Lightweight Stocky Alternative for 1-5 Store Retailers

Stocky was free. It came bundled with Shopify POS Pro, and for the majority of independent retailers — shops with one to five locations, a few hundred to a few thousand SKUs, and a small team — it did everything they needed. Purchase orders, receiving, replenishment suggestions, stocktakes, cost tracking. All included.

Now it is going away on August 31, 2026, and the replacement options can feel overwhelming. Search for “Stocky alternative” and you will find platforms starting at $110, $199, even $349+ per month. For a small retailer doing $20,000-$80,000 in monthly revenue, an extra $200-400/month in software costs is not a rounding error — it is a meaningful hit to the bottom line.

The good news: you almost certainly do not need those expensive tools. Here is how to think about what you actually need and how to find it.

The small retailer’s dilemma

The Stocky sunset puts small retailers in a uniquely frustrating position:

  • You had a free tool that worked. Stocky was not flashy, but it got the job done. For years, it quietly handled the operational plumbing that kept your store running.
  • The obvious replacements are built for bigger businesses. Cin7, Katana, inFlow, and similar platforms are designed for companies with warehouses, manufacturing lines, and multi-channel distribution. They solve problems you do not have.
  • Shopify does not have a built-in replacement. Shopify Admin handles basic inventory tracking (stock levels per location), but it has no purchase order, receiving, or replenishment features. The Stocky sunset leaves a genuine gap.

The result is that small retailers feel pressured to either overpay for an ERP they will use 20% of, or go without proper inventory management entirely. Neither option is acceptable.

What features small retailers actually need

Let us separate the essentials from the extras. If you have 1-5 locations and fewer than 5,000 SKUs, here is what matters.

Must-have features

Purchase orders — You need to create POs, send them to suppliers, and have a record of what you ordered. This is table stakes for any business that buys inventory from vendors.

Receiving — When inventory arrives, you need to record what showed up, in what quantities, and at what cost. Partial receiving (marking a PO as partially delivered) is essential because suppliers do not always ship complete orders.

Inventory sync with Shopify — Received inventory must update your Shopify stock levels automatically. Manual stock adjustments are error-prone and time-consuming, especially across multiple locations.

Cost tracking — You need to know what you paid for each item to calculate margins. This is especially important when supplier prices change between orders. Ideally, the cost updates flow to Shopify’s cost-per-item field during receiving.

Replenishment suggestions — Even a basic version of Stocky’s Fill Shelves workflow saves significant time. The tool should look at your sales velocity and tell you what to reorder and how much. You can live without this temporarily, but long-term you will want it.

Stocktakes — Physical inventory counts that reconcile against Shopify’s numbers. Shrinkage, miscounts, and receiving errors create discrepancies over time. Without periodic stocktakes, your inventory data slowly drifts from reality.

Nice-to-have features (but not worth paying double for)

  • Advanced demand forecasting with seasonal adjustments
  • Multi-warehouse bin/zone location tracking
  • Manufacturing or assembly (BOM) management
  • Built-in accounting or QuickBooks integration
  • Automated purchase order approval workflows
  • Multi-currency supplier management
  • Custom user roles with granular permissions

If you operate a single shop with one stockroom, you do not need warehouse bin management. If you do not manufacture products, BOM support is irrelevant. If your accountant handles financials in Xero or QuickBooks separately, you do not need accounting built into your inventory tool.

Every extra feature in an ERP adds to the price, the complexity, and the onboarding time. You are paying for capabilities that actively make the software harder to use without providing any value to your business.

Why “simple” does not mean “basic”

There is an important distinction to make here. When we say small retailers need a “lightweight” tool, we do not mean a dumbed-down one. The workflows themselves — POs, receiving, stocktakes, replenishment — are genuinely important and need to work correctly.

“Simple” means:

  • Fast onboarding — You should be able to connect the app to your Shopify store and create your first PO within 30 minutes, not 30 days.
  • Focused interface — Screens should show you what you need for the task at hand without burying it under tabs and menus designed for enterprise workflows.
  • Sensible defaults — The tool should work well out of the box. You should not need a consultant to configure it.
  • Reasonable pricing — The price should reflect the value delivered to a small retail business, not the cost of maintaining a platform designed for companies 10-100x your size.

A lightweight tool that handles POs, receiving, stocktakes, and replenishment well is not “basic.” It is exactly right for the job. Just as a chef’s knife is not “basic” compared to a 200-piece kitchen gadget set — it is the right tool, well-made, and used every day.

The checklist: evaluating inventory apps for small retail

Use this checklist when evaluating Stocky replacements. Score each app honestly:

Deal-breakers (must be yes)

  • Connects directly to Shopify via official API (not through Zapier or middleware)
  • Creates and manages purchase orders
  • Supports receiving with partial delivery tracking
  • Updates Shopify inventory on receive
  • Tracks cost per item and syncs to Shopify
  • Works with multiple Shopify locations
  • Has a monthly pricing option (no annual-only contracts)
  • Offers a free trial or demo

Strong advantages

  • Replenishment suggestions based on sales data
  • Stocktake/cycle count support
  • Barcode scanning (camera or hardware scanner)
  • Label printing integration
  • CSV/PDF export for purchase orders
  • Supplier management (contact details, lead times)

Red flags when evaluating apps

Watch out for these warning signs. They often indicate that the tool is not built for your scale:

“Contact us for pricing” — If a vendor will not publish their pricing, it usually means the price is high enough to cause sticker shock. Transparent pricing signals confidence that the product delivers value at its price point.

Required onboarding calls or setup fees — Enterprise tools often charge $500-$2,000+ for implementation and training. If you need a guided setup to use the software, the software is too complicated for a small retail operation.

Annual contract with no monthly option — Some vendors lock you into 12-month commitments. For a tool you have never used in production, this is a significant risk. Always start monthly, and switch to annual for a discount only after you have proven the tool works for your business.

“Coming soon” on core features — If PO receiving or inventory sync is listed as “coming soon,” the app is not ready to replace Stocky. Do not pay for promises.

Pricing that scales per order or per SKU — Usage-based pricing can be unpredictable. A flat monthly fee makes budgeting simple. If the price jumps 50% because you had a busy month, that is a problem.

No Shopify App Store listing — Apps listed on the Shopify App Store go through Shopify’s review process and are subject to their API and security guidelines. Tools that only connect via API keys outside the App Store have fewer guardrails.

For a detailed breakdown of how ERP pricing compares to purpose-built tools, see Why Merchants Say You Need a $350+/mo ERP to Replace Stocky.

The cost of doing nothing

Some merchants are tempted to skip replacing Stocky entirely and just manage inventory manually through Shopify Admin. This is viable in the very short term but risky beyond a few weeks.

Without a PO and receiving system, you will:

  • Lose track of what you ordered from which supplier and when
  • Manually adjust inventory one variant at a time (or risk errors with bulk CSV imports)
  • Have no record of receiving events, making supplier disputes harder to resolve
  • Stop tracking cost changes, causing your margin data to degrade
  • Lack replenishment suggestions, leading to reactive ordering based on gut instinct

For a store with 50 SKUs, this might be manageable. For 500+ SKUs across 2-3 locations, it is a recipe for stockouts, overstock, and cash flow problems. The hidden cost of manual inventory management — in labor hours, missed sales, and excess stock — almost always exceeds the cost of a proper tool.

For more on the Shopify native inventory features versus what Stocky provided, we have a dedicated comparison.

Stokka’s approach: focused features, fair pricing

Stokka is built specifically for independent retailers with 1-5 Shopify locations. We are not building an ERP. We are rebuilding the three core workflows that Stocky provided:

  1. Purchase orders and receiving — Create POs, receive against them (including partial receives), and sync inventory and costs to Shopify automatically.
  2. Stocktakes — Mobile-friendly physical counts with barcode scanning and reconciliation against Shopify’s numbers.
  3. Replenishment — Demand-driven reorder suggestions that convert into POs with one click.

No manufacturing modules. No accounting integration. No warehouse zone management. Just the tools a retail store needs, at a price point designed for small businesses — not enterprise budgets.

We are building Stokka now, with a beta launching ahead of the August 31 deadline. Join the waitlist for early access and early-bird pricing locked in for 12 months.