Having 120 units on hand sounds reassuring until you compare stock with sales velocity and the date new units can actually be bought by customers. The useful question is how many days the available stock covers.
1. Pin down the warehouse and timestamp
Record the SKU, seller account, warehouse, fulfilment model and data refresh time. Distinguish physical stock, available stock, reservations, blocked units and confirmed inbound shipments. If “available” already excludes reservations, do not subtract them twice. Stock in another region is not available here until it has been moved and received.
2. Calculate days of cover
Illustrative example: 120 available units and 140 units sold over 14 comparable days. Velocity is 10 units a day, so cover is 12 days. Formula: days of cover = available units / average daily sales.
Out-of-stock days can understate demand. A one-off promotion can overstate normal demand. Compare several windows and record which one you selected and why.
3. Include the entire replenishment lead time
Count supplier preparation, dispatch, transport, receiving and put-away, all the way to customer availability. Suppose this is nine days, plus an illustrative four-day buffer. At 10 units a day, the review threshold becomes 10 × (9 + 4) = 130 units.
Available stock of 120 is below that threshold, even though the warehouse still has product. The four-day buffer is an example, not a universal standard; base it on demand variability and delivery reliability.
A review trigger is not an order quantity
The 130-unit threshold says the plan needs attention. It does not mean “order 130”. Quantity depends on confirmed inbound stock, target cover, minimum order size, cash and capacity. Even a confirmed shipment does not solve a shortage if it becomes sellable after stock reaches zero.
A working CSV can contain sku, warehouse, available, sold_14d, velocity, days_cover, lead_days, buffer_days, next_available_date, owner, next_review. This is an illustrative team template, not a claim about an exact ProfitVena export.
Turn the signal into a decision
If cover is shorter than the lead time plus buffer, review expediting, transferring stock or changing the advertising plan. Check the cost against SKU contribution first: urgent shipping can preserve orders while wiping out profit.
ProfitVena Product 360 places warehouse stock alongside sales and returns trends within connected sources. Signal quality depends on data freshness and account configuration. The calculation here is a human review method, not automatic purchasing or a guaranteed forecast.
Technical part updated in ProfitVena, part of the Wicsora ecosystem.
Related: when to reorder a SKU. A short Russian TenChat version is also available.
