everyone's up to speed, you know, at a later date. But, that is one thing to just know when you see transfers in this process, they are referring to the transfer of inventory into your Into your store. From the bench.
Mike Baranov: Shopify uses the term purchase order and the purchase order document as what you are sending to the vendor to place your order with. For the actual… changes to inventory, adding it to your inventory, receiving it into your inventory, it's being used as a transfer. So it's kind of a two-step process. You make the PO, you submit it to your vendor, and then you link it to a transfer, and that is where the inventory movements actually happen. So there's a little bit of a learning curve there. We're going to provide more documentation and tutorials on that, and especially As we move people off of Stocky as part of that transition. There'll be more education coming with that.
Melanie Melton: And then, Reanne, good question. I know, Sarah, you just, answered it, but I'll just say it out loud for everybody. You're gonna actually be receiving purchase orders in Shopify, not the Retail Orbit app. The Retail Orbit app is going to be a reporting feature for purchase orders, so, we do have a column labeled transfers where you can see what has been received and what hasn't.
Dane Cohen: It would be cr.
Mike Baranov: created… oh, sorry, I was gonna say the POs will be created and received in Shopify. You'll use the Retail Orbit app purchase order dashboard to look at all of the data that's in there.
Dane Cohen: Okay, so… and I think that this is really important, right? Because… you would assume, right, if you are entering your purchase orders into Shopify, that there would be reports within Shopify that you would be able to get all the information that you would need about your purchase orders that you entered. And again, I do want to, and this is why Shopify has such great partners out there, you know, us being one of them, that reporting will be available in Retail Orbit. So, you're not going to be able to report within Shopify. you enter the purchase orders there, and then Retail Orbit will help you actually track and see what's coming, and keep you know, tabs on everything so that you don't just put it in there, and then you don't have, you know, forced, sorry, you don't have a view into your business. That's what you're coming to Retail Orbit for. Now, Mike. We call it on-order reporting. So, if you're a Management One client, you are very familiar with on-order, but if you are not, I think this is another area where… let's talk about that terminology. Why are we calling it on-order reporting? What does this mean for a retail business?
Mike Baranov: Yeah, we're, I mean, we're calling it on-order reporting, in essence, because of the differentiation in terms with Shopify. Because, we're not actually reporting on the purchase orders, we're reporting on these transfers from the vendor. It's… it's really what's on order, so it's… it's, It's just getting used to this new terminology and the way they set it up.
Dane Cohen: Yeah, and listen, this is… and this kind of sits outside of this conversation a little bit, but, you know, just from my point of view, where I sit. without fail, one of the number one difficult conversations I have with a retailer is, what do you mean I have to put my purchase order in when I place the order?
Mike Baranov: Oh, yes.
Dane Cohen: I just… it lands on my doorstep, and then I put it in. And this is why we call it on order, right? Because we want to have that future vantage point of what's going to be happening in your business. If you do not know what is happening in your business. in… 1 month from now, three months from now, 6 months from now. then you're just flying by the seam of your pants, right? And we've all done it, right? We all have orders that have come in, and they hit your back door, and we just get it in quickly, and that's okay, but we need to have a picture on the majority, right, of what is coming in so that we can plan accordingly, and not just plan management one planning, but your cash flow, your payables. How you're gonna, you know. Essentially, pay your bills, because if you have cash going out, you have to know When it's going out, so that you can account for it. So, the on-order reporting means so much more than, again, and I always say this, it's not just about fancy reporting. This is about protecting your business, protecting your cash, and looking forward, instead of just constantly, again, flying by the seam of your pants. Okay, we got some questions. Sarah asked, does it matter which one of our Retail Orbit logins we use? I'm gonna let, one of the support team members answer that in the chat. Will the new Shopify PO app track and collect shipping information?
Melanie Melton: It does, and, once you receive, or once you, move the PO into transfers, again, this is kind of where the learning curve comes, that is the point when you have the ability to add shipping costs, to the order.
Dane Cohen: Okay, great. And Barry, I see Barry has some, more drill-down questions. Barry, we'd love to talk to you. Sarah, put James' contact information. James's is our Tier 3 support here at Management One. So Barry will set you up some time so that we can talk through, talk through some of those questions that you had. Okay. We have done a full 40 minutes of talking, about Stocky in Shopify, so I want to take a moment, I want to let questions continue to come in. Mike, was there anything else on our end that you wanted to. show. I would, if I could request, and I'm sorry to put you on the spot if you need a minute to regroup. I know we just redesigned the inventory health score. Can we get a little sneak peek? While we're here. While we're here.
Mike Baranov: Let me see what I can pull up real quick.
Dane Cohen: Okay.
Mike Baranov: I did… before I do that, I just… maybe you guys can talk about, while I'm pulling that up, just kind of, again, the timeline for everybody and the process to reserve a spot for the transition so everyone's on the same page of what needs to happen there.
Dane Cohen: Okay, so Melanie, let's… let's… we're gonna do the recap while… while Mike's gearing this up.
Melanie Melton: Alright. Yeah, it's, so we shared a link at the beginning, we will share it again at the end, so it is fresh in the chat. So… There it is. So first and foremost, we need you to click this link, this PO authorization link. In order to get us access to be able to migrate your purchase orders over from Stocky to Shopify. Anyone can click this link that is in this webinar right now. You do not have to be a Management One client. This is a free service. Highly encourage you to get get on board with this, because it's less work for you and your team come migration time. So…
Dane Cohen: Melanie, what are we migrating over? Again, I'm gonna take the…
Melanie Melton: Open… open purchase orders, in Stocky will be migrated over to Shopify's native PO system, so they will still show as on order, and all of your data will… will be there. So we're not going to lose any orders, incoming that you've… you've put into Stocky. So click that link first. Yep.
Dane Cohen: And then we'll click… yes, all the links are in there. Nico just did a great job of, kind of, link recap. …in succession, but Melanie. Before my migration date, we are not… We want to keep using Stocky until that migration date.
Melanie Melton: Prior to your migration date, keep putting orders in Stocky. Those orders will be migrated over. So… once you authorize us to do the migration for you, you will get a migration date assigned to you. We have two batches right now in the works, one in early July, one in early August, so they will both be done prior to the sunset. As soon as you get that date, that is essentially your cutoff. So, at that point, you are now putting all future orders into Shopify's PO system.
Dane Cohen: Okay, so then we're going to be… and Melanie, as our… by the way, congratulations on your new role here at Management One.
Melanie Melton: Thank you. Thank you.
Dane Cohen: And as the head of, education here, Melanie is going to be helping to educate along the way of how to best execute best practices on Shopify, so we know, oh, Mike, who's that? That's a man in the bottom.
Mike Baranov: Who is that handsome guy.
Dane Cohen: So, Melanie will be supporting our clients and our coaching community along the way to really make sure this transition into some of the, you know, little road bumps that may come up with a new purchase order reporting native to Shopify, but we will be there to support you every step of the way. So, Mike, thank you for indulging me here. I'm really pumped about this new Retail Orbit Health Score. Talk to me a little bit about this redesign.
Mike Baranov: Yeah, redesigned, little more intuitive of, of the, the way the… the score indicators laid out. You've got your 5… Key metrics that We aggregate together with, different weighting to give you an overall Retail Orbit health score. The, the ratings are based on benchmarks against peers in the same vertical, and you can drill into any of these to see, you know, why you're getting the score that you're getting, and You can, you know, see a little more detail in here on key actions and insights when, When you're on planning, and we're helping you plan your inventory, we can give you much more detailed insights, because we have all of your data mapped properly.
Dane Cohen: Yeah, and if I can just call something out here. Because I, I think this is really important. I think some of the… Mike, I think some of the benchmarks here might be, you know, kind of, keyed in data. I know I put you on the spot, but one of the most important things here to me about this Retail Orbit Health Score, and why it resonates so much, as a former retailer, is because When you look at your markdown percentage rate, right? And Mike, I think we could… Get back to us full screen, but when you're looking to… Your markdown percentage, when you're looking into your gross margin, when you're looking into your sales increases, right? You're often looking in a vacuum. Right? You're seeing your data. And so, what does it mean if I have an 18% markdown rate? What does it mean if I have a 15%? Is that good? Is that bad? And what we are providing is benchmark by vertical, right? Correct. So, if you're a footwear retailer, and your, discount rate is, you know, markdown rate is at 18%, and you think. well, last year I was at 19, this year I'm at 18, woo! I'm doing great, but the industry average is 15%. that is how we're designating your health score, and I think that is so important, because data in a vacuum can only go so far. And so, that's why I'm super pumped, and I love this, just from, like, a aesthetic perspective, it looks like your FICO score.
Mike Baranov: Right.
Dane Cohen: Right? It kind of has that, like, FICO score vibe.
Mike Baranov: Yeah. You could take it to the bank for a loan, you know?
Dane Cohen: Okay, Management One is asking me, where do these benchmarks come from?
Melanie Melton: And then answered the question.
Dane Cohen: Okay. That's very funny. Alright, so, I want to give time. I know we went through a lot of information here. Do we have any more questions? Of course, if you are a Management One client and you have questions, you could always put in a support ticket right in the retailorbit.com in your client portal. If you are… can you share a link for Faves? Yes, of course we can, and… Tell Ulla that Management One sent you. Fantastic. So if you're a Management One client, you could always put in a support ticket right in Retail Orbit. If you have not downloaded Retail Orbit yet for Shopify, we encourage you to do so, and you could reach out to us there. And Mike, the email is shopify at management-1.com.
Mike Baranov: That's correct. Shopify at management-1.com.
Dane Cohen: So email us, talk to us. We are… I mean, one of the things that I think really separates us is that we are real humans. We are real humans with a collective 40 years of… well, not… between all of us, we have probably, like, 10,000 years of retail experience with us old folks on this call, but, no, in terms of, management one's, you know, experience, we have 40 years in this industry, we have seen the rise of and fall of many point-of-sales. We've seen the rise and fall of many types of technologies. We know that this is a frustrating moment for a lot of businesses out there, but we are here to hold your hand through it, so I'm gonna put… oh, we got the email up in there. That is fantastic. I do want to make one more point, and, you know, Mike or Melanie, correct me if I'm wrong. If you are a Management One client, all of your historical closed purchase orders, we're obviously… I know I'm stating the obvious here, but… We still have that… data, right? We're still, you know, from a on-order perspective and historical… inventory receiving perspective, that data still lives within Management One.
Melanie Melton: Correct, yep. You see that in your… in Retail Orbit, in your plans.
Dane Cohen: Okay, great.
Mike Baranov: So, you know what we didn't talk about, Dane, was the… the history from Stocky, having the… all of your history saved for you. We're taking the open POs and migrating them into Shopify. But if you're an M1 planning customer, we will also be able to save your Stocky purchase order receiving. Forever, so that it can be used to help with your planning data.
Dane Cohen: Right. And so, I think that that's a… you know, we of course have been for… Decades, you know, tracking on orders, receiving your inflow. And so we've already been pulling that information into our system. So if you're a Management One client, that information has been flowing into the system, that doesn't change. You know, after you migrate, it will continue doing the same. We'll migrate your open orders. That historical information has still… has, of course, been pulled into our system already. This is really just a bright light in terms of, you know, all the frustration around this migration of open purchase orders. So, you kind of… Management One clients get the best of both worlds. You get the historical information, you get the… Open orders being transferred. if you're not a client, and you download the Retail Orbit app, I mean, I actually… could someone call Marc Weiss? Is he okay that he's offering all of this for free? Have we… has anyone checked on Marc Weiss? Make sure he's okay. Does he know?
Mike Baranov: It's fine, he's fine, it's fine.
Dane Cohen: He's fine.
Mike Baranov: Dane, I think we should also just reiterate that not only is it's… when we say Stocky goes away on August 31st. it's not that you can't use it to make new POs, you literally can't access it, period. It will be gone. You won't even be able to go in and see your existing POs that were entered before That date. So, it literally just goes away. So all of… that's why it's important to get everything moved out Before then.
Dane Cohen: Wait, so you're telling me I won't even be able to open it?
Mike Baranov: You won't even be able to open Stocky, it will literally disappear like it never existed.
Melanie Melton: It's already disappeared from the App Store, so…
Dane Cohen: So I think this highlights a little bit… I mean, listen, there is a sense of urgency around this. We're not trying to fearmonger here, but there.
Mike Baranov: No, no, I just want everyone to understand what's about to happen, you know, the reality of what's… What's gonna happen on August 31st?
Dane Cohen: Yes, okay. I think the questions, I think we're looking good on questions. We're gonna get wrapped up here. Of course, again. down… Nico, actually, could you put that step-by-step list that was so fantastic, of what you could kind of do in order to protect yourself? And I just want to say this while we're, while we're all here. I would just be really careful. Anyone out there that's saying they are a wholesale replacement for Stocky. Take that with a grain of salt, right? We are being very direct here about what we can do for your business. There are a lot of the functionalities from Stocky that we are making available to our clients. There's a lot of recommendations that we are making as a bridge, right? Of course. Putting your purchase orders in natively to Shopify is a new solution for you. Using Faves is a solution for you. Using Quick Count is a solution that's going to help you with your stock takes, right? And so, we are trying to give you not only the landscape, but the most cost-effective landscape. And not just pushing you to some random third-party app that we don't know about and haven't vetted. We have put the investment in to take the time to make sure that you, as a Shopify retailer, are getting the solution that you need. Right? We didn't just go to the quickest person next to us and say, what are you doing? You're some random app that we've never heard of? Great, let's put, you know, our trusted clients over to this you know, new app that we just found. We are… have taken the time, we have done our homework, we are a Shopify partner, and I hope that, you know. anybody transitioning or really sitting in maybe some panic and worry. We have your back, and we will hold your hand through this process. And if you are not a client. we're gonna hold your hand as well. So, Mike, Melanie, any final thoughts before we… sunset this conversation? That was good! That was good. That was good.
Melanie Melton: Good. I'll just say, I've been a retailer, so I understand the changes in systems can… can lead to some, fear and panic, and, you know, it can… it can cause some anxiety around what's gonna happen. I know, just now as a… as a coach and consultant, and working so closely with Shopify retailers for several years. I felt that for them when we saw that banner on top of the Stocky app saying it was gonna be sunset. From the moment we all were ringing alarm bells, on behalf of our clients. Management One was like, we got this. So there's, you know, it's been… they've been working really hard on it behind the scenes, and I know there have been a lot of unknowns up until this point, but I know just going through all of this stuff with Mike that… that he's worked really hard to develop, the PO reporting app. And the migration, it's just, like, it's really been a breath of fresh air, because now I really feel like we… we finally have that path forward and clarity on what the next steps are. So, yes, it's new, yes, it's different, but we are here to help, and any of us are always happy to meet, and chit-chat about the Shopify pain points, and we will be providing more information on what purchase order entry and receivings look like in the new system.
Dane Cohen: Alright, that's awesome. And we just want to say, hey, if you're on here, like, share this with your retailer friends, right? Again, this is something that we are doing for, the community. You have retailer friends out there, I'm sure you're talking about this, and people are worried. Please share this, right? This is, again, a free resource. We are constantly updating Retail Orbit based on your feedback. So, you are constantly gonna see improvements there, and again. someone go check on Marc Weiss, make sure that he is okay, because… or give him a pat on the back if you see him at market, because this is really awesome, and I'm proud of Management One for stepping up, to the plate here, and… We hope to see you guys on the other side of this, Stocky Sunset. Okay, that's my… that's my last sunset joke. Melanie, Mike, thank you so much. This recording will be sent out, and it will, of course, be on our YouTube channel, if you need to view it. But you got until August 31st. Book your migration appointment. Yes. Okay, guys, thank you so much.
Melanie Melton: Thank you, guys.
Mike Baranov: Thanks, everybody.