SKULabs gives you several powerful reporting and insights tools to help you stay ahead of inventory problems — from spotting slow-moving stock before it ties up capital, to forecasting when you'll run out of your best sellers. This guide walks you through how to use these tools together for a complete inventory planning workflow.

Before you start: The Insights page (stockout forecasting, sales velocity, COGS, profit) requires the SKULabs Growth plan. Basic mover ratings, last sold dates, and CSV exports are available on all plans.

Step 1: Check your A, B, C mover ratings

Mover ratings rank every item in your catalog by recent sales volume, helping you quickly identify which products need attention.

Go to Inventory > Items and click the Advanced tab.
Click Columns and check the Mover box to enable the column.
Sort by Mover rating to group your items:
- A movers — your top 20% by sales volume. Prioritize keeping these in stock.
- B movers — the next 60%. Monitor regularly.
- C movers — everything else, including every item with no sales. Review for potential discontinuation or reduced reorder quantities.

Tip: Filter by a specific store to see mover rankings for each sales channel separately.

Step 2: Identify items approaching stockout

Go to Inventory > Items and click the Advanced tab.
Click Columns and check the Stockout box to enable the column.
Click Filters and select the stores and date range you want to analyze.
Sort by the Stockout column to surface items running out soonest.
- Items showing "now" are already out of stock.
- Items showing "never" have no sales history for the selected filters.

Tip: The date range is the sales history used for the forecast, so pick a period that reflects normal demand (for example, the last 30 or 90 days). Then look for items whose Stockout date falls within your supplier lead time. If your supplier takes 14 days to deliver, items with a Stockout date within the next 14 days need a PO today.

Step 3: Review sales velocity for forecasting

Sales velocity tells you how quickly an item is selling and projects future demand.

Go to Inventory > Items > Menu > Sales Velocity.
Set your date range (e.g., last 30 or 90 days) and your Forecasted time (days) — typically your reorder cycle or lead time.
Click Columns and enable any additional columns you want, such as Mover.
Review these key columns:
- Velocity — average units sold per day.
- Projected — expected sales over your forecasted window.
- Days left — the number of days before selling out available inventory at the current velocity.
- Mover — A, B, or C ranking based on recent sales volume (must be enabled via Columns).
Export the results using the Export button to use in a spreadsheet for further planning.

Note: Velocity is the units sold in your date range divided by the number of days in that range. With Optimistic forecasting on, it divides by only the days the item actually sold. It doesn't account for seasonality, so treat projections as a guide rather than a guarantee. See Insights Feature Overview for every column.

Step 4: Analyze top sellers and revenue by channel

Go to Insights > Inventory to see a full financial breakdown of your catalog. Set your date range, warehouse, store, and tag filters as needed, then review these key metrics:

Goods on Hand — the total value of your current stock: on hand times each item's cost (wholesale, then retail, when no cost is set). Use this to understand how much capital is tied up in inventory. See how Goods on Hand is calculated.
Potential Sales — the estimated revenue you could generate if all current stock were sold at each item's retail price.
Potential Wholesale — the estimated revenue if all current stock were sold at each item's wholesale price.
Product Sales — the actual revenue generated from sales of each item over the selected date range.
COGS (Cost of Goods Sold) — the total cost of the inventory sold over the selected date range, based on average cost per unit.
Profit — the difference between Product Sales and COGS, showing how much you actually made after accounting for the cost of goods.

For a view of top sellers, go to Insights > Listings and review Top sellers by quantity and Top sellers by revenue filtered by date range and store.

Tip: Compare top sellers by revenue vs. by quantity — high-volume, low-margin items and low-volume, high-margin items often need very different inventory strategies.

Step 5: Set stock alert levels to stay proactive

Once you know your velocity and lead times, set stock alerts so SKULabs warns you before you run out.

Go to Inventory > Items and open an item.
Set the Stock Alert level to the quantity that triggers a reorder (e.g., if lead time is 14 days and you sell 5/day, set alert at 70).
You'll receive alerts when stock drops to or below this level.

Step 6: Schedule a low stock report for purchasing

Set up a scheduled low stock report to receive a regular email listing all items that have dropped to or below their alert level — ready to use as your purchase order input.

Go to Settings > Advanced > Schedule Automation.
Click Add to create a new automation rule.
Enter your email address, select Low Stock as the Action, then choose your preferred Frequency and Time.
Click Save. SKULabs will email you the low stock report on your chosen schedule.

Tip: Pair this with reorder rules to have SKULabs generate draft purchase orders automatically when stock hits your alert threshold.

Frequently asked questions

Why are all my items showing as C movers?

This usually means SKULabs doesn't have enough sales data to differentiate between items. A, B, and C rankings are relative, and any item with no sales in the date range is always a C. Here are the most common causes:

The date range is too narrow. Try extending it to 30, 60, or 90 days so there's enough sales history to rank items against each other.
Low overall order volume. If your account is new or you haven't imported much order history, there isn't enough data to separate A and B movers from C movers yet.
You're filtering by a low-activity store. A single channel with light sales will show mostly C movers. Try removing store filters to see your global rankings.
Orders aren't importing. Mover ratings count items on orders placed in the date range (cancelled orders excluded). If the Sold column shows zeros, check that your stores are connected and orders are importing into SKULabs.

Why does an item show "never" under Stockout?

An item shows "never" when there's no sales history for the stores and date range you have selected in your filters. Try widening your date range or removing store filters. If the item genuinely has no sales history, it will always show "never" until orders start coming in.

How accurate is the sales velocity forecast?

Sales velocity is a useful planning guide but not a precise prediction. By default it spreads the units sold over every day in your date range, including days the item was out of stock, so it can under-estimate demand for items that ran out. Optimistic forecasting counts only the days the item sold, which can over-estimate demand for slow sellers. Neither accounts for seasonality or promotional spikes, so use it directionally alongside your own knowledge of demand patterns.

Do I need the Growth plan to use these features?

The Insights page (sales velocity, stockout forecasting, COGS, profit, top sellers by revenue) requires the Growth plan. Basic mover ratings, the Last Sold column, stock alert levels, and CSV export reports are available on all plans. See Insights Feature Overview for a full breakdown of what's included.

How to use SKULabs reporting and insights for inventory planning