Most of the Inventory Score is about money: the cash sitting in stock you won’t sell soon, and the sales you lose while best-sellers are sold out. The score is made of four parts, and its breakdown shows each part with its own score and the figures from your store behind it.
Where you see it #
The score is on the Inventory card on the Dashboard, and under Store health on the To do page. Its breakdown is near the top of Products & insights, under See score & next steps (See next steps while the score shows a dash). When the score has a number, clicking the Dashboard card opens the breakdown for you.
The four parts #
In the parts below, your best-sellers are the products that sell fastest while they’re in stock.
- Dead Stock looks at the share of your stock value that’s tied up in stock you won’t sell soon. The more that’s tied up, the lower this part scores. Two kinds of stock count as tied up: all the stock of a product that hasn’t sold in a year or more (two years on a Luxury & High-Ticket store, or for a seasonal product), and the part of a product’s stock that goes far beyond what it sells.
- Stockout Risk looks at your best-sellers that are sold out right now. Each one counts by the sales it was bringing in, so a sold-out top seller weighs more than a slow one.
- Restock Readiness looks at your best-sellers that are still in stock but will run out before a restock can arrive. Tendlio judges each one against its supplier’s Lead time (days) on the Suppliers page. If a product has no supplier, or you haven’t given its supplier a lead time, Tendlio uses the Default lead time under Settings → General → Inventory. Like Stockout Risk, this part counts each product by its sales.
- In-Stock Availability is how many of your published products are in stock right now, across your whole catalog.
What counts as tied up #
Tendlio measures tied-up money product by product. For a product with variations it goes variation by variation, so a size that never sells shows up even when the product sells well overall. How much stock is too much depends on the Store vertical you picked under Settings → General.
Tendlio judges a seasonal product by what it sold in the better of its last two years, so the months between its seasons don’t count against it. Only its stock beyond one season’s worth counts as tied up. Tendlio also leaves new products out of the count for a while, and stock that has recently come back after selling out.
You can see the amount for each product, and the reason it counts, in the Tied up column on Products & insights (add it from Columns). On Manual outlet, Tied up lists those products with the biggest amounts first.
When one part holds the whole score down #
Dead stock and sold-out best-sellers can cost a store the most, so good results elsewhere can’t hide them. When the Dead Stock or Stockout Risk part scores far below the rest, that part holds the whole score down: until you deal with it, improving anything else won’t raise the score. Without this rule, a store with a large part of its money stuck in stock that doesn’t sell could still get a good grade, because everything else looked fine.
The breakdown then opens with a line that says which one it is, and links to where to start: the Tied up list, or your restock list.
Two lines that don’t count toward the score #
Under the four parts, the breakdown shows two more lines, with no score of their own:
- Catalog says how many products stopped selling and how many haven’t sold in 12 months, and each count opens that list on Products & insights. A product has stopped selling when it sold in the last year and has now gone longer without a sale than three of its sales usually take.
- Revenue spread says how much of your revenue comes from your top 5% of products that sell.
They stay out of the score because they count products, not money, and how many products go a year without a sale depends more on how wide your catalog is than on your stock. The money in products that don’t sell already counts, under Dead Stock.
When the score waits #
The score shows a dash while Tendlio can’t judge your stock fairly, and the note under the breakdown on Products & insights says why:
- Too few cost prices. Without costs there’s no stock value to measure. Add cost prices to your products, or set an Average gross margin % under Settings → General → Costs & profit, and Tendlio estimates the cost of each product that doesn’t have one. Then re-scan. Until then, your to-do list shows Fill in cost prices to see your Inventory Score.
- Too few stock quantities. Most of the score is the money in your stock, and without a quantity there’s nothing to count. On each product’s Inventory tab in WooCommerce, check Track stock quantity for this product (next to Stock management) and fill in the Quantity, then re-scan.
- Too few orders. On a store with too few orders in the last year, the score waits rather than guesses, because with so few orders a slow product looks the same as a quiet month. It fills in as orders come in, at the next analysis.
While the score waits, you can still open the breakdown on Products & insights, under See next steps, and see each part.
When some of your costs are estimates from your average margin, a note under the breakdown says how many of your products use one.
What to do about a low score #
- For Dead Stock, open Tied up on Manual outlet. The reason under each amount says why that product counts. If the reason is no sale in 12 or 24 months, or that some variations aren’t selling, discount what doesn’t sell. If it’s months of stock, more stock than it sells, or more than one season of stock, stop reordering the product until the stock sells down. Manual outlet can’t discount a product with variations, so set the sale price on its variations in WooCommerce.
- For Stockout Risk and Restock Readiness, open Restock under Inventory, and order what’s sold out or running low.
Your to-do list has cards for these problems too, with what’s at stake on each one.
Additional resources #
- Understanding your scores
- How to decide what to restock and how much to order
- How to discount products yourself with Manual outlet
- How to set up your suppliers and order from each one
- How to give Tendlio your product costs
- What to do with dead stock
Frequently asked questions #
Why is my Inventory Score low when most of my products sell? #
Dead Stock counts money, not products, so a few products with a lot of stock in them can pull it down while most of your products sell. If the breakdown opens with a line saying that dead stock or sold-out best-sellers are holding the score down, start there.
Why doesn't the score count how many products stopped selling? #
The score counts money: Dead Stock already holds the stock of products that haven't sold in a year or more, and the stock far beyond what a product sells. How many products went quiet depends more on how wide your catalog is, so the breakdown shows that count separately, under Catalog, with a link to the list.
Why does the score say it's on hold? #
The note under the breakdown says why. If most of your products don't track a stock quantity in WooCommerce, switch on Track stock quantity for this product, fill in the Quantity, then re-scan: most of the score is the money in your stock. If Tendlio couldn't read your sales during the analysis, the next analysis picks it up.